Creativity in the gastronomic universe seems to know no limits, and its effervescence now materializes with the first edition of the Food Design Week, which arrives these days with a special program of activities to bring food design closer to the public. Until Saturday, October 30, and encompassed within the Barcelona Design Week'21 City Festival, the city becomes the meeting point for different agents working in this creative discipline. All of this is a commitment to the fusion between two interconnected worlds, that of food and design, based on products, services, or practices that give food new meanings and emotions.
Without neglecting nutritional value and placing increasing emphasis on sustainability, real food, quality, and health, food design encompasses a wide range of work areas where both the container and the content are subject to analysis and redefinition. From molecular cuisine to creations for food manipulation, including edible design works, among others, food design delves into the search for new values for experiences that revolve around the art of gastronomy. With the aim of exploring with all five senses, the Food Design Week will feature workshops, exhibitions, and talks for all types of audiences, whether family, professional, or people interested in the culinary world.
Galeria Il·lacions (La Rambla, 130), one of the key spaces during this Barcelona Design Week'21, has been the setting for Vom Edible Cloud, an augmented gastronomy and mixology experience where, with the collaboration of the creative platform Plat Institute, it has been explored to what extent the way we eat can be revolutionized. All of this starting from a technique to encapsulate flavors and aromas in edible flying clouds that could be analyzed on Thursday afternoon. "Creativity and innovation must be our flag, which is why it is very important to be able to develop disruptive innovation from outside private companies, without it being perceived as a danger to the main business of these companies. The idea is to transform our way of life and business model to make our land a territory for cultivating talent. And we do this with the compass pointing to the same north: generating regenerative futures," notes Ignacio de Juan-Creix from the Plat Institut platform, creator of the workshop.
The food design delves in search of new values for those experiences that revolve around the art of gastronomyTaking as a starting point the waste generated on a daily basis and with a focus on household pets, on Tuesday, October 26, at LEKA Poblenou (Carrer Badajoz, 65), the workshop will be put into practiceCircular pet snack, where attendees will learn to make snacks from edible waste reused as raw material for pet food.
La Muriel, between food design tapas, beers and creative workshops
Another of the great venues of Food Design Week is the bar La Muriel (Carrer de Verntallat, 30). In the heart of Barcelona's Gràcia neighborhood, the establishment hosts a series of workshops and experiences that delve into the relationship between design and food, from different points of view. Deepening responsible uses and new trends in a material like plastic is part of the essence of the Workshop to make bioplastic that will take place on Friday, October 29 at La Muriel, led by Elisava and Berta Daina's AGRO project, where biomaterials will be created while emphasizing their benefits as well as their multiple possibilities. The workshop also seeks to give value to recycling, as well as to understand food design as a key agent for change.
That same venue will become, for four days, the epicenter for food design tasting. From Wednesday, October 27 to Saturday, October 30, with the consumption of a beer, a tapa created by chef Xavi Morón from Hidden Factory Barcelona will be served free of charge. "I understand food design as a transversal confluence of disciplines and professions that, when combined, can generate transformative, enriching, and deliciously expressive experiences," says Xavi Morón himself.
Under the name The mindfulness mushroom, the creation is inspired by the Barcelona Design Week motto Think, design, act, and presents a brain shape made from vegan porcini mushroom pâté and lion's mane. "In a food design proposal, food can never be missing, food that tells a story, that nourishes not only our stomach nor solely our sight. Food is a powerful transmitter of messages, as well as a great social transformer. That's why we must respect it and look very carefully at what we have on the tip of our forks," adds Morón.
Without leaving La Muriel, on Wednesday, October 27, The Zero Waste Workshop will be held, a workshop organized in collaboration with Archicookture, where architecture and gastronomy merge to create culinary proposals with minimal waste. Alexa Trilla from Archicookture emphasizes the importance of knowing the origins of what we eat. "We must value all the hours, days, and even years that products take to be ready until they reach us. We must be aware of this and try to use all parts of the product to the maximum, trying to reduce waste. Buy seasonal products, give products and producers the value they deserve, and reduce unnecessary packaging as much as possible."
Becoming aware of climate and environmental problems and valuing the importance of using only the necessary materials and ingredients is the purpose of this workshop where Mediterranean cuisine and gastronomic rituals "where we can give value and enhance the small details that are part of the act of eating (space, light, decoration, materials, ingredients ...)", as Trilla herself points out, will give rise to a zero waste experience designed to be enjoyed with all five senses and to rediscover gastronomy from another point of view.
Human beings and their environment
Thursday 28 is the turn of the work Privilege of a false abundance, where through a conversation between the artist Nicole Vindel and Ane Guerra, the natural relationship of human beings with our environment is questioned, as well as the privilege of our living standards based on essential, but not infinite, resources, such as water. The event consists of the exhibition of the work and proposes an open dialogue with visitors about its background.
As a culmination to all this intense activity, La Muriel hosts on Saturday, October 30, Future Food Scenarios Workshop, a session designed to re-imagine, improve, and redefine the future of food design, creating new scenarios. The workshop, led by Creative Food Studio Bcn by Elsa Yranzo, invites reflection through different artistic projects and action, through speculative design, the discipline that seeks to make tangible possible future scenarios and alternatives to the present and where sustainable gastronomy seems to play a key role.
When considering which ingredients are key to achieving a good food design recipe, Yranzo herself recognizes as fundamental "having an open, curious attitude, having a holistic vision, a great perspective, listening, understanding the past very well, working as a team... without forgetting that the objective is to satisfy human needs and improve our relationship with food, whether to better connect with our bodies, tastes, health, environment, as well as with culture and the surroundings." As Yranzo herself points out, "just as society evolves, food, which is an everyday, essential, and basic good, must also evolve." And in this sense, the discipline that can be enjoyed this week at Food Design Week seeks to focus culinary creation towards other more sensory, experimental, and clearly sustainable points of view.