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Future chefs from the Universitat d'Alacant tour Dénia to learn about its gastronomy

May 24 from 2022 - 09: 37

A group of students of the Degree in Gastronomy and Culinary Arts of the University of Alicante made a tour last Monday of three diverse and strategic points of the gastro-food value chain of Dénia and the Marina Alta. The visit is part of the training program of the subject "Immersion and Experimentation" taught by Professor Raúl Cornet Sánchez and has been organized by the Center for Mediterranean Gastronomy GASTERRA UA-Dénia, in collaboration with the Office of Innovation and Creativity of the Dénia Town Hall.

The main course was the tour of the Jesús Pobre wheat fields and the visit to the Farinera La Marina mill. The Navy's Blat initiative is an example of a circular economy around a recovered product. Long ago, wheat and muscatel vineyards were the essence of the agricultural landscape of the Marina Alta. Specifically, the Baix Montgó area was known as the "barn of the region". Gradually, the cultivation of cereals disappeared from the area, until a few years ago, farmers from the Associació Sociocultural Mercat del Riurau de Jesús Pobre decided to embark on an ecological project.

They began to recover native wheat seeds and plant them in abandoned terraces. Now, they grow half a dozen varieties: fartó, Rojal, Amorós Blanco, Amorós Colorado, Assolacambres and Xeixa. Between the end of August, September and October they prepare the land. They plant in October or November. Later, being rainfed, they wait for nature to do its part and provide the rain. At the end of June it is harvested. Farinera La Marina closes the circle, an artisanal mill where the different varieties of recovered wheat are packaged for the consumer. Restaurants in the area have also opted for this project. This is the case of the chef Pep Romany, from the Pont Sec restaurant in Dénia, who supplies himself with this flour for his famous cocas and makes a paella with wheat of the assolacambres variety.

To learn about the operation of a hotel establishment of a large chain, they visited the Hotel Dénia Marriott, where they learned about the facilities and the operation of its kitchens and the structure with which the events work were explained to them.

To round off the day, the students had the opportunity to experience live the arrival of the fishing fleet from Dénia to the port with their catches, see how the auction works and visit the Pòsit, a fish market that offers a wide variety of daily catches, among them the famous red prawn, the queen of shellfish, which here stars in an annual international creative cooking contest.

Dénia has been a Creative City of Gastronomy by UNESCO since 2015 and is home to the only restaurant with three Michelin stars in the Valencian Community, the Quique Dacosta Restaurant.

1 Comment
  1. Luis says:

    Paella and boiled shrimp. A huge variety of recipes...


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