A Taste of Barcelona: The History of Catalan Cooking and Eating (Big City Food Biographies)

by Anna Riera (Author), Anna Riera (Author), H. Rosi Song (Author)

New
Illustrated
2019
$43.05

Widely associated with avant-garde gastronomy and lavish food markets, Barcelona has become a top destination for gourmands and chefs around the world, especially after the spectacular rise of chef Ferran Adria of the famed elBulli, soon to be reborn as elBulli1846. Barcelona is a city that attracts millions of visitors in search of art and culinary experiences while cookery apprentices from around the world arrive looking to perfect their skills and expand their gastronomic horizon. The city offers an unequaled combination of restaurants, chefs, restauranteurs, media and local government initiatives to help those who arrive seeking an extraordinary culinary experience. But how has the city established itself as a global culinary referent while becoming synonymous with cutting-edge cuisine? This book narrates Barcelona's urban and culinary development from the Middle Ages to the present, tracing the origins and the growth of the culinary prestige of this part of Catalonia. Barcelona has been a cosmopolitan center since the 1700s because of its location and busy port. The city has always been well supplied with food, and its residents built a strong culinary tradition enlivened by its contact with other cuisines and novel products afforded by its geographic location and the people who migrated to the area. With literature, painting, music and architecture, cooking has been a crucial activity in creating and maintaining a Catalan identity. Past, present and future visitors of the city will find a fascinating history of the unforgettable culinary importance of one of the most popular cities of Spain.

Synopsis

Widely associated with avant-garde gastronomy and lavish food markets, Barcelona has become a top destination for gourmands and chefs around the world, especially after the spectacular rise of chef Ferran Adria of the famed elBulli, soon to be reborn as elBulli1846. Barcelona is a city that attracts millions of visitors in search of art and culinary experiences while cookery apprentices from around the world arrive looking to perfect their skills and expand their gastronomic horizon. The city offers an unequaled combination of restaurants, chefs, restauranteurs, media and local government initiatives to help those who arrive seeking an extraordinary culinary experience. But how has the city established itself as a global culinary referent while becoming synonymous with cutting-edge cuisine? This book narrates Barcelona's urban and culinary development from the Middle Ages to the present, tracing the origins and the growth of the culinary prestige of this part of Catalonia. Barcelona has been a cosmopolitan center since the 1700s because of its location and busy port. The city has always been well supplied with food, and its residents built a strong culinary tradition enlivened by its contact with other cuisines and novel products afforded by its geographic location and the people who migrated to the area. With literature, painting, music and architecture, cooking has been a crucial activity in creating and maintaining a Catalan identity. Past, present and future visitors of the city will find a fascinating history of the unforgettable culinary importance of one of the most popular cities of Spain.

$43.05

Quantity

2 in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 256
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 24 Jul 2019
ISBN 10: 153810783X
ISBN 13: 9781538107836

Author Bio

H. Rosi Song is Associate Professor of Spanish at Bryn Mawr College. She has received her Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from Brown University. She is the author of Lost in Transition: Constructing Memory in Contemporary Spain (Liverpool UP, 2016) and the co-editor of Traces of Contamination: Unearthing Francoist Legacy in Contemporary Spanish Discourse (Bucknell UP, 2005) and Towards a Cultural Archive of la Movida: Back to the Fuure (Farleigh Dickinson UP, 2013). She has published widely on contemporary Spanish culture and literature and Iberian and Latin American detective fiction. She is the co-author of Catalanidad in the Kitchen: Nationalism and Food Culture in Modern and Contemporary Barcelona Guidebooks which will be included in the upcoming special issues on Food Cultural Studies and the Transhispanic World in the journal Bulletin of Spanish Studies (2017). Anna Riera teaches Food Studies at Abat Oliba University of Barcelona, where she started the first graduate program in Gastronomic and Oenological Communication in Spain. She also lectures on Food & Communication at the Universitat de Barcelona. Through her long trips through South America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand she has examined the close relationship between landscape and local food culture. She shares these experiences in her radio program Cuina'm in Onda Cero Catalunya. A frequent participant and speaker in gastronomy conferences throughout Spain, since 2004 she works in the direction and writing of the newspaper magazine Gourmets Month Review published by El Periodico de Catalunya.