Friday, March 29

The Alconchel Asparagus and Tagarnina Fair vindicates the role of women in gastronomy


The IX Asparagus and Tagarnina Fair is being held in Alconchel with an extensive program. Among the programmed activities, the II Gastronomic Contest of Hospitality Schools has been held and which will culminate with a Week of Taste in which technical conferences, field trips, show cooking, pairings, oenological tastings, a tapas route, gastronomic contests and the exhibition and sale of wild and artisan products.

The inauguration was carried out by the mayor of Alconchel, Óscar Díaz Hernández, the mayor of Olivenza and deputy for Tourism and Digital Transformation of the Badajoz Provincial Council, Manuel J. González Andrade, and the Government delegate in Extremadura, Yolanda García Seco, in an act conducted by Jaime Ruiz Peña, coach and president of Ruralidad.com.

Díaz stressed that this year the fair has as an important novelty the visibility of women in a sector such as gastronomy and hospitality. “Of 195 professionals with Michelin Stars in Spain, only 18 are women,” said the mayor, for whom the Alconchel gastronomic fair will be a catalyst “to promote and make visible the talent of women in cooking and oenology.”

The first alconchelero mayor also claimed this fair as “cross-border”, as it has the presence of institutions and companies from Portugal, and which seeks to value the native local products produced by the meadows around the great Alqueva lake, to ensure that there are companies that can market them and that can be identified in gourmet markets, in addition to linking it to the local tourism sector.

Óscar Díaz claimed the fair as “a benchmark” that has produced initiatives such as ‘Alconchelados’ ice creams or the ‘Alconchelfres’ carbonated drink, made from asparagus and tagarninas, which were cooked live on Thursday in innovative cooking workshops with students from the IES ‘Santiago Apóstol’ in Almendralejo and the IES ‘San José’ in Badajoz, promoted by Professor Maribel Marín González, a resident of Alconchel.

tourism sustainability

For his part, the provincial deputy Manuel J. González Andrade took advantage of his speech to congratulate the Alconchel City Council for the idea of ​​carrying out this fair, considering that the Provincial Council “supports seamlessly” events like this one that also aims to “combat unemployment and the depopulation that affects us so much”.

González Andrade also appreciated that this edition is dedicated to highlighting the talent of women in the culinary sector in a world in which great chefs have more impact, in addition to disseminating the importance of products and denominations of origin of the land .

At the same time, the deputy also pointed out that “people travel and move to eat”, for which he considered that the region of Olivenza has “enormous tourist potential” thanks to gastronomic events like this one. For this reason, González also recalled that the Government of Spain has recently approved the Tourism Sustainability Plan for the Region of Olivenza, which is endowed with 2.5 million euros plus VAT to be executed until 2024, and through which the value of the tourist resources of the eleven municipalities of the region.

Finally, Yolanda García Seco, delegate of the Government in Extremadura, intervened, who highlighted that “Alconchel can boast that it has a number of services and resources that will allow it to continue growing and offering to be a friendly town to live in, to stay and to visit”.

cooking workshops

Among the activities of the fair’s program are the different gastronomic workshops that have been held since Wednesday, in which there was a bakery and pastry workshop for the students of the ‘Virgen de la Luz’ Public School, taught by José Calaco Gudiño and the pastry chefs from his La Tahona bakery, and Manuel Ruiz Trigo, chef at the Hotel Best Osuna Feria Madrid 4 and technical advisor to the fair, who also gave another culinary workshop in the new kitchen of the locality’s Space for Training and Entrepreneurship.

On Thursday there was a day of gastronomic coexistence of the IES ‘Francisco Vera’ of Alconchel and the institutes ‘Santiago Apóstol’ of Almendralejo and ‘San José’ of Badajoz. There was also live cooking by chef Kiko Sayago Hidalgo, based on asparagus and tagarninas.

Yesterday, Friday, the II Contest of Gastronomy of the Hospitality Schools of Extremadura took place, in which students from the Formative Cycle of Cooking and Restoration of the IES ‘San Fernando’ of Badajoz, the IES ‘Valdemerel’ of Ribera del Fresno and the IES ‘Muñoz Torrero’ in Cabeza del Buey. The participants prepared their dishes live and the prize consisted of a month of training in the Badajoz restaurants ‘Lugares’, with chef Javier García, and ‘Dromo’, with chef Juanma Salgado.

