II INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF
RURAL GASTRONOMY

28-30 April 2024

THE POWER OF RURAL CUISINE

“We are not aware of the strength we have together. The ability to move things because together we feed a lot of people”. More than 50 rural cooks from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Colombia and Peru raised their voices in the II edition of Terrae in Gran Canaria to claim that “rural restaurants offer real development”. Together, they elected Luis Alberto Lera from Zamora as 'mayor' and signed the Gran Canaria Declaration in which they demanded greater support for small producers and expressed their willingness to contribute to the survival of the rural environment.

Lera, mayor of rural cooks

Luis Alberto Lera, chef of the restaurant Lera, in Castroverde de Campos, a village of 250 inhabitants in the steppe of Zamora, was elected mayor of the rural cooks in the framework of Terrae. It is an honorary position, but with a symbolic value that in his hands can serve to promote change. Lera obtained a large majority among his peers, which legitimizes him to speak on behalf of professionals with very different backgrounds and circumstances, but with common problems, as was evident throughout the forum. Defender of an autochthonous pantry that has become the hallmark of his cuisine, Lera demands changes in legislation so that chefs can make use of their own products and not be pushed into the networks of large-scale distribution.

NEWS

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Biodiversity treasure

Gran Canaria is a book full of stories whose pages run through centuries and millennia. And also a treasure of biodiversity with jewels that shine everywhere between the coast and the summit. Unesco has embraced these archaeological, ethnographic and natural values with the declaration of almost half of its territory as a Biosphere Reserve, in addition to a wide marine strip, and as World Heritage in the figure of the Cultural Landscape of Risco Caído and the Sacred Mountains of Gran Canaria.

Gran Canaria Manifest