Contents

Cover

Title

Introduction

The Tapas Bar

food journey: olives

Seafood

Home Cooking

Food Journey: Wine

Food Journey: Cheese

Desserts and Sweets

Food Journey: La Pasteleria

Basics

Glossary

Index

The three major influences on the cuisine of a country are its geography, its history and its personality. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the food of Spain.

The Iberian Peninsula, comprising both Spain and Portugal, stretches from southern France to northern Africa, from which continent it is separated by only a sliver of the Mediterranean at the Straits of Gibraltar. Contained in its 640 square kilometres is the most varied range of landscapes in all of Europe. The Sierra Nevada is snow-capped all year round, yet at its feet lies an almost tropical coast. Spain has the highest mean altitude of any country in Europe but Switzerland – about 40 per cent of it is highland plateau, a windswept treeless meseta (high central plain), blasted by the sun in summer and the snows of winter.

To the north and north-west, bordering the Atlantic, is green Spain: mists and mountains; high rainfall; and lush forests. Also in the north, in the province of Asturias, are the Picos de Europa, three towering massifs, separated from one another by steep gorges, a mountain range that stretches to within 15 kilometres of the Cantabrian coast, a coast that offers almost Scandinavian peaks and valleys, and rivers teeming with salmon and trout. To the south, the chalky soil of Jerez de la Frontera is inland, with the coastline stretching to contain the Donaña National Park, sandy woodlands that shelter red deer and a wilderness of wetlands. In the province of Almeria, in the far south-eastern corner of the country, is Europe’s only desert and the location for the filming of many of Spain’s ‘paella’ westerns.

Then there are Spain’s two island groups. First, the Balearic Islands, near the eastern coast of the peninsula: mountainous Mallorca, gently rolling Menorca, pine-clad (and tourist-wracked) Ibiza and almost barren Formentera. South and west, closer to Africa than to the peninsula, and a remnant of the age of empires, are the seven islands of the Canaries, each boasting its own unique natural features.

This immensely varied landscape is home to an equally wide variety of produce and livestock, and a multitude of seafood in the waters that lap Spain’s shores, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean and the Cantabrian Sea.

Is it any wonder that such a strategically placed and geographically diverse country has been subjected to so many invasions over the centuries? First came the Phoenicians, then the Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Visigoths and Moors. Beginning in the 700s, originally with the Berber tribesmen from north Africa and then the Arabs from as far afield as Syria, the Moors ruled for nearly 800 years. Each group left a different culinary imprint on the land. The Phoenicians brought olive trees, although it was the Romans and later the Moors who began their widespread cultivation. The Romans also brought different methods of cooking (roasting and grilling), the first cereals and introduced bread and baking.

After the Romans came the Visigoths, who were responsible for developing livestock farming, and, one could speculate, helping develop the cheese making that today flourishes in the provinces of Asturias, and Castile and León. The Visigoths also introduced legumes and vegetables from northern Europe, including spinach and radishes, that were well suited to the Spanish soil. Another benefit of the Germanic invasions was exposure to medieval cuisines from the north.

But no peoples left more of a mark on the food, or the culture, of Spain than the Moors. For them, Al-Andalus (the Arabic name the Moors used to refer to the parts of the Iberian Peninsula under their control) was an earthly paradise, even more so once they had developed its agriculture, transforming large areas of arid land into green and well-watered oases using gravity flow canals and waterwheels.

Once the land had been tamed, the Moors then introduced an astonishing variety of produce. Citrus, including sour (later Sevilla) oranges, lemons and limes; apricots, bananas and almonds; from Asia came rice, taro and sugar cane, the rice planted in the river deltas of the Levante in the province of Valencia. Then the vegetables, among them artichokes, eggplant (aubergine), celery, spinach and carrots. Perhaps most important of all, the Moors contributed hard wheat, Triticum durum, from which pasta was made.

At the height of its power, around the mid-tenth century, Islamic Spain was the intellectual and scientific centre of the world, its capital Córdoba described as ‘the ornament of the world’. Arab, Jew and Christian lived, for the greater part of their rule, side by side in harmony.

It was only after 1492, when the last Moorish stronghold in Granada fell and Spain was reunified, that Spanish food took the shapes we recognize today. The importation from the New World of those strange, new and, at first, suspicious foods – the tomato, the potato, the capsicum (pepper), the chilli and chocolate – contributed to the unique, hybrid nature of Spanish cuisine.

