EL MASROIG, Spain -- ''It's been a revelation. I think Americans know about Italian and Mexican food, but not Spanish food. I've never prepared food like this. Cod tripe, cuttlefish, molé sauce. But it's all very doable," said Marilyn Revesz of Chicago, sitting in the backyard of Catacurian, a Catalan cooking school in the Priorat region inland from Tarragona on the Mediterranean coast. ''It's very hands on. We come to the kitchen in the afternoon, we cook, the table is set, and we eat what we cooked."
Spain's kitchens welcome gastronomes
Catacurian is just one of the new Spanish culinary vacation destinations that have been gaining popularity among US travelers. Karen Herbst, owner of The International Kitchen, which has been offering cooking school vacations in Spain, Italy, and France since 1994, says her sales for Spain have risen 40 percent for 2006. These gastronomical getaways are attracting all kinds, Herbst said: parents with children, couples, and groups of professional women, either single or leaving the husband and kids back home.
At 5 p.m., Alicia Juanpere, Catacurian's chef and co-owner, calls out from the kitchen, ''Chicas!" A former dancer with a long black ponytail, Juanpere gathers onions, shallots, a glass flask of white truffles in cognac, a package of veal, jars of nuts for ''la picada" (a pre-meal or hors d'oeuvres), and a traditional thickener, and places them on the counter next to a pile of yellow rossinyol mushrooms. Six cutting boards, knives, and glasses of sparkling cava wine are set up for Revesz and the other member of the class, Juanpere's ''las chicas." They converge in the kitchen equipped with pens, Catacurian recipe books, reading glasses, and aprons, eager to start the evening's meal.
Juanpere explains the preparations for ''fricandó," a Catalan veal sauté with mushrooms. She lectures passionately about using only the freshest ingredients of the highest quality. The next night, the group prepares four types of paella. The women are kept on their toes with participatory demonstrations and impromptu quizzes. ''Chicas, what's the most important thing in paella?" Juanpere asks. After a few wrong guesses, the chef answers herself sternly, ''Red pepper." Abashed, one of the chicas mumble, ''Oh, she said that in the beginning, but that was pre-Porrón." Porrón is a Catalan wine traditionally poured into one's mouth from a tiny spouted carafe held high above the head.
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