Flavour, innovation, and tradition together with the University of Alicante.
The Carmencita Programme in Gastronomic Flavour Studies was established in 2017 as a joint initiative with the University of Alicante. The objective was clear: to promote knowledge of Mediterranean flavour and gastronomy.
Traditional ingredients. Flavours full of authenticity. Culinary knowledge. This is the key to ensuring that a valuable cuisine like ours continues more vibrantly than ever.
An inimitable gastronomy that has its starting point in those crops that grow under the Mediterranean sun. In those ingredients that arrive in our kitchens directly from the sea and from our lands.
A cuisine that has been simmering, generation after generation, shaping the culinary identity of a culture with the aroma and flavour of the Mediterranean Sea.
Mediterranean gastronomy nourishes its future with the wisdom of a rich culinary past.
From the Carmencita Programme in Gastronomic Flavour Studies, we research, disseminate, and educate in order to contribute to preserving our culinary heritage and promote healthy eating with a special emphasis on taste.
In our programme, teachers and professionals from the food sector develop a large number of research, dissemination, and training projects.
Focused on both flavours and nutrition.
Through travelling exhibitions and interdisciplinary gastronomic workshops related to Mediterranean food culture, the use of spices in cooking, and gastronomic health.
In educational centres, universities, and communities at the local level.
In the Carmencita Programme, we give the best final projects in gastronomy, nutrition, and nursing for degrees and masters with awards of €1000 and €2000, respectively.
The winners enjoy a training stay in the R&D&I Department of Carmencita.
In collaboration with Fundación Mediterráneo, this exhibition underscores the great value of Alicante’s culture and gastronomy and is based on the documentary archive of journalist Antonio González Pomata (1926-1996). We have digitised the archive in order to showcase the history, identity, and Mediterranean cuisine of our land through more than 13,000 graphical documents.
This exhibition has been awarded the National Emporia Silver Prize.
Our programme in flavour goes beyond the university campus, beyond the University of Alicante, to bring the gastronomic richness of our traditional cuisine to primary schools and high schools in the Valencian Community.
How? Through workshops that bring creative, dynamic, and sensory experiences to life. It is essential to bring the flavour, tradition, and gastronomic culture of our land closer to the latest generations.
Lamu is a fascinating historical and cultural town located in Kenya, and it is there that the Carmencita Programme, together with CEU Cardenal Herrera and the NGO One Day Yes, teaches healthy eating habits in order to combat the nutritional deficits of the population.
We also participate in European Heritage Days, an event supported by the Ministry of Culture, in which the Carmencita Programme aims to highlight the important role that spices play in health and natural medicine.
A conversational space led by María Tormo and Pep Bernabéu, where experts in gastronomy, nutrition, and history talk to us about cooking, tradition, and culture.
Available on Spotify, iVoox, and Apple Podcasts.
For a week, films selected by chefs and food critics are screened. At the end, colloquia are held in which professionals from the film, wine, and gastronomy sectors participate, with the aim of “savouring” this series with all the senses.
To pay tribute to the Mediterranean’s star product, these symposia bring together culinary professionals, as well as individuals involved in the production of and research on rice, to discuss the varieties, innovation, and sustainability of this crop.
It is recognising an unexpected flavour on your taste buds. Almost forgotten. A flavour that suddenly stirs you, wakes you up, and takes you back to your childhood.
The Carmencita Programme in Gastronomic Flavour Studies not only analyses and promotes Mediterranean gastronomy. It tastes it. It highlights it. It cares for it to the fullest. And it turns it into that passionate voice of those who love Mediterranean cuisine and wish to continue passing it on to new generations.
Day after day, the Carmencita Programme continues enthusiastically “cooking” the future of Mediterranean gastronomy so that it never loses the flavour of our traditions, of our roots.
