Ruben’s food dream wins prestigious Malaspina Award

Eat Spanish, founded by local chef and former OC Life columnist Ruben Lopez Mesa, has won the prestigious Malaspina Award for the organisation’s efforts to create cultural bridges between Spain and Australia.

The Malaspina Award is an honour bestowed by the Embassy of Spain in Australia

and the Association of Spanish Researchers in Australia-Pacific (SRAP). Each year, the award is given to one individual and one organisation in recognition of the contribution they've made building relationships between the two countries in culture, science, research and/or technology.

“It’s incredible,” Ruben said. “We enter a very selective club full of international writers, scientists, universities, and now us as a trailblazer bringing gastronomical culture!”

Ruben has long had a dream to see Spanish cuisine and recipes become a staple in Australian homes, something he wrote passionately about as a food columnist for this publication. The not-for-profit Eat Spanish was founded in 2018 with the same goal: to promote Spanish gastronomy and showcase Spanish chefs and foods here in Australia. 

The Malaspina Award was given in recognition of  that work, particularly for Eat Spanish’s promotion of the diversity of Spanish gastronomy, culture, heritage and traditions of the different regions of Spain, while also fostering collaboration between chefs, local producers

and importers of Spanish products.

“One of the things I like the most is the reason they gave it to us, because we are promoting that diversity, which it seems that no one is doing around the world,” Ruben said.

“Many people tend to narrow Spanish food and culture as one scene, and as you know, we have 17 different regions. For whatever reason that has never been said in English by anyone anywhere else. So, yeah. I'm very, very happy that it happened like this.”

It has been a big year for both Ruben and the Eat Spanish organisation, which has been building a growing profile and awareness of Spanish food in Australia.

Earlier this year, Eat Spanish hosted a roundtable discussion about Spanish gastronomy at a major trade event in Sydney, and Ruben has made three guest appearances on SBS Food’s The Cook Up with Adam Liaw.

The popularity of Spanish cuisine is on the rise world wide, Ruben said, and he believes Spanish dishes will soon become midweek staples for many Australian families.

“We are living in a golden age,” he said.” Around the world, like in America [Spanish food] is going bonkers, in the UK it is going big as well, and now here in Australia. So yeah, definitely this is a golden age!”

The Malaspina Award will be presented at a ceremony at the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra on December 9.

This award is named after the sailor Alejandro Malaspina, who led a scientific

expedition under the Spanish flag between 1789 and 1794, carrying out studies of

natural history, cartography, ethnography, astronomy, hydrography and medicine in

Latin America, the Pacific and Australia.