Customer Reviews

The Cuisines of Spain: Exploring Regional Home Cooking

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I have tried many of the recipes in this book and I still use it as my regular cookbook. Dishes like Dorada a la sal, Samfaina, Tarta de Santiago, Trucha a la Navarra etc, etc, etc...have just that taste from home (I am spanish). It is really easy to follow and fun to read, because every recipe starts with a comment about it, a story of the dish. It also gives you some places where you can buy those "not so easy to find" ingredients. It is also very helpful that she recomends different kind of fish for a given dish, so if you can not find a particular fish you can substitute for another one.
A GREAT find.....

I love to cook and am delighted with The Cuisines of Spain. The book is a beautiful blend of most practical and easy to follow recipes with unusual and out of the ordinary dishes that make me curious and eager to experiment. In addition, the comprehensive and thorough information on Spanish culture combined with a host of lovely photos make this newest of my cook books a real treasure. It even makes for a great present.

The Cuisines of Spain is one, if not the most brilliant cookbook about Spanish food. It's not only beautifully edited with great photographs but the recipes are very straight forward and explained in full detail. The author captures the essence of each dish and does an amazing job explaining the recipe in a most simple manner. All the recipes are great, easy and fun to make!

Let me start off by saying that I studied abroad in Spain on 2 occasions, my husband (who I met in Spain) is half-Spanish, and I have traveled to Spain a half dozen times. With that being said, I love Spanish food and I have tried it from several regions. I saw this cookbook in a local market and copied a recipe out of it. I cooked the recipe and it was amazing...it was exactly like the food I had in Spain...I couldn't believe it. Immediately after eating, I ordered the book on Amazon. I've tried many more recipes from the book and they have all been amazing. The paella is fabulous and very easy. I love this book!!!

I am so happy to finally have found a Spanish cookbook that covers all my favorite dishes. The recipies are well written and many are very simple, and everything I've made so far has turned out great. Also, the photographs are lovely!

`The Cuisines of Spain, Exploring Regional Home Cooking' is by Teresa Barrenechea is, unlike the other prominent writers on Spanish cuisine, Penelope Casas and Coleman Andrews, a professional chef. This means here recipes tend to be just a bit more practical and interesting to eat, especially compared to Andrews, but it does not mean she will be better at putting together a really interesting book on all the regional cuisines of Spain.

Until one gets to the chapters on actual recipes, it seems as if Mme. Barrenechea has everything you need for a good survey book on a national cuisine. For starters, there is a very decent physical and political map of the Iberian Peninsula, including the Balearic Islands and an insert on the Canary Islands. She follows up on this promise by including a discussion of the culinary geography of these two important island groups in her text.

Chapter I starts out seeming like it will be giving us a history of Spanish Iberia, but turns into a survey of the culinary geography and economy of each of the main regions of Spain, which she identifies as:

Andalusia
La Ribera del Ebro
Asturias and Cantabria
Balearic Islands
Basque Country
The Canary Islands
The Castiles and Madrid
Catalonia
Extremadura
Galacia
Levante

The sections here which are the most interesting are those which are not covered well by Andrews, Casas, and in Barrenechea's book on the Basque region. Unfortunately, in those regions on which I have read a fair amount, I find Barrenechea's book a bit lacking and downright inconsistent in places. In the introduction, Mme. Barrenechea states that the Catalonian sauce, alioli is made with eggs, similar to the Provencal aioli, yet in her recipe in the back of the book (and in Coleman Andrews book on Catalonia), it is clearly stated that the classic recipe does not include egg. Barrenechea's discrepancy is probably explained by the fact that Andrews explains that while the classic excludes egg, most Catalonians actually include it anyway!

Chapters 2 and 3 are possibly the best in the book, as they deal directly with simple matters, the primary ingredients and the distinct kitchen tools of Spanish cooking. In this regard, they follow the excellent model set up in Nancy Harmon Jenkins' `The Essential Mediterranean'.

The recipes sections are organized by type of dish, with the Castilian and English names for each dish and the region from which each dish came. I find this not quite as satisfying as the organization of dishes by region, as Ms. Casas does in `Delicioso' and as Ms. Claudia Roden does in her classic `The Food of Italy'.

I also spotted some significant oversights in assigning regions. On the one hand, the author is quite accurate in describing the `tortilla espanola' as a dish done throughout Spain, but her recipe is identical to the one in her book on Basque cuisine and the photograph presents the dish in the Basque style, squared and mounted on skewers rather than the more common Andalusian method of serving in wedges. This may not have seemed peculiar except that she did not make note of the fact that the version of the dish presented was Basque.

