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A Barcelona restaurant looks to the past to create a more sustainable future By Matthew Cox

Beetroot gyozas, artichoke confit, and roasted pumpkins are among the many platillos, or small dishes, served at Rasoterra, a plant-based restaurant I visited while studying abroad last semester in Barcelona. The dishes, a unique combination of flavors from the earth, were unlike any other plant-based dish I had tried before. Before this year, I was admittedly not the most conscious or healthy eater - often avoiding plant-based dishes out of disinterest and ignorance. This changed for me after visiting Rasoterra, experiencing the joy of plant-based cuisine and learning about the Slow Food movement.

At Rasoterra, each dish resembles French Nouvelle cuisine, a style of cuisine grounded in simple, elegant presentation, carefully picked ingredients, and an emphasis on freshness. By working exclusively with local producers and using traditional Spanish cooking techniques, Rasoterra’s chefs create rich vegan meals that highlight the possibilities of Barcelona’s culinary tradition. Rasoterra is one of one hundred restaurants on Barcelona’s Slow Food Guide, an annual publication of the city’s most sustainable restaurants. The guide, published by the Barcelona chapter of Slow Food International, seeks to guide tourists and locals alike to the most sustainable restaurants in one of the world's top tourist destinations.

“When I arrived in Barcelona 23 years ago, the situation was not like it is today,” said Chiara Bombardi, President of Slow Food Barcelona and Co-owner of Rasoterra. “It was bad. Very bad. Everything that was traditional was lost.”

Bombardi is originally from Italy, where rich regional distinctions are found throughout the culture of food. “[In Italy] every region has got specificities, real wild herbs that are picked from a garden, [dishes] that are made with foraging, and people making food in old and spontaneous ways,” she said. This adherence to local food traditions creates a link between the consumer and the food — while at the same time creating more sustainable food systems in a highly globalized world.

A vegan herself, Bombardi wanted to create an exciting restaurant that pushed the boundaries on what plant-based cuisine can be. Anyone who has been to Barcelona knows: seafood and ham are omnipresent in the city’s restaurants. Rasoterra defies this by creating unique dishes that call back to Spanish tradition while excluding the meat.

Some of the many plant based dishes at Rasoterra (Courtesy of Mariano Martinez)

Rasoterra’s sustainable practices have been years in the making. When Bombardi first moved to Barcelona, she owned a different plant-based restaurant. Slow Food first connected with Bombardi there, noticing her clean practices. After closing that restaurant and taking some time to focus on Slow Food and family, Bombardi had a mission: create an even more sustainable restaurant. Through sourcing better quality ingredients, partnering with local farmers, and selling organic wine and soft drinks, Bombardi and her business partners have achieved this.

With produce sourced from two local farms, Rasoterra has established a beneficial relationship with their farmers. “We tell them what dishes we want to make each season and they grow it for us”, Bombardi said. This kind of intimate relationship between farmer and restaurant, Bombardi said, has been critical in creating delicious dishes while being environmentally conscious.

The food systems industry accounts for over one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations. A significant portion of those gas emissions come from packaging, transportation, and processing. Shockingly, meat accounts for almost 60% of greenhouse gas emissions from food production. These systems are one of the leading factors of climate change. Most consumers may not think about the environmental impact of their meals, but the reality can be striking. For an avocado to get to Europe, it will travel, on average, over nine thousand miles. From truck, to train, to ship, to car, the journey from farm to table can be complex and damaging — even if meat emissions are excluded.

One of Slow Food Barcelona’s main goals is to turn back to tradition and establish relationships between local farms and consumers. The answer to Barcelona’s sustainability problem? “Reconstructing everything,” Bombardi told me. From working with farmers to restore nutrient-poor soil to its natural PH, to creating awareness around the importance of localized food traditions, Slow Food Barcelona has worked for years to create more sustainable food systems in the city.

In an effort to create more localized food systems, not just for restaurants but also for average home cooks, “We rebuilt the relationship between local farmers and chefs, gastronomy representatives, and also just normal people who like to cook,” Bombardi said. A vital factor in establishing this relationship, Bombardi told me, is to create stories around local food. By promoting sustainability and encouraging chefs to create dishes based around local varieties of fruits and vegetables, Slow Food Barcelona works to restore a sense of tradition in the Barcelona culinary experience.

During the pandemic, the closure of restaurants drastically impacted the thriving restaurant scene in Barcelona. Yet, Slow Food noticed an uptick in sustainable cooking practices at home. “A lot more people started to buy organic and local stuff,” Bombardi said. Now, as restaurants begin to reopen, Slow Food Barcelona wants to ensure that these establishments, as well as homecooks, maintain a commitment to sustainability and local food traditions. This is not just a pandemic era fad for Slow Food — it is a lifestyle.

One way Slow Food Barcelona promotes locally grown food at home has been through their Mercat de la Terra, a weekly farmers market that sells and promotes seasonal fruits and vegetables. While studying abroad in Barcelona, my friends and I went to the market and tried calçots — a local variety of green onions that are roasted and dipped in romesco sauce. They were delicious. Slow Food Barcelona wants to protect and promote food like calçots, as they are a part of a wider tradition of Catalonian cooking history and are native to the region. Bombardi argues this preservation is key to their mission because it links a cultural identity to healthier practices.

In the United States, the past decade has seen a large increase in public awareness around healthier and more sustainable eating. From 2014 to 2017, a 500% increase was reported in the number of U.S. citizens who reported to be vegan. With over 73 active Slow Food chapters in the United States, a conscious effort to create equitable food systems throughout our cities is well underway, according to Slow Food USA’s 2021 Annual Report. In Washington, D.C, Slow Food volunteers at youth community gardens across the city to show communities the importance of locally grown produce. Last year in New York City, Slow Food harvested over one thousand pounds of fresh produce to donate to housing facilities and mutual aid organizations. While these efforts are a start, for the United States to lower the environmental impact of its food systems, much more broad efforts will need to be taken.

The rise of farmers markets in the United States signals a positive trend in the sustainable food movement. In 2018, The U.S. Department of Agriculture identified 8727 active farmers markets across the country. This is an over 400% increase from 1994. This uptick in farmers markets across the nation helps promote locally sourced produce, yet cities in the United States are a long way away from a city like Barcelona, where 43 public, fresh markets supply healthy food for 73 different neighborhoods all week long. These public markets are important to provide sustainable food to all, including low-income communities.

Cities in the United States may benefit from turning back to tradition through sourcing local, seasonal produce and connecting it to the region's culinary history and culture. If Barcelona is any indication, emphasizing local and fresh ingredients through creating relationships with farmers and communities can lead to a unique and vibrant food culture. If major cities across the country created more sustained and radical efforts to connect local producers with local restaurants and grocery stores, American cities could be on the forefront of sustainable food systems. In the present day, however, much remains to be done.

All photos courtesy of Mariano Martinez and Chiara Bombardi.