Cuisine
Natural flavour
Lleida's cuisine has its own character when we are talking about fruit, snails, grilled meat, sausages, "cassoles", stews...
The market garden and meats
The market garden provides vegetables for dishes whose main ingredients are meat from the farm and, above all, pork. It should be highlighted that the counties of Lleida are leaders in breeding and fattening this animal.
Wine and olive oil
Lleida's wine (DO Costers del Segre) and olive oil (DOP Les Garrigues) are top-quality products recognised at a world level.
Wild mushrooms
When talking about autumn cookery we must not forget the wild mushrooms from the counties of Lleida: saffron milk caps, blue spot knights, grey knights, field mushrooms...
Sweets and baking
"Cocas de recapte", "panadons" (big pies) of spinach, raisins and pine nuts...and "Granados" almond sweets, bearing the name of Lleida's famous musician.
Snail cookery
Lleida is the capital of snail cookery. Snails can be cooked "a la llauna" (on metal plates, eaten accompanied by allioli or vinaigrette), with "samfaina" (green pepper and tomato sauce), "a la brutesca" (on a stone tile with burning straw placed on top of them), "a la gormanta" (fried with flour, salt and pepper)... The Aplec del Caragol (Snail Jamboree) culinary festival is the greatest example of this native Lleida cookery.
Young chefs
The presence of the Lleida Catering College has encouraged the appearance of a new generation of innovative, enterprising chefs.