Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet World Food Spain

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As frequent world travelers, there are certain "rituals" we perform prior to departure. Chief among these familiarizing ourselves with the local cuisine, and preparing dishes we expect to be eating. This little volume does the best job I have ever seen in explaining local food and drink, food preparation tools and techniques, and regional variations on all of these. Some recipes are included: the paella is the easiest I have ever prepared, and equally flavorful. The book is beautifully illustrated and whets one's appetite for travel to Spain as well as eating there. Descriptions of restaurant types are excellent: do YOU know what to expect at a horno asador, versus a terraza? And just what sort of drink WOULD you find at a sidreria? The one downside of the book is the lack of specific recommendations of restaurants, tavernas, etc. This is somewhat countered by a very precise guide to recommended stalls to visit in the Barcelona market. However, other guide books would have to steer you to eating establishments. The section on "Fit and Healthy" eating should be read by any traveler to a foreign country. Kudos to Lonely Planet. We look forward with great enthusiasm to their editions related to other cuisines.

I have three lonely planet food guides: Italy, Portugal, and Spain. I have used the other two extensively on my travels, each very informative on regional cuisines..no easy task, especially for Italy.

Disappointingly, this book lumps Spain together in only 4 regions: Mediterranean, Atlantic, Pyrenees,and Heart of Spain, and barely touches its diverse cuisine. Actually there are 17 regions (not 4 as this book would have you believe) in Spain -each with its own regional specialties. For example, in Mallorca (where I have just visited) they have beautiful rustic brown bread, a pizza-like pastry called Coca, a dish not unlike ratatouille called Tumbet. But you won't know that from this book, which mentions none of these. Mallorca is only cited in the book as a place where rice grows in Spain. The book does not even consider the Canary Islands! These are just 2 examples of things left out. I could go on: the winter-like gazpacho made of game served in Valencia's interior region,the famous veal "ternera" from Galicia, caffe carajillo a typical after dinner coffee served with alcohol (your choice) or caffe bonbon served with sweetened condensed milk. No, none of these are mentioned in the book, either.

On the whole, the book skims the surface of Spanish cuisine...describing what most already know about Spain, ie: tortilla, jamon, sangria, paella, manchego cheese. I seriously wonder whether the author even visited Spain or wrote the entire book from his arm-chair somewhere far far away from Spain.

If you'd like to learn about regional Spanish food for your trip, better look elsewhere. You'll be sadly disappointed with this book.

As frequent world travelers, we have certain "rituals" we perform prior to departure. Chief among these is "studying" food - reading and preparing dishes from appropriate cookbooks. We're going to Barcelona and Costa Brava in May, and have prepared numerous Paella dishes. The recipe in this book is much easier to prepare than most and equally excellent in flavor. We had read in Saveur Magazine a bit about Sidrerias. (Cider Houses, but not as in the bestselling book.) The Lonely Planet guide gave much more information. The one downside to this book is the lack recommendations of good restaurants, bars, etc. Perhaps their travel guide does this, but it would have been much better to incorporate this into the volume under discussion. The book is extremely well organized, and it's easy to access information on virtually any food-related subject. This would be a great addition to the library of anyone interested in Spanish cuisine. The section on "Fit & Healthy" does a much better than usual job of explaining potential risk factors for American tourists, and how to deal with them. This will be one of three books we bring with us to Spain. I look forward to acquiring any other titles published in this series. Kudos to Lonely Planet.

This is an excellent little book. We have traveled in Spain several times and whenever we go out to the market or to a restaurant or tapas bar, I carry this book in a pocket. Very descriptive articles about regional cuisine and food customs, but the best part is the menu guide and food dictionary. Even if your Spanish is pretty good, food descriptions can be tricky. With this book, you won't be surprised by what the camarero brings you. It will be what you ordered.

We travel quite a bit and spend a lot of time beforehand getting information about the food where we're headed. Before taking off for Turkey some 3 years ago we bought "Eat Smart in Turkey," (there are several countries covered in that series), which was just what we were looking for. We used LP guides a lot, so welcome the debut of their food guides. Bought the one on Spain for an upcoming repeat trip and expect this guide to be helpful. No McD's for us!