Spain...A Culinary Road Trip

From the Editors

<P>From Mario Batali, superstar chef and author of <i>Molto Italiano</i> and <i>Italian Grill</i>, comes an eating tour throughout Spain with his friend Gwyneth Paltrow.</p> <P><i>Spain...A Culinary Road Trip</i> is the companion book to the prime-time public television series <i>Spain...On The Road Again</i>. The premise is simple: Mario Batali and Mark Bittman are single-minded, food-obsessed friends who are constantly on the lookout for the food, wine, and cooking that is unique to Spain--and in this series they will find it. Gwyneth Paltrow and the Spanish actress Claudia Bassols are eager to enjoy all the pleasures the country has to offer, and each pair will be lured into the worlds of the other. </p> <P>The foursome take the ultimate road trip adventure, showcasing the pleasures of Spain, the country's regional cuisine, art, history, and culture, as they've never been seen before. Hundreds of gorgeous and candid photos, anecdotes, and more than seventy recipes from Mario appear in this scrapbook of the dream vacation through Spain.</p>
Product Description

Customer Response

Good Recipes, Recommended Restaurants, and a Travelogue of Spanish Cuisine.
"Spain: A Culinary Road Trip" is the companion book to the 2008 PBS series "Spain: On the Road Again", in which chef and restaurateur Mario Batali, New York Times food critic Mark Bittman, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and the multilingual Catalan actress Claudia Bassols criss-crossed Spain in search of great cuisine and sight-seeing. Mario Batali was the impetus behind that project, and he is the author of this book, which is a cross between a cookbook, a travelogue, and ad for Spanish tourism. There are 13 chapters, each corresponding to an episode of the television series and exploring a different city or region, beginning and ending in Madrid.

About 70 recipes are included. Most are simple, with only a handful of ingredients. This isn't a bad thing, as these dishes are inviting, relatively easy to prepare, and preserve the freshness and lively flavors of their primarily ingredients. Some cooks might have preferred to have a smattering of more complex recipes mixed in, however. There are a lot of seafood recipes, some vegetarian, and some meat. Dessert recipes are scarce. And Batali couldn't resist including a few dishes that are not for the squeamish (and not for vegetarians or pescetarian), like "cochinillo asado" (sucking pig) and "frito mallorquín" (containing lamb heart and liver).

Batali writes a little about each location the foursome visited: the restaurants, people they met, places they shopped, culinary specialties they savored, etc. Beyond the recipes, this is useful as a reference for those restaurants and artisanal products that you may have seen in the television series. So if you plan to visit Spain anytime soon, you will be able to find some of the great food that left you salivating. Conversations and quotes from the intrepid foodies are interspersed throughout. There are hundreds of color photos of food, people, and places. In the back, you'll find a list of restaurants and hotels, a recipe index, and an index of people and places.

Great Recipes
Great recipes and pictures. I recognized some family recipes among them, and found some others that look very tempting.

picture book
I loved the TV program but the book kinda let me down. I didn't find the book to be a very entertaining read and the recipes are just OK. On a positive note, the pictures are absolutely wonderful.

Enjoy a trip through Spain
This book is thoroughly entertaining, and a very good complement to the television show depicting the same tour. Recipes are understandable and intriguing.

Seems a little fishy
I spent a few weeks in Spain in the mid 90's and enjoyed it immensely. I also enjoyed the "on the road" show on PBS as it made me remember parts of my Spanish trip.
This book is a very good representation of the show.
And while they ate a lot of seafood on the show, and you tend to eat alot of seafood when you're in certain spots in Spain -- there's also a lot of fish in this book. Almost too much.
Some of the recipes are interesting, but not much that you could or would want to pull off in your own kitchen.
It's a good book about the quartet's Spanish adventure (I'm not sure why Mark and Claudia were not also brought in as co-writers) -- but if you're looking for a Espana cookbook, there are better options.

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