There was also a master class with the chef Francisco Romero Domínguez, head chef of the Parador de Turismo de Cáceres, another on confectionery with the master confectioner Fernando Román, from the ‘Falces’ pastry shop in Villafranca de los Barros’, and a gastro- musical in which tagarninas pizzas made at La Tahona de Alconchel were presented and tasted, accompanied by the Extremaduran cava ‘Bonaval cava Extrem’, from Bodegas López Morenas de Fuente del Maestre, enlivened by the instrumental group Cantarte.

The recreational program included the Asparagus Route and the Tagarnina, with the participation of the local catering establishments: Kiosko Francis, Bar Pintos, Booth ‘La Bohemia’, Booth Paco, Bar ‘La Piscina’, Bar-Restaurant Poli and Hotel ‘The Inn of Miraflores’. And in the afternoon there was a children’s comic circus performance by ‘Las Cossas Nostra’, a show ‘Grumpy Pants’ by Kiki Vita, within the Badajoz Provincial Council’s Badecirco contest.

Program for Saturday

This Saturday the fair was dedicated to women under the slogan ‘Women and gastronomy, against the invisibility of talent’. In the morning there was a didactic field trip on asparagus and tagarnina, and in the Plaza de España the first live cooking workshop was given, with the process of preparing the popular tagarninada of the Peña Carnavalesca ‘La Tagarnina’ of the Villa de los Barrios (Campo de Gibraltar, Cádiz.

Throughout the morning, the wines from wineries that are members of the Association ‘Women Lovers of the Culture of Wine of Extremadura’ (MAVEX) and the opening of the ‘foodtruck’ stalls were shown.

At 12:30 p.m. an institutional act is planned that will include the participation of the Minister of Equality and International Cooperation of the Junta de Extremadura, Isabel Gil Rosiña.

At 12:45 p.m., a live cooking workshop with tastings took place, presented by Alba Baranda Mesa, a graduate in Audiovisual Communication and coordinator of the gastronomic supplement ‘HOY Ensalsa’ of the newspaper HOY. The activity was attended by cooks Marcela Álvarez, Lola Tercero, Marta García and Fátima Otero. The pairing was carried out by different wineries that are members of MAVEX, and with María Julia Marín Expósito, doctor in Oenology from the University of Extremadura and president of the Association of Oenologists of Extremadura.

At 2:15 p.m. there was another pastry workshop with tastings presented by Alba Baranda, with master pastry chef Regina Villamar, Venezuelan and daughter of Spaniards who reached the final of Masterchef Panama in 2019.

Afterwards, there was a tasting of popular tagarninada cooked by the Peña Carnavalesca ‘La Tagarnina’ from Villa de los Barrios, paired with ‘Alconchelero’ wine, from Victoriano Barahona’ distribution, and with the participation of the ‘Aire Flamenco’ Dance Academy from San Benito of the Contend (Olivenza).

At 5:00 pm there was a ‘Licor Fashion’ party, organized by the ‘El Bohemio’ pub, with music and a tasting of special beers, special coffees, mojitos and assorted cocktails.

At 6:00 p.m., the ‘Chef Junior’ contest was held in the central marquee, directed by chef Roberto Capone, Five Stars of Italian cuisine and presenter of the program on TVE’s La 2 ‘Las Rutas del Capone’, with pastry chef Justo Almendrote as a guest

At 7:00 pm there was a tasting of traditional sweets from Alconchel and the rest of the region, offered by the Alconchel Women’s Association ‘La Esperanza’.

The finishing touch to the day is the copla concert offered by the singer from Extremadura, Rosario Abelaira, with her show ‘Yo soy la copla’.

Sunday program

On Sunday, April 3, there will be a live cooking workshop at 9:00 a.m., with the preparation of the chickpea stew with asparagus and tagarninas by local chef Miguel Ángel Castellano Botello.

At 12.00 noon the dishes of the popular cooking contest will be presented and valued. And at 12:45 p.m. there will be a live cooking workshop presented by Roberto Capone, with the participation of chefs Fernando Gil, José Luis Entradas, Manuel Corbacho and Adrián Diaconu, with a pairing of ‘López Morenas’ wineries from Fuente del Maestre, and the explanations of the local oenologist María Julia Marín Expósito.

At 2:15 p.m. there will be another live pastry cooking workshop by Fernando Román, with a pairing of ‘Bonaval’ cava from Bodegas ‘López Morenas’. Tagarnina pancakes from Cádiz will also be cooked, by the Cádiz-born chef Nono Padilla.

The fair will end with a tasting of chickpea stew with asparagus and tagarninas with pitarra wine pairing from the traditional Alconchel wineries, and a performance by the rumba group ‘Kelay’ and the delivery of the fair’s prizes.


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