This year, we're eating our way through the Formula 1 calendar.

Welcome to Grand Prix Gastronomy, the series where I cook my way through the national dishes of the Formula 1 calendar.

Welcome to Grand Prix Gastronomy, the series where I cook my way through the national dishes of the Formula 1 calendar.

This project is pretty simple. As a complement to each race weekend, I’ll be cooking the national dish of that race’s host country and sharing information about the process and that dish’s history along the way in an effort to grow more deeply immersed in the local culture from my own home. If that sounds good to you, well — let’s get started! 

Hi, How Are You?

I’m assuming that if you’re here, you probably know something about me — but if you’re new, let me introduce myself. I’m Elizabeth Blackstock, a Texas-based motorsport journalist, author, podcaster, feral cat hoarder, and food obsessive. I’ve made my career talking about cars, but food remains one of my biggest loves (I am absolutely demolishing some caprese pizza as I write this). 

never happier than with Way Too Much Food

So, this year, after wondering how I could combine the two, Grand Prix Gastronomy was born.

That’s right: I’m cooking my way through the F1 calendar one national (or regional) dish at a time, and I’ll be sharing this project with you in as many forms as I can possibly imagine.

I’m no chef, so please don’t expect me to be a master with a knife or to produce a perfect meal every time. Rather, I’m here to show you what it’s like to whip up a new dish as an Average Joe looking to try something new at home — which may mean substitutions, flubs, and things I simply don’t end up vibing with. I’m not going to get bogged down in minutiae because I want this to be accessible; if you want full authenticity, I’ll provide links each weekend.

Elizabeth Blackstock @eliz_blackstock

was unsure if I liked pork chops but covering it in french creamy mustard mushroom sauce made it a banger

Here’s How It Works

At the start of every race week, I’m going to share my cooking process. On Mondays, I’ll post a recipe to the dish I’m cooking. On Tuesday, you’ll see the finished product on Instagram. On Wednesday, I’ll share a quick video of the cooking process, plus a Substack newsletter that dives into things a little bit more: what it was like to cook this dish, a history of that dish and its significance in the region, and a little recap of the F1 season so far.

You’re more than welcome to cook along with me each week! My hope is that posting the recipes on Monday will enable anyone going that route to stock up on the necessary supplies and get ready for the weekend. I won’t be cooking these dishes during the weekend, in part to allow for you to do so — but mostly because I live in America and will absolutely not be eating a regional dinner during an 8am race.

(One quick note: I’ll be posting each recipe to coincide with each race week, but you might notice that some recipes are filmed out of order. For example, I might film the cooking process for Qatar’s dish in April; the recipe and photos will still coincide with Qatar’s race week, but I might cook something early. That’s both because I have a gnarly travel schedule and because some recipes call for similar ingredients.)

How I’ll Get My Recipes

No country in this world is culturally uniform, so when I first dreamed up this project, I was a little intimidated; if I cook enchiladas verdes for the Mexico City Grand Prix, for example, I know there will be plenty of folks from Mexico City who will know that the recipe I selected isn’t fully representative of the region.

To eliminate some of that, I’ve instead opted to cook the recognized regional dish of each country. Many countries have officially chosen a certain dish to represent its cuisine while others have allowed its citizens to vote. Whatever the case, each dish has been selected on that basis.

There are some caveats, though. For example, there are two races in Italy and three in the United States in 2023; I’m not going to cook the same exact dish for each race. Instead, in those instances, I’ve chosen a regional dish. Texas, for example, recognizes chili as its state dish, so that’s what I’ll be cooking for the U.S. Grand Prix. 

Other countries share a national dish; in those instances, I’ve selected a different dish. For example, Bahrain recognizes machboos as its national dish. However, many countries in the Arabian Peninsula recognize machboos (or a deeply similar dish by different names, like kabsa or majboos) as their national dish as well. To prevent repetition, I’ve opted for a non-national dish for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — but my hope is that each dish still reflects the local cuisine.

Finally, I’m making an effort to cook from local recipes — ones from food bloggers in that nation, from tourism websites, or from other recipes that pay close attention to the importance of regional distinctions. At the end of the day, I’m still a white gal from Texas, so I won’t promise the full authenticity you’d experience if a local cooked that dish; however, I’m aiming to help introduce other people to an aspect of the world’s cuisine they may not have thought to try before.

Why I’m Cooking Through Formula 1

There are a ton of reasons why I’m cooking my way through the F1 calendar.

1. I love cooking! I find it’s a great stress reliever, and I made an effort at the close of 2022 to get a little fancier in the kitchen.

2. I want to experiment. I wasn’t exactly rich growing up, so we had a pretty steady rotation of similar dishes on the menu at night. It was only after I went to college in Austin, TX that I realized there were so many kinds of foods out there that I’d never tasted, let alone tried to cook. Since then, I’ve been introducing new recipes to my repertoire.

3. I want to learn. I might be adding new recipes, but I’ll be honest: They’ve been tragically Western dishes. In the summer of 2022, I went through an Italian cuisine phase. That fall, I transitioned into French food. The winter brought hearty German meals and a ton of soups. I began to learn that there were certain regional ingredients and cooking techniques that created each dish I was making, which inspired me to start looking into the histories of those local cuisines based on things like the kind of crops that are able to grow in certain regions. It also helped me realize that there was a whole world out there I’d been neglecting in my pseudo-chef adventures — and I wanted to learn more about those cuisines.

4. I want to be respectful. As I’ve started traveling more thanks to my career, I’ve begun to realize how surface-level my enjoyment of motorsport has been. Yes, I know a race might be taking place in Hungary, but I don’t really know anything about the country: its culture, its foods, its history. There’s truly so much you can learn about a place from its food. Are there religious or political reasons this particular culture avoids certain meats? Was a particular dish always present in the area in some way, or was it introduced by colonizers — or the colonized? If, say, corn isn’t native, where did it come from — and why was that particular crop selected? Everything comes into play, from human politics to geography. By learning about a certain dish — researching its origins, understanding its regional quirks, and then cooking it — I hope I can use my love of motorsport to gain a deeper understanding of the world at large.

Elizabeth Blackstock @eliz_blackstock

I let this white chicken chili simmer for 12 hours so if it isn't the greatest thing I've ever eaten, I'll riot

Are You Ready?

If you’re interested in seeing the progression of Grand Prix Gastronomy, you’ll be able to do so in a few places. Instagram will feature most of the visual content, while Substack will be a little wordier. If you need a handy mid-week roundup, you’ll be able to find those on Twitter. 

Here are all the relevant links in one place, if you want to subscribe:

• Instagram

• Twitter

• Substack

All Grand Prix Gastronomy-related content will be free — but if you want to drop me a donation on PayPal, that’s always welcome.

Let’s get cooking!