Pan Dulce En Español – Cooking Class as Language Learning

Languages and cooking.  They’re totally related for me.  And I’m pretty sure I love them equally.  Just as a couple of spices and a few vegetables can reveal a flavor palate, so the subtleties of language reveal a cultures insides.  I’m pretty fluent in Italian, a legacy of majoring in it at University and reinforced by countless trips.  My Spanish was learned on the fly in the kitchen until I spoke my own unique form of Spitalian.  It was a tribute to the desire to communicate that everyone in the kitchen understood me.  But when you learn a language orally, not by reading and writing there are huge gaps in your knowledge.  In my brain Spanish words are spelled in Italian.  Finally seeing the words manzana (apple) or zanahoria (carrot) was a revelation.

So when I got the announcement of a Pan Dulce class taught in Spanish by Roxana Jullapat I was eager to enroll.  Roxana, formerly of Cook’s County, now teaching at Gourmandise School of Sweets and Savories and cooking for weekend brunch at ElysianLA is known for her homey style of pastry.  Seeing the announcement I realized that I always wanted to know what that “sand” is on the top of the conchas you see in panaderias all over town.  A cooking class in the language of the food!  How brilliant, really if you’re a food and linguistic nerd.  And what a fun and natural way to practice the language.  It turned out that all of us in the class were pros.  I was the only non baker. Proof and Cake Monkey were well represented.  And Roxana?  What a dream of a teacher.  She set the simple sweet breads in context, giving us a history lesson that traveled from Spain, Italy and France all the way to Peru.  And by the end of the class we had freshly made Pan Dulce in hand and Spanish on the brain.  And the next morning?  My colleagues at KCRW were really happy.  Thank you Darby Aldaco of Proof, my baking partner for the night for supplying photos!