Catalan Cuisine: A Mediterranean Treasure

A semester course to learn about the best Catalan food recipes, global cuisine, creativity, innovation, and new techniques.

Code course 1124016

1. Context: History, cultural aspects, traditions, and taste physiology

This course provides a unique opportunity to learn and contextualize Catalan Cuisine through its history since Middle Ages to nowadays, from traditional to avant-garde cuisine, and its relationship with the culture and traditions of the region. This course pretends the understand how this traditional cuisine has been shaping the Catalan landscape through time, creating a great and wide selection of Catalan products. Included in this course content, is the understanding of taste physiology.

Code course 2124016

2. Knowledge of product: Local Key Ingredients

This course will introduce the student to key local products and their application in traditional and modern recipes. Knowing local products and understanding local agriculture, visiting local sources of each group of products, and experiencing the process of growing and preparing them, the student will be able to integrate this product into the following key techniques with extended knowledge of each product.

Code course 3124016

3. Technology: cooking styles

This course will introduce the student to the basic and traditional cooking styles of Catalan Cuisine, from traditional stews to ancient sauces and condiments, like the famous allioli, or the catalan sofregit, all of them original from Catalunya. The student will be learning about “vermouth time”; a very established Catalan tradition, a snack time before lunch, when people get together at the cemeteries or any restaurant to eat a small bite before lunch. The typical food that was eaten at that time, was tinned products (mussels in escabeche, sardines, cockles, clams), potato chips, olives, etc..paired of course with a glass of local vermouth.

Emphasis will be placed on sourcing, storage, cooking techniques, and other uses.

Code course 4124016

4. Creativity, Innovation, and new techniques

This course includes an exploration of the process of designing, creating, and plating a dish or even a new food concept idea, utilizing a prototype and testing projects, and introducing new product proposals. This course will give the student the capability of responding to future challenges of the culinary world.

The student will visit SOSA, the famous producer of new culinary products for modern cuisine, tasting and learning its uses.

The student will be involved in current innovative projects of the school, like the use of a 3D printer as a solution for dysphagia, a very common and demanding societal issue, as a way of giving back to the community project as well.

Code course 4124016

5. Cooking and Health: the 21st Century Challenge

This course develops an expanded understanding of the Mediterranean Diet as a way of eating, and living, and the importance of this diet in the prevention of health issues.

The student will learn the fundamentals of organic farming the plant-based diet and the Plant-forward trends.

The student will learn the zero-waste concept as a new and innovative way of managing a restaurant, proving the system allows you to manage a modern and gastronomic restaurant following the zero-waste rules.

Code course 6124016

6. #2BE#2LEAD Personal Growth

Code course 7124016

7. Spanish Language- 1 ECTS

Code course 8124016

8. Externship-Practicum- 2 ECTS

Methodology

Theoretical basis and practical hands-on learning experiences to solve professional and personal challenges, encouraging self-reflection and conversations about Catalan gastronomy.

To understand our cultural background, our learning tools and strategies will be focused on real life demands that involve the student’s contact with the people who are launching these requests (other students, external collaborators, companies, local producers, chefs, etc…). Using different techniques and methodologies, all participants will create elaborations, ranging from traditional to modern, to experience authentic Catalan everyday cuisine.

The program will follow many common and interdisciplinary experiences, such as lectures, show cooking, producer visits, workshops, problem-solving learning, and activities that involve adaptability to changes or promote content creation through collaborative learning and personal background.

Studying abroad outcome

1. Learning abroad has a different outcome than in your own country
2. Contextualization and a new perspective of everything the student had learned
3. Shapes professional skills
4. Brings personal growth
5. Provides skills for engaging with culturally different people
6. Exposure to a new language
7. Activates a sense of curiosity
8. New friends and networks
9. Dealing with out-of-comfort-zone situations
10. Exposure to future job opportunities