Best of Spain (Cook's Essentials)

Rating:
Summary: Less than the Best of Spain
Review: Ever since living in Spain in the early '70s I've missed its wonderful cuisine, particularly that of Andalucia. Recently I ordered three of Amazon's lowest-priced Spanish cookbooks to see how much authentic, easy-to-follow Iberian eating $5-or-less will get you. First, the good news: with Best of Spain you get a hard cover, nice photographs and a brief, informative introduction that includes an explanation of tapas. The Ingredients and Techniques sections are helpful, the former particularly for the reader unfamiliar with Spanish food, the latter for any new-to-intermediate cook. Some of the best recipes (and somewhat rare to Spanish cookbooks) are those for Tomato and Garlic Bread, Spiced Potatoes, Chilled Almond Soup and Zarzuela. But some of the recipes seem under-authentic to me, i.e., the gazpacho recipe that calls for sugar (I was never served the soup this way in Spain; nor seen any other recipe calling for it) and the Potato Tortilla that requires SLICING the potatoes (they've always been chopped, which is easier and better incorporates them with the eggs, as far as I know). I could have done with less space devoted to desserts, a culinary area for which Spain is not renowned. The book is skimpy - one pays more for photos than for recipes. And how hard would it be to include the Spanish names of the dishes? The author/editor seems to assume that readers won't recognize any but the best-known fare, such as gazpacho. But for someone who has been to Spain or eaten Spanish food and who wishes to match those sublime experiences with these recipes, the omission is annoying. A good book, but for a few more dollars, one could do better, or perhaps even find the old Barbara Norman-penned paperback I've lost but which was so helpful. Still, this pleasant book gets 3 stars for imparting a fair amount of information for it's price.

Rating:
Summary: Less than the Best of Spain
Review: Ever since living in Spain in the early '70s I've missed its wonderful cuisine, particularly that of Andalucia. Recently I ordered three of Amazon's lowest-priced Spanish cookbooks to see how much authentic, easy-to-follow Iberian eating $5-or-less will get you. First, the good news: with Best of Spain you get a hard cover, nice photographs and a brief, informative introduction that includes an explanation of tapas. The Ingredients and Techniques sections are helpful, the former particularly for the reader unfamiliar with Spanish food, the latter for any new-to-intermediate cook. Some of the best recipes (and somewhat rare to Spanish cookbooks) are those for Tomato and Garlic Bread, Spiced Potatoes, Chilled Almond Soup and Zarzuela. But some of the recipes seem under-authentic to me, i.e., the gazpacho recipe that calls for sugar (I was never served the soup this way in Spain; nor seen any other recipe calling for it) and the Potato Tortilla that requires SLICING the potatoes (they've always been chopped, which is easier and better incorporates them with the eggs, as far as I know). I could have done with less space devoted to desserts, a culinary area for which Spain is not renowned. The book is skimpy - one pays more for photos than for recipes. And how hard would it be to include the Spanish names of the dishes? The author/editor seems to assume that readers won't recognize any but the best-known fare, such as gazpacho. But for someone who has been to Spain or eaten Spanish food and who wishes to match those sublime experiences with these recipes, the omission is annoying. A good book, but for a few more dollars, one could do better, or perhaps even find the old Barbara Norman-penned paperback I've lost but which was so helpful. Still, this pleasant book gets 3 stars for imparting a fair amount of information for it's price.