- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications; illustrated edition edition (1 Mar 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1864500255
- ISBN-13: 978-1864500257
- Product Dimensions: 16.3 x 11.7 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
121,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #39 in Books > Food & Drink > National & International Cookery > Other European > Spanish & Portuguese
- #94 in Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Europe > Portugal
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Spain has a more cosmopolitan culinary ancestry than any other country in Europe. The Romans brought olive oil, the Moors brought rice and aubergines, and returning conquistadors from the Americas brought chocolate. In this entertaining and informative guide, Sterling explains how this mouth-watering mixture came about, and how best to indulge in it.
Spanish cuisine is straightforward--a Spanish proverb says that "It should taste of what it is"--but always interesting. As well as the culinary "trinity" of bread, oil and wine, there are irresistible hams, fish and seafood, and wonderful red wine. There are also less appetising dishes, such as bull's testicles and goat's brains, but even these are integral to Spain's culinary identity.
In addition to its useful tips on where to eat and shop, and language section, Lonely Planet World Food: Spain is full of insights into Spain and Spanish cooking, from an account of the process of curing ham or distilling olive oil, to Sterling's observation that pork is so popular in Spain because eating it at the time of the Inquisition allowed converted Jews and Moors to assert their Christianity. On reading this book, you understand how indelibly dependent the Spanish soul is on its culinary heritage, and it becomes impossible to look at tapas in the same way as before: "Tapas are an expression of a people and their unique way of living. They are not things to eat, but a way to eat them." --Toby Green
Product Description
The definitive culinary guide to Spain. With tantalising photography throughout and written in an entertaining, opinionated and contemporary style, this guide is intended to be the benchmark for the country's cuisine. This pocket-sized guide includes everything to do with eating and drinking in Spain.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Beyond the Holy Trinity of bread, oil and wine, Spanish cuisine boasts a cornucopia of diversity. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Beyond the Holy Trinity of bread, oil and wine, Spanish cuisine boasts a cornucopia of diversity. Read the first page
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Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Non-essential,
By
This review is from: Lonely Planet World Food: Spain (Paperback)
The World Food series has to be carefully priced, because although these are attractive books, like nearly all published by Lonely Planet, you don't need them. All guidebooks worth their salt give some space to the food, the markets and restaurants, and so all of these books are effectively an add-on, a luxury - this is unlikely to be the only book you buy.The Spain book in particular feels slightly unnecessary. Unlike Italy, France or India, where the cuisine is hugely developed and highly complex, the food in Spain seems consciously simple, pared-down. This is reflected in the text, which frequently meanders into long digressions about other things. Worse yet is the persistant impression that "World Food: Spain" has been translated from the original Spanish, possibly from some ofthe sources credited in the acknowledgements. There is a stilted, overly formal quality to sentences like this; "At the tasca, you'll find more plant kingdom comestibles than at a proper sit-down restaurant." Comestibles? And there's more where that came from. Long passages of frankly rather silly florid scene-setting makes the book a bit desperate. But nevertheless, the pictures are lovely, the recipes well worth trying, and once you've dragged it around a few restaurants while on your hols, it'll take on the hallmark of a souvenir.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lonely Planet World Food: Spain,
By Barbara Goldstein "Game lover" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lonely Planet World Food: Spain (Paperback)
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as the others,
By Ms Marabini - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lonely Planet World Food: Spain (Paperback)
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. 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lonely Planet World Food: Spain,
By Barbara Goldstein "Game lover" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lonely Planet World Food: Spain (Paperback)
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.
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