WHAT WE ARE
Alícia, Ali-mentació i cièn-cia (Alice, Alimentation and Science), is a research centre devoted to technological innovation in cuisine, to the improvement of eating habits and to the evaluation of the food and gastronomic heritage. We are a centre with a social vocation, open to everyone to promote healthy eating.
Alícia is a private, non-profit foundation created in 2003. Its Board is formed by Generalitat de Catalunya and Catalunya - La Pedrera Foundation. With the complicity and collaboration of the best chefs and leading scientists. It enjoys the strategic leadership of the chef Ferran Adrià, the executive assessment of the cardiologist Valentí Fuster in health matters, contribution and support from leading chefs and the collaboration of leading scientists.
Catalunya - La Pedrera Foundation and Alícia Foundation both, collaborate and share areas: social impulse, culture, land and environment, knowledge and alimentation.
Alícia seeks to be:
- A leader in the field of applied research in gastronomy.
- An active agent that seeks to offer culinary responses to dietary problems derived from specific illnesses and disorders.
- A space for the creation of a social awareness of the importance of food as a cultural phenomenon and as a factor for education.
- A place where ideas on food and cuisine are generated.
- A stimulating and sensorial experience combining tradition and innovation.
- A project with a commitment to the territory.
WHAT WE DO
We carry out gastronomic and scientific research with the aim of generating knowledge in all of the technological aspects that form a part of cuisine, from the use of new techniques and products to the optimisation of traditional processes.
We work to improve the eating habits of society and to find culinary solutions to the specific food necessities caused by certain illnesses.
We collaborate with social, hospital, school and nursing home canteens to adjust their catering to the needs and diversities that arise in each of these groups.
We also study gastronomy from a historical point of view, interpreting recipes and using them as a tool to provide added value to our territory and cultural heritage. We believe that the study of history is a science, a knowledge of culinary processes that will lead us to understand society and the reasons for practices from any given period.
We bring knowledge to all kinds of people, both to professionals from the food and catering sector and to families and schools, through training and workshops in which we learn and experiment on cuisine, healthy habits, and the food heritage, in an entertaining way. And we convey our message through all kinds of media: traditional, audio-visual and electronic.
Likewise, we work our market gardens with the aim of disseminating and publicising our food heritage and also of studying and reviving crops. We study the gastronomic characteristics and qualities of the produce grown, its culinary value and how it should be applied, and we give advice to restaurants, hotel and catering schools and small producers on this produce. In short, we are committed to the land and to those who live on it.
Alícia is structured around three functional areas whose tasks are interrelated:
