Delicioso: The Regional
Cooking of Spain: A Review Focused on Product Education by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
The
book Delicioso: The Regional Cooking of Spain by Penelope Casas offers readers
well-organized insight into the broad 7 regional cuisines of Spain, tapas
(appetizers) as a national food trend, and product buying tips displayed as
inserts within chapters.
The
product information inserts I found most beneficial include the following 7
tips:
1-olive
oil production and buying tips for the various grades of olive oil
2-how
to buy high-quality paella rice and pans
3-how
to buy high-quality real saffron
4-how
to buy high-quality Manchego cheese
5-how
to cook with Spanish earthenware dishes
6-how
to use and maintain a mortar and pestle
7-how
to buy and prepare salt cod
The
book has large-print and is 460 pages long.
The
eight chapters Casas lists with their most distinguishing culinary feature
follow:
1-Spain
as an entire country – tapas (appetizers)
2-North
Central Spain – sauces
3-Northeastern
Interior Spain – peppers
4-Catalunya
– casseroles
5-Central
Plains Spain – roasts
6-Southeastern
Coastal Spain – rice
7-Andalusia
– fried foods and gazpacho
8-Canary
Islands – mojos (uncooked dipping sauces using products from Africa and Spain)
The
regional foods chapters contain more than 350 recipes.
There
are 19 regional photos, an index, and introductions to each chapter that
describe the region’s food from entrées to dessert.
Delicioso: The Regional
Cooking of Spain
by Penelope Casas details the interplay of geography and history to produce
unique foods in Spain’s different regions even when using the same agricultural
products sometimes.
I
like this book for those reasons alone.
I would love it if cooks from the Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines,
and other countries would use its organizational model to write about regional foods
in their homelands to expand upon the work of Penelope Casas.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
