18 restaurants have contributed their recipes to this book, published by Rewilding Spain and coordinated by the chefs of the local restaurant Las Horneras de Cobeta.
The forests of the Iberian Highlands (Alto Tajo, Serranía de Cuenca and Sierra de Albarracín regions) are home to a remarkable natural larder with outstanding gastronomic value that often goes unnoticed. Some of its products are already well known and highly regarded for their culinary uses, such as truffles, cardoons and porcini mushrooms. Others may come as a surprise when they appear among the ingredients of a recipe, such as Spanish lavender, hawthorn berries and goosefoot.
A total of 17 species of herbs, flowers, berries and fungi feature in the 34 recipes included in Forest Cuisine (‘La cocina del bosque’ in Spanish), a publication by the Rewilding Spain Foundation that highlights the gastronomic value, and the resulting economic potential, of the many wild products that abound in these forests.
The aims of Forest Cuisine are both educational and socio-economic. On the one hand, the book promotes knowledge and awareness of the natural heritage of the Iberian Highlands with regards to non-timber forest resources. On the other, it provides a platform to showcase the region, its chefs and its restaurants through products that represent a shared cultural identity.
In addition, Rewilding Spain will organise meetings with hospitality professionals and entrepreneurs to explore the economic potential of these wild ingredients. As Basilio Rodríguez, Socio-economic Development Officer for Rewilding Spain in the landscape, explains: “We want to create a value chain around these wild products, involving entrepreneurs who can harvest and distribute them, restaurants that can incorporate them into their menus, and customers who can enjoy tasting them.”
The content of the book has been coordinated by Álvaro Lucía, Sergio Belotti and Javier Hernández, the restaurateurs behind Las Horneras de Cobeta in Alto Tajo. Through this publication, they celebrate their connection with the land, the legacy of knowledge and hard work passed down through previous generations, and the pride of belonging to a region that, despite its challenges, also offers opportunities for those “who have chosen to stay, endure and flourish in a land that many describe as depopulated rural Spain, but which beats with an unstoppable strength”.
Each of the 17 chapters of Forest Cuisine includes an introduction to the featured ingredient and two recipes: one created by the authors and another by guest chefs. The book therefore brings together gastronomic creations by professionals from 17 additional restaurants located in the provinces of Guadalajara, Cuenca and Teruel, several of which have received prestigious culinary distinctions such as a Michelin Star or a Sol Repsol.
For food lovers, Forest Cuisine can be purchased from the following bookshops and points of sale:
- El Rincón Lento (Guadalajara).
- Librería Malo (Molina de Aragón, Guadalajara).
- Librería Toro Ibérico (Cuenca).
- Repro Cella Papelería (Cella, Teruel).
- Librería Escolar Teruel (Teruel).
- InspirAlbarracín (Albarracín, Teruel).