All of this, however, is probably nit-picking, and all it means is that this book is not a definitive book on Spanish cuisine. It is certainly a very good overview of the whole subject, and a very nice complement to Ms. Casas `The Food and Wines of Spain'. But, if you wish to own more than one Spanish cookbook, I recommend you start with all of Ms. Casas titles, then Coleman Andrews' book, and then Ms. Barrenechea's book on Basque cuisine.

I was never particularly experienced or interested in home cooking, and to me preparing a meal usually consisted of making spaghetti or boiling an egg. Then four years ago, I discovered Spanish cooking. And now, I spend every weekend in the kitchen, furiously trying to recreate those incomparable dishes that I've only had at the best tapas bars.

I have since acquired nine Spanish/Portuguese cookbooks, and have made dishes from each. Most of them are really good, but this one is probably the best, in my opinion. (My second choice being Spain and the World Table). There are several things that set this book apart. First, it is a classic text on Spanish cooking, and as such, it presents mostly traditional Spanish recipes. This almost sounds like a contradiction, because even traditional Spanish cuisine seems so outlandishly delightful and inventive sometimes. But what it means is that here, you won't find any experimental dishes, fusion dishes, or methods for making scientifically enhanced foods - which is ok, because traditional Spanish cuisine itself has so much to offer that you'll never run out of inspiration.(However if you are looking for newer, more experimental ideas for preparing Spanish cuisine you may want to check out The New Spanish Table, or Spain and the World Table).

As a classic text on Spanish cuisine, this book offers the best and most authentic recipes of all the books I've tried. In fact, it probably has the highest number of my favorite/successful recipes of all of my Spanish cookbooks. Some of my favorite dishes from this book are: Clams in Green Sauce, Cordoban Gazpacho, Mixed Salad with Tuna and Eggs, White Bean Stew with Clams, Filet Mignon with Cabrales Sauce, and Oxtails in Red Wine (best oxtail recipe I've ever tried).
Another thing I like about this book is that it contains a nice, thorough introduction to all the regions and cuisines of Spain. It also has beautiful color photos, although many of these are of cultural landscapes and overall there are not many photos of food or finished dishes.

Aloha, this cookbook has given me insight into paella and other Spanish rice dishes. I'm glad that Mahatma carries Valencia Rice, and I was able to find Spanish chorizo because I've gone crazy making the recipes from this book. The author describes the types of pans...paella and cazuelas...to use. I found the paella pan in World Market, and my "cazuela" is a Circulon 11" round pan with metal handles. I needed the cazuela to go into the 500 degree oven and not melt. So far the paella recipes that I've used for the two parties at my house resulted in satisfied guests, and almost no leftovers.

We were in Spain in Feb 2010, and wanted to extend our memories of that amazing country, so this cookbook allowed me to do this. Along with the Tapas book that we bought on the streets of Barcelona, we've been eating and sharing Spain with our friends.

I ordered the hardback book "used" from Amazon's sellers, and it came as described...in a mylar jacket, tight, and hardly used...great price for a $40 book. I'm a satisfied customer. Aloha

I was looking for a good book in traditional kitchen from Spain. This book is what I was looking for. The only thing I miss are more photos. The recipes are simple and easy to follow, but the best part is that the recipes I have tried actually taste like the ones I tasted back home.
If you are looking for the real cuisine of Spain, this is your book.

Although I have travelled in Spain and loved the food there it never occured to me to cook it at home. I was recently given a copy of Ms Barrenecheca's "The Cuisines of Spain" and I'm so glad to have it. I haven't yet purchased the equipment she suggests (pg.51) the "cazuela" and a "paella" pan but if I find myself using the book enough I will. The food and location photographs are just gorgeous and had me reaching for my passport but instead I decided to just start cooking. I'm really liking the recipes, they are easy to follow and have an authentic feel to them AND the results taste good. It is interesting (to me) that I keep being attracted to the dishes from Murcia. Go figure. The two recipes I have enjoyed most so far are "Christmas Chicken" (p.242) from Extramadura which is really tasty and in my neck of the woods will be great for summer because you do it the day before, refrigerate it, then serve it at room temperature and "Baked Trout with Jamon Serrano" (p.227) from
Navarra, which is fast (high burner/hot oven) with a real nice combination of flavors. I'm looking forward to exploring this book and I suppose before I know it I'll be out shopping for "cazuela".