Courtesy of CIAprochef.com

Spain has been experiencing a tremendous creative explosion for the past couple of decades, and today, many of the world’s leading chefs and restaurants are from Spain. Every day it seems more and more cooks from America, and indeed from around the world, are looking to Spain's chefs, restaurants, dishes and ingredients for inspiration. They look not just to the cutting-edge cooking of vanguard chefs like Ferran Adrià, José Andrés and Dani Garcia, but also to traditional Spanish food. Just as many American chefs swoon over pintxos and tortilla de patata as they do over espumas and esfericaciones.

Through Worlds of Flavor: Spain at The Culinary Institute of America’s CIAprochef.com, students may explore the various regions of Spain via an interactive map of flavors and learn about pairing Spanish wines and foods, using Spanish olive oils, Serrano ham, Rueda (Spain’s leading white wine), Spanish cheeses, the skinny on tapas and more. And they can tap into a wealth of videos and recipes as tools with which to experiment with creating on-trend dishes with Spanish flair.

Photo: Gazpacho de Garbanzos from Gabriela Llamas of Alambique in Madrid, Spain. Courtesy of Foods From Spain.