Nearly 200,000 kilometers traveled, 2,800 localities visited and 3,000 recorded testimonies have been necessary for the preparation of the Popular Cookery of Castilla y León, the most ambitious study ever carried out on the gastronomic tradition of Castilla y León, presented at the Regional Congress of Gastronomy, Flavors 09.
The 11,780 recipes included in the report were the main protagonists of the meeting, which brought together the visible heads of the cuisine of Castilla y León, hospitality entrepreneurs, ‘young values’ of gastronomy and groups professionals.
The study was directed by José Luis Alonso Ponga, director of the Department of Studies of Tradition at the University of Valladolid, and coordinated by Benigno Garrido, head of Gastronomy of Sotur. In the opinion of these experts, the work “has to serve as the basis for future short-term approaches that allow the creation of trans-regional and trans-provincial gastronomic routes” , but it also has to “set the foundations “ to investigate and create transnational routes ” that promote the enrichment of our gastronomy with the union of other elements beyond the border “. “Cross-border gastronomic routes with Portugal can and should help the tourist development of the entire west of Castilla y León”.
The Recipe Book of the Popular Kitchen of Castilla y León is an inventory resulting from an ambitious research work that, among its contents and as the main element, “contains recipes that should be considered as basic elements, that is, work tools for kitchen professionals and all those interested in the cuisine of our region “, highlighted Benigno Garrido. Many of these recipes can be cooked as is, but others require interpretation, recreation, and often searching for ingredients.
The recipe book also breaks many topics by identifying certain dishes with our region that were not considered as such. Such is the example of gazpacho, distributed throughout our geography with 66 different recipes, almost all identified with the harvest. Among the contents, in addition to the recipe with its ingredients, there is information on the form of transmission, its link with the environment, the time it is cooked, when it is consumed and even curiosities, sayings and proverbs.
You can enjoy all these recipes from the cuisine of Castilla y León by opening the following document: Castile and León cookbook.