The Spanish Kitchen: Regional Ingredients, Recipes, and Stories from Spain [Hardcover]

Clarissa Hyman (Author), Peter Cassidy (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2005

Spanish food has been shaped by many influences: among them Roman, Arabic, Jewish, and the products brought back by the Conquistadores from the New World. There are many common threads within the cooking of Spain, from salt cod to saffron, and on the whole, Spanish home cooking throughout the Peninsula is simple, uncomplicated, and direct, with a singular lack of adornment on the plate. This could be austere, were it not for the strong, true flavors of prime ingredients rooted in the local terra (terroir) that need no disguise or affectation. Yet, for both historical and geographical reasons, the sense of regional identity and separatism remains strong in the many provinces (kingdoms) of Spain, and this is also proudly reflected in the cooking. The North-West of Spain, for example, probably has more in common with other Celtic countries than it does with Moorish Andalusia. Centuries of isolation from the rest of Europe has also safeguarded many wonderful ingredients that even now remain unknown both outside their region of origin and outside of the country.

Nonetheless, in the last 30 years change has been rapid: the Spanish are fully part of new Europe; they are interested in new modes of eating, new dishes, new lifestyles. Many Spanish kitchens now boast Maldon Salt and Parmesan cheese as status symbols, and magazines offer Spanish takes on Chinese cooking and low-fat recipes for modern Spanish mothers. Although there has been a rush to industrialize food production-TV commercials advertising ready made paellas, for example, are no longer seen as subversive-there has been a parallel growth in Spanish pride in quality products and a determination to safeguard their unique Iberian heritage. Perhaps more than any other country in Europe, the Spanish have one foot in their unique culinary past, one in the global present. The future of Spanish food, cooking, and traditions, remains an open and intriguing question.

The book will be divided into 17 chapters, each highlighting a different ingredient or ingredients from a different region of Spain. These introductory narratives will tell the story of each ingredient in terms of culture, history, cultivation, traditions, location, context, and so on, and above all bring the products to life by talking to the producers themselves in situ. Each essay will then be followed by a selection of five recipes using the product.

The ingredients have been selected so they represent a cross-section of Spanish produce: some familiar, others less so, some expected, some surprising, some artisan, some larger-scale, and so on.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Part cookbook, part travelogue and part history lesson—albeit an engaging one—this volume offers an epicure's tour of Spain, with recipes. It's divided into chapters by region, each focusing on a specific ingredient (or two) that is a source of local pride and providing a brief, food-oriented history. In the chapter on Castile-Madrid, for example, Chinchón garlic is the ingredient of choice, and recipes include Garlic and Chile Shrimp, and Spicy Monkfish with Saffron and Chilies. Other chapters go from savory to sweet, as in the La Rioja chapter, which features pears in Duck Breast with Honey-Spiced Pears, Pears Poached in Moscatel and Spices, and Rioja Pear Cake. The Valencia chapter showcases oranges in Toasted Bread with Garlic and Orange, Hake in Orange and Saffron Sauce, and Delicias (an almond and chocolate confection). Recipes are generally simple and often rustic; there just aren't enough of them (only 75). The color photos by Peter Cassidy are honest; they don't try too hard to make things look modern or slick when they simply are not. Together with the text, they provide an authentic look into Spanish cuisine and the areas where it is prepared. (Aug.)
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About the Author

Peter Cassidy is a leading food photographer whose work appears regularly in major international magazines and newspapers. He photographed Clarissa Hyman's Cucina Siciliana and The Jewish Kitchen.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Interlink Books (May 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566565855
• ISBN-13: 978-1566565851
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 9.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,975,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More of a travelogue than a culinary study., July 25, 2006

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B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Spanish Kitchen: Regional Ingredients, Recipes, and Stories from Spain (Paperback)

`The Spanish Kitchen' by UK culinary journalist and Glenfiddich Food Writer award winner, Clarissa Hyman is an informative and useful book on it's subject, but it is much less than what it's title may suggest to the reader's mind. For starters, it is clearly NOT a comprehensive survey of Spanish cuisine, along the lines of Penelope Casas' classic `The Food and Wine of Spain' or even of Casas' more recent books such as `Delicioso' or Teresa Barrenechea's `The Cuisines of Spain'. The oversized format and plentiful photographs mark it as a book on the fast track to the Bargain Books table. It is, however, just a bit better than the average piece of oversized hack work.

