Flavors of a Lifetime

The project also highlights a fundamental aspect of Spanish gastronomy: cooking together and cooking as a celebration. Cooking as a community, going out to eat with friends, celebrating around a table … the experience of getting together and escaping the hustle and bustle of daily life for a while.

Some of Spain's best known regional and national dishes were the invention of professional associations. Fishermen popularized the Basque tuna stew known as marmitako, and the Valencian seafood noodle dish, fideuá, which is much like paella. These two recipes are among Spain's best-loved regional dishes.

Shepherds created some of Spain's humblest and simplest dishes, such as migas (literally, breadcrumbs), a dish made from stale bread that varies from region to region.

Today, the dishes cooked by shepherds while they were away from home are made on weekends in villages and at festivals, in homage to the memory of that simple life lived in harmony with the land—now superseded by today's urban lifestyle.

Religious communities were the first to document their culinary knowledge, publishing books on practical cookery. They were also among the first to travel to the New World, bringing back seed for food plants that they incorporated into their diets.

Several recipes that were later attributed to French haute cuisine, such as consommé or pheasant à la mode d'Alcantra, originated in these Spanish communities.

Today, some religious communities have become centers of excellence in their gastronomic specialties. Some have expanded their traditional range of cakes and pastries to include new products, as is the case with the Poor Clare nuns in Belorado (Burgos, in Castile and León), who have moved into chocolate making.

Interest in urban landscapes and awareness of food hegemony have grown in recent years, leading to a resurgence in garden plots and community gardens. These urban vegetable gardens can be found in public parks and schools, and even on the roof terraces of hotels and office blocks. 

At the same time, a new way of buying and selling fresh produce has developed. Thanks to new technologies, small producers have found a new distribution channel direct to consumers, who now demand seasonal, local produce.

Public institutions are also keen to help revive traditional crops that are adapted to the region's climate and soil. The Madrid Institute for Rural, Agrarian, and Food Research and Development (IMIDRA) grows traditional varieties of tomatoes, melons, beans, and garlic.