Our group was very excited to head into our second full week of activities through our study abroad experience, as all of us looked forward to learning the ways to cook popular Spanish dishes. We started off the cooking class by preparing our vegetables and bread that would be paired with a popular paella dish. Our group was split into three teams consisting of about seven people each. These teams worked together to prepare the cheese and bread appetizers while assembling ingredients for the paella. Personally, I feel as though my team had the most chef experience and dominated the competition, but all is fair when just trying to have fun! What was most interesting about the paella was that it contained rabbit, which is not something we were familiar eating. While this was scary at first, being able to cook everything ourselves and see the final product made the whole dish that much better. Not to mention the cheese bread bake we created was addicting to eat.
Unashamedly, I would say this cooking class was a big reason I decided to pick this study abroad. I truly wanted to immerse in the Spanish culture, but almost anyone can be sold on the premise of learning to cook a foreign dish from a country you are visiting. Even though we never crowned a winner of the three teams, I know we all still had a great time and were happy with the way our dishes turned out. The food in Spain is incredible, the atmosphere is amazing, and to now say I can cook paella, well I’ll call the trip a win. I highly encourage anyone to travel to this amazing country. The monuments, farms and sight seeing is great, but the people, food, and culture is what makes it all the better! Spain is certainly a country I will be back to visit in the future, but until next time, I will just have to make my own paella.