The subtitle to the book, `Regional Ingredients, recipes, and stories from Spain' is a much closer picture of the book's contents. It consists of 17 chapters for the 17 regions of Spain, and begins each chapter with a story about a `signature' ingredient from that region. With my rudimentary knowledge of Spanish `terroir', I find some of the selections appropriate, such as the obvious pairing of Valencia with oranges. However, I find some pairings pretty arbitrary, as when Mallorca is used as a basis for discussing black pigs and sobrassada (a type of cured sausage). According to the excellent `Pig Perfect' by Peter Kaminsky, the center of pig culture in Spain is in the western Extramadura region, for which Hyman presents `pimenton de la Vera' (red peppers, pimento, and paprika). Like so many ingredients, as Hyman says herself, sweet peppers and pork are practically a universal ingredient for Spain. There may be a bit less pork in the beef-eating north, but its all a matter of degree. I'm especially puzzled why Hyman doesn't include Serrano ham as a central ingredient, as it is commonly considered equal to or even superior to the more famous Italian prosciutto de Parma among European dry cured hams.

I'm also a bit puzzled by Ms. Hyman's take on geographical names, especially when it comes to the Spanish Island groups. Instead of referring to the Balearic Islands or the Canary Islands, she uses the name of one locale within each island group, Mallorca and Tenerife respectively.

Each region and speciality gets about four pages of text to talk about the featured ingredient(s) and six to eight recipes. Certainly not enough room to cover in depth one of the world's most important and influential cuisines.

This book is actually far more interesting as a set of clues to where one may wish to visit in Spain. The especially good (and well-LABELLED) photographs add a lot to the book. So, if you want a good culinary source, go to Casas or Barrenechea, or Mendel or Anya Von Bremzen's `The New Spanish Table'. If you really like to read about Spanish food, this book strikes me as a cross between a travelogue and a collection of newspaper articles on Spanish food which is, however, not as successful as the classic `The Food of Italy' by Claudia Roden, which WAS a collection of newspaper columns.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Food trek, January 23, 2006

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Reader from Yellow River - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Spanish Kitchen: Regional Ingredients, Recipes, and Stories from Spain (Hardcover)

Unfriendly landscapes, tough politics, harsh weather and different languages keep Spain from being one nation. So it makes sense to set up 17 semi-autonomous regions under the Spanish king and queen. The people of each region live close to family and loyal to tradition. Does that mean visitors to Spain will find different cooking and food traditions too?

Nowadays dishes such as tortillas, fried potatoes and flan are made throughout Spain. That's almost the case with gazpacho and paella too. People throughout Spain buy their bread fresh, often twice daily. They fry in olive oil. They grill over charcoal and wood on the grid and griddle. They simmer stews in earthenware pots. They store with vinegar. They use the pestle and mortar. But that's as far as it goes for a national cooking and food tradition.

So it's no surprise there's no such thing as THE SPANISH KITCHEN. Instead, there's a cook's delight of REGIONAL INGREDIENTS, RECIPES, AND STORIES FROM SPAIN. The book therefore has chapters on each of the country's 17 regions. Each chapter tells the growing and history of the best-known food of each region. Each has delicious recipes using that particular food. Each explains what it is about regional growing and cooking that makes the particular food the best of its kind.

What makes me like this book the most? It's the fact it's so easy to get here substitutes for each of the foods. Author Clarissa Hyman warns the taste may not be the same as the real, home-grown food. But almost-the-real-things are still good enough. For she tells what's special about the food. And it's easy to copy that in whatever's found as substitutes.

So, for example, Andalucia's raisins plump up a lot in liquid. The Basque country's Atlantic white tuna has little lactic acid spoiling flavor and texture. Cantabria's anchovies aren't heat-treated. They stay semi-perishable. The cured taste therefore depends on tins being kept in cool places and regularly turned over. Extremadura's peppers are sharp, because they're smoked in small sheds for 10-15 days. Murcia's rice is firm and soft. The reason's good water in a ratio of 3-3-1/2 or 4-4-1/2 to 1, depending on the brand.

The reader therefore can track down either natives or imports to use in the recipes. For something that stays with me from this book's that a lot of what we think as food of Spain didn't start out native. A lot came originally from somewhere else. The ancient Romans brought garlic. The ancient Celts brought pigs. The medieval Moors brought oranges and rice. The explorers of the Americas brought peppers. These and other imports naturalized so successfully they seem like beautifully natural parts of Spain's landscape.

The recipes go with beautifully mouth-watering photos. The instructions are easy-to-follow. The book is so well done it's on my New Year's resolution list. I'll be working my way through each of the 75 simple, elegant recipes.