Customer Reviews

Cooking Spanish (Thunder Bay Cooking)

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Tapas restaurants and Spain's "nueva cocina" have given international recognition to Spanish food. This book focuses on traditional cooking in Spanish bars, restaurants and homes. An introduction and a useful index bookend four sections on tapas, costal cooking, inland cooking, and sweets. Although the book is credited to one author, John Newton, the style is informative but detached and impersonal; I thought it was written by committee at first. Although half of these 191 pages are taken up by images, the few pages that introduce each section or focus on an ingredient are interesting and prove the author's knowledge of the country and it's traditional food. I've found the seafood and tapas sections to be quite good; the Spanish "tortilla" recipe is more complete and precise than the ones I have learned from native cooks.

Recipes are either presented in two-page spreads with a full-color image on one page. The photography, unfortunately, succumbs to the silly out-of-focus style so popular with this sort of cookbook, but most dishes are shown finished on the plate or in a serving dish. On the other page, the title and a short introductory paragraph are followed by a list of ingredients on the left and several paragraphs of instructions of the right. At the bottom of the page you may find helpful photos of steps in the preparation, but sometimes just a pretty picture of an ingredient. If only the publisher had chosen a more legible font! The pretty, modern sans-serif letters are printed with a very thin line, which makes the 10 point font a bit hard on the eyes; even the large titles fail to jump out from the page.

Several pages in each section highlight a specific ingredient or technique; Jerez sherry or allioli dressing or rice or jamon, with a photo of the ingredient in the background of one or both pages (again, pretty but less legible than it should be). These pages, along the introductions to each section, are interesting if you like to read cookbooks with a view to the culture or cuisine as a whole, as I do, but they are not as extensive or personal as what you will find in a thicker book.

Mr. Newton manages to fit just over a hundred recipes into 191 pages by including three on a page, several times in each section. The title ("three ways with garlic" or "three ways with fish sauces) is followed by a paragraph on the use of an ingredient or technique, and then three recipes, each in a single paragraph, set apart by titles. The facing page shows one or two of those finished recipes. I find these dense paragraphs a little hard to follow, and it is hard to tell what you the final dish will become without reading it all the way through, but the recipes seem to be complete. About 45 of the recipes are found on these pages; they tend to be simpler than those given the full-page treatment.

If you prefer beautiful cookbooks and want an introduction to traditional Spanish cooking, this book would be a good choice.