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10 Tips For Planning Your European Trip
Europe is the most popular destination for tourists. There are
several important things to keep in mind before calling your
travel agent and booking your next vacation:
1. Your Budget: Set your budget. This includes transportation
cost and...
Choosing the Best Times to Travel to Europe
Schedule Europe Trip for Best Seasons, Values
A journey to Europe is the holiday of a lifetime. Limitless sites and attractions are waiting throughout the continent. The prices and the weather are the major elements in deciding the prime...
European intrigue behind push for "Palestine"
If Israel concedes to a Palestinian state it would constitute "a hideous act of self-mutilation" (as Churchill referred to Great Britain's proposed surrender of India). Such an Amalekite entity on the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria...
From Now On, Europe Focuses On Dieting Pills
A state of emergency has been recently put on European Union agenda. In the next ten years, European countries will be "on diet". The EU countries have to manage an alarming situation: high rate of obesity and overweight. It seems that all...
Top 10 European Countries for Real Estate Property Investors
If you're looking to diversify, broaden or even begin your
property portfolio consider Europe for your next investment
destination.
Europe is host to such a broad range of countries all offering
diverse property opportunities - you have...
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Spain - Europe's new culinary hotbed
There are exciting times ahead for Spanish cuisine. An extremely
good crop of young, ground breaking chefs are placing Spain
firmly on the culinary map, even eclipsing their old neighbours
to the north in France. According to many Spain is taking over
where France started from in the seventies where they pioneered
the Noveau Cusine movement. That same effervescence that
sparkled in France twenty years ago is starting to bubble over
in Spain causing critics to look to the Iberian Peninsula to
lead the next great shift.
Spain's traditional culinary centre in the Basque country is
looking over its shoulder to see Barcelona hot on its heels and
fast emerging as Spain's other great gourmet capital. The Basque
region is still the place to go for food in Spain but its place
at the head of Spain's gastronomic table is under threat. The
man spear-heading this revolution? Ferran Adria. Adria is at the
head of the new wave; his much vaunted "El Bulli" restaurant in
Rosas on the Costa Brava is one of the hot places in the world
to try and get a table and is fast becoming a must on the
checklist of gourmand worldwide. It's not an easy business to
secure a table, "El Bulli" is only open for six months a year
(the other six Adria spends in his Barcelona based
kitchen/laboratory dreaming up fantastical new recipes) and sits
proudly in second spot in the worldwide restaurant list, 8,000
people dined there last year and over 300,000 tried to get a
table. Adria's now legendary thirty course meal is an assault on
the senses that challenges our perception of food and taste. New
pioneering techniques of cooking are pushing back the
boundaries. Adria's Basque contemporary, Juan Mari Arzak refers
to the Catalan as "the most imaginative chef in all of history".
That's high praise indeed from the man who was partly
responsible for starting this movement back in the seventies.
Arzak and fellow Basque chef Pedro
Lubijana, inspired by a 1976
conference in Madrid hosted by legendary French chef Paul
Bocuse, decided to stir up the kitchens of the Basque country.
They brought together a group of twelve local chefs and took
turns to invite local gourmets and food critics to sample their
menus free of charge. Before they realised it, other chefs were
asking to get involved and a movement was born. Arzak still
plies his trade today at his eponymous restaurant just outside
San Sebastian, also ranked in the top fifty restaurant list and
owner of three Michelin stars.
The future of Spanish cuisine looks in good hands as there are a
fine crop of young chefs emerging hot on the heels of Adria and
Arzak. Chefs such as Jordi Villa at the highly rated "Alkimia"
in Barcelona lead the vanguard; the 29 year old is famed for his
steak tartare with olive oil ice cream. Jordi Butron is making
waves in Barcelona, he runs the "Espai Sucre", a dessert school
and restaurant that is committed to creative cuisine. The Basque
country has a few protégés up its wily sleeve as well, Josean
Martínez Alija, is the precocious 26 year old manning the stoves
at the Guggenheim's restaurant in Bilbao with aplomb, and Andoni
Luis Aduriz, an introverted chef cum mad professor who famously
studied the molecular structure of liver so as to reinvent the
texture of foie gras. His restaurant in the hills outside San
Sebastian is making people take note in a region where culinary
excellence is a way of life.
About the author:
Mike McDougall has five years experience working as a
travel writer and marketeer. He is currently working to provide
additional content for Babylon-idiomas, a Spanish language school with an
excellent presence in Spain. This work is covered by a
creative commons license
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