The last of these three great influences on Spanish cuisine, after geography and history, is perhaps the most important: the personality of the peoples cooking the food. It should be remembered that Spain is a political construct, made up of several distinct groups, many with their own languages. There are the Basques, whose lands are in the north-east, along a porous border with France (there are French as well as Spanish Basques); to their west, the Galicians; south and east the Catalans and Valencians; off the shores of these two provinces the Balearic Islands, holding the Mallorquins, Menorcans and Ibicencans (natives of Ibiza), all of whom speak a variation of the Catalan language. Then there are the Asturians, Andalucíans, Extremadurans, and the Navarrans, all of whom have their own cuisines, their own ingredients, shaped by their geography, their history, and their personality.

Two traditions emphasize this point and the vast differences you will find as you move throughout the Iberian Peninsula. In the Basque country, there is an ancient tradition of gentlemen’s cooking clubs. At the end of a hard day’s work, Basque men will go to their clubs and, on a roster system, cook elaborate meals for their fellow members. Banker, doctor and plumber down tools and pick up pans to prepare these meals together. The Basques are well known for their love of food – and this shines through in their dishes and thestar-studded restaurants of their capital, San Sebastián. And no wonder – they have access to such wonderful produce: draw a circle 100 kilometres around San Sebastián, and you will find the best seafood in Spain, the vegetables of Navarra, foie gras from the Landes, and the truffles of the Perigord.

At the other end of the spectrum is the phenomena of la nueva cocina, directly translated as ‘the new cooking of Spain’, whose most famous exponent is a Catalan, Ferran Adrià. The Catalans, the Spanish will tell you, are astute and creative. These traits most definitely apply to Adrià. He has marketed his restaurant on the Costa Brava and himself ingeniously; his cuisine is as creative in its way as the output of that other famous Catalan artist, Salvador Dali, with whom he is often compared. Adrià is not the only exponent of the new cooking of Spain, but he is one of the few many remember because of his audacious culinary inventions, first among them the ‘foams’ (or espuma), created by aerating the main ingredient and air. And yet as inventive as Adrià’s food is, with a sense of humour and a dash of irony, at heart it is still Spanish food. As Adrià himself has said, ‘you cook where you find yourself, and I find myself in Spain’.

With an abundance of fresh produce, seafood, meat, spices and herbs from around the world, this cuisine is nothing if not a fantastic amalgamation of some of the best tastes and flavours available.

Although this book does touch on some of the more modern interpretations of classic Spanish recipes, it will not explore the intricacies of la nueva cocina, the new cooking of Spain. It serves instead to provide a collection of traditional Spanish recipes along with others inspired by the spirit and the ingredients of the Spanish kitchen.

With an abundance of fresh produce, seafood, meat, spices and herbs from around the world, this cuisine is nothing if not a fantastic amalgamation of some of the best tastes and flavours available. These recipes feature some of the more traditional of the Spanish ingredients: olives and the oil they produce, from the mild, light oils to the heavier, richer varieties; sherry, fine and light, or of a darker hue with a richer flavour and texture; bacalao, popular in the Basque country, and which, if it is cured and prepared properly, will emerge smooth, firm and white, with a hint of the salt it has been preserved in; fresh seafood, plucked directly from the oceans surrounding the Iberian Peninsula; rice, brought by the Moors and used extensively throughout the country, most popularly in the ubiquitous paella; jamón, at its best when served simply, with no garnish to detract from the subtle combination of its flesh and fat; the wine, making its presence known on the wine scene with a rich, fresh outlook; and finally, the cheese, beloved by Spanish people and a highlight of any venture into a tapas bar.

Some traditions hold Spain together more than any political directives from Madrid. Because the Spanish universally do not start their evening meal until late – often as late as 11 pm – they take tapas to stave off the pangs of hunger. The average Anglo Saxon stomach visiting Spain for the first time will have to adjust to this Spanish eating schedule: if it is accustomed to being lined between seven and eight every evening, it will have to wind its gastric clock back at least two hours. Late for everything else, the Spanish are habitually late for the evening meal – hence the success of tapas. From Malaga to Palma de Mallorca, from Barcelona to Badajoz, you will find this tradition of bar hopping and feasting on tiny plates.

And there you have it. The food of Spain, like the land itself, from mountain tops to its long stretches of beach, straddles great culinary distances, from the slow-roasted suckling lamb of Segovia to the humble tortilla de patatas found in every bar in the land all the way to the wilder shores of the intricate molecular gastronomy of la nueva cocina.

And so, as they say in Spain, buen provecho!

List of Recipes