The Basque Table: Passionate Home Cooking from One of Europe's Great Regional Cuisines [Hardcover]

Teresa Barrenechea (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998

In Europe, the Basques are known for their creativity in the kitchen and their long-enduring culinary heritage. In the Spanish Basque country itself, food and eating are the center of everyday life and the focus of endless conversation. Basque women lovingly pass on their cooking techniques to daughters and granddaughters, and Basque men, who belong to traditional cooking clubs called txokos, themselves enjoy lingering over stove and table.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Few people have stayed in one place as long as the Basque people have stayed in Basque Country, which spreads from northern Spain across the Pyrenees into France and stretches out to the sea. Basque Country has remained intact from the time of cave paintings to today. The Basque language is a language unlike any other; even Basque DNA is different from any other European DNA. So it should come as no surprise that the food of Basque Country, while similar to what is found in other parts of Spain and France, is distinct as to its place and people of origin. Restaurant owner and chef Teresa Barrenechea invites one and all to come sit at the Basque table and learn while enjoying.

Though nueva cocina has invaded Basque cooking, Barrenechea has intentionally left it aside for another book. She cleaves to tradition in The Basque Table, to the pinchos (like tapas), first courses, and main courses that make up the traditional meal served in Basque homes. It is a deceptively simple cuisine, something of a tightrope act, that demands of any cook the ability to select the best possible ingredients. When, in a dish like Chuletitas de Cordero (grilled lamb chops), you are only working with the chops, olive oil, garlic, flat-leaf parsley, and salt, there's no place to hide. And yet, when everything is exemplary and the chops come off the grill at the perfect moment, the effect in the mouth and in the heart and soul of any diner will defy description. A tough kind of simple, in other words.

A fierce pride shows in Barrenechea's recipe descriptions and food notes. She holds herself to the highest cultural standard. What she aims for and achieves is a replication in print, with an American kitchen in mind, of exactly how a certain dish should taste to the Basque palate.

So take heart in dishes like sweetbreads with garlic and parsley, crayfish in hot sauce, mushrooms with scrambled eggs, white bean stew, roasted fresh ham, chicken Basque style, fresh cod with red and black sauces, grilled prawns, and trout Navarra-style. You may be cooking at home, but you'll be sitting and eating at a Basque table. And there's no other table quite like it. --Schuyler Ingle

From Publishers Weekly

A native of Bilboa, Spain, and chef-owner of two restaurants (both named Marichu in Manhattan and Bronxville, New York), Barrenechea deftly presents the robust cuisine of her homeland. The Basque region extends from north-central Spain to southwestern France, and has its own language, culture and gastronomic heritage. In the introduction, Barrenechea defines the tenets of Basque cooking?fresh, seasonal ingredients, fish and seafood-dominated dishes, simple cooking techniques (roasting, grilling, sauteing) and straightforward sauces?that yield its honest, lusty flavors. Chapters are organized in the traditional Basque dining sequence: pinchos, (finger foods, similar to Spanish tapas), first courses, main courses and desserts. Recipes focus primarily on authentic, home-style preparations like Larruskain Fish Soup, and Potato and Chorizo Stew Rioja-Style; there are such tried-and-true favorites from Marichu menus as Home-Style Roasted Potatoes, and crustless Custard Tart Bilboa-Style; and coastline-inspired dishes, e.g., Baby Eels in Sizzling Garlic, and an assertive, garlicky Red Snapper Guernica-Style. Clear, step-by-step instructions and workable substitutions enable even novices to navigate the recipes; sidebars provide pleasant armchair traveling. Easy, energetic prose and an intelligent ensemble of accessible recipes offer readers an insider's taste tour of Basque cuisine. Color photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 244 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558321403
• ISBN-13: 978-1558321403
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > European > Spanish
  • #42 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > International

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real thing: a professional Basque cook shows you how, January 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Basque Table: Passionate Home Cooking from One of Europe's Great Regional Cuisines (Hardcover)

Teresa Barrenechea's book allows you to revel in the sophistication of Basque cooking in your own home. Very aware that not everyone has the time to experiment with three course meals she also includes Basque tapas, or snacks. The recipes are simple to follow but remain authentically Basque - just as Teresa's food in her New York restaurant 'Marichu' is a must for any Basque or Spanish exile in New York longing for the tastes of home. Barrenechea is well known in Basque gourmet circles as the true ambassador of Basque cooking in the USA.

In Spain, Basque cooking is without doubt considered the cuisine with a more sophisticated heritage than any other, possibly because the Basques, more than any other people on the Iberian peninsula have long had a deep love affair with food! Many Basque cultural rituals center around food, such as the traditionally male-only cooking clubs.

Read Teresa's book if you want to taste one of Europe's best cuisines - and then come and visit us here!

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a treasure!, January 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Basque Table: Passionate Home Cooking from One of Europe's Great Regional Cuisines (Hardcover)

Teresa Barrenchea's BASQUE TABLE is not about the Basque cooking of the American West, or about chic restaurant food produced by a chef with Basque roots. Rather, this book is about the authentic home cooking of the Basques of Spain. Since I'm generally familiar with Mediterranean cooking, many of the recipes sounded familiar to me at first. But, the more I read of Barrenechea's warm prose, the more I came to see Spanish Basque cooking as a unique cuisine, from a very special place indeed. And every time I try one of the recipes on my husband and kids, they claim a new family favorite. This book is getting a lot of use in my house!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent overview of Basque culinary tradition, May 25, 2002

By 

Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Basque Table: Passionate Home Cooking from One of Europe's Great Regional Cuisines (Hardcover)

"The Basque Table" author Teresa Barrenechea asserts that the Basques are even more enamored of food and cooking than the French. There is a strong seafood tradition here, as well as a hearty embrace of meat. A recipe for roast suckling pig is given, not to mention recipes for oxtails, braised rabbit, venison, and sundry organ meats. I didn't happen to have a suckling pig handy, but the pinchos (like Spanish tapas) I made from these recipes were yummy.

Co-author Mary Goodbody is, as I understand it, adept at putting non-American cookbooks into American terms for ease of use. If that was her job here, she did it superbly. There's nothing the average (or even slightly less than average) American cook can't try in "The Basque Table."

As for complaints that the book shows too much Spanish influence, all I can say is get out your globe and take a look. The Basques live wedged between Spain and France so it's entirely natural that their cuisine would be heavily influenced by those two countries. The beauty of the Basque cuisine is that it plucks what it likes from Spanish and French cooking and makes it wholly Basque.