Local and global cuisine thought in the University of Barcelona.

When we think of Irish food there is no doubt, we put our walls up and say we are proud of our cuisine, and we have every right to be. When we think of food outside of our country most people think of France which you can’t deny. They have built a base for a huge level of late 90s early 2000s cuisine. The world will always be grateful for pomme puree and beurre blancs. But evidently things can change, and new cuisines will shine through.

I wanted to talk about this Local and Global cuisine class because it has opened my eyes to this new idea that there is more then French cuisine, truthfully the only restaurant I have worked in is classically French in its style of cooking which had left me a bit narrow minded. This new module does exactly what it needs to do, it throws something new in your face. I had no real knowledge in Spanish cuisine the only thing I knew from here to tell you the truth is paella. After a few practical and theory classes I have come to understand the importance of local food, because every country almost every city, town and village have something they consider local cuisine. For Catalonia they cook food I have often looked past. Respecting an animal is important here when you are going to eat it every part of the animal must be used, trotters, tripe, etc. This is something that was done in Ireland but not as much anymore, maybe it has something to do with culture, classes, or money. One thing you would see in common now is the concept of stews just like we have an Irish stew, Dublin Coddle and Sheppard’s pie Catalonia have Boles de picolat, and Escudella barrejada.

Another huge learning curve in this class is the students, you can learn just as much from a student as you can a lecturer. I have noticed a lot of the students here have Japanese cooking influence whether its ingredients or techniques this is another eye opener as Japanese would be considered one of the top cuisines in the world not far behind the Nordic influence. Japan claims the top spot as the nation with the highest number of restaurants per resident with one restaurant for every 61,000 residents. Overall, in this short post I just wanted to shed some light on the diversity in food and how there is unending amount of information to learn about cuisine, it is without a doubt a culture that will never die.

Thanks for reading, Ryan McGowan.