Catalan Food: Culture and Flavors from the Mediterranean: A Cookbook

Deducting a star. The bread recipe is trash.Very pleased with this book so far.. While so far I have only made the Vermut ... I was very excited to see a recipe for it at all! ..and it does remind me of the vermut in Barcelona.. as a matter of fact.. the book definitely brings back memories of the food I have had from my beloved Barcelona.. I will update my review as I cook more from it.. Maybe my only quibble is a few recipes have some Texas influence, as that is where the author lives. .. maybe that should be called out? The recipes, though, do seem authentic.. maybe just not Paula Wolfert authentic :) All in all,, if you are looking for a book to take you back to memories of Catalonia.. this is very much the ticket!

There are books you immediately take to and this is one. I recently returned from Barcelona and was looking to prolong my vacation by making some of the dishes I tried there. Catalan Food is a great book and a great read. I was pleased to find many classic tapas and recipes in its pages along with commentary about Catalan food culture. The classics are all there --tomato bread, various paella's, patatas bravas, egg and potato omelet-- but I found recipes for Christmas dishes, vermouth, and others that make me want to head straight to the kitchen. Some of the dishes have a Southwestern riff drawing from Olivera's living in Austin, Texas.The directions in the recipes are clear and I appreciate the practical suggestions that appear throughout. There are lots of color photographs both to inspire and to let you know if you prepared the recipe correctly. Pair it with Jose Andres Tapas and you cover a lot of Spanish cooking.

tl;dr if you’re a fan of the chef, this book is probably good. But if you want a general overview of Catalonian cuisine, you’d probably have to supplement this book with a lot of YouTube videos.The cookbook is pretty and there are great cooking tips, but it’s not a very useful cookbook for someone looking to dive into Catalonian cuisine.1. There are lots of pictures, but some of these pictures are of Catalonian life, not of the actual recipe that the caption indicates. For example, the picture for “Catalan Potato and Onion Omelet” is a picture of a...vegetable market? There aren’t really descriptions of what the final product should look like or what you should eat it with, and I ended up looking up a lot of videos to get a better idea of the process.2. Some of the recipes seem like recipes made by a chef who happens to be Catalonian, rather than traditional Catalonian recipes. The empanadas recipe uses wonton wrappers. The author admits he never really ate oxtail growing up in Catalonia but includes his own oxtail recipe. The ceviche includes avocado. I mean, I wouldn’t claim to be any sort of authority on what’s authentic, but it’s not really what I was looking for.3. The recipes aren’t very cohesive ingredients-wise, and there aren’t many suggestions for substitutions. I ended up tweaking/avoiding a fair number of recipes just to avoid buying so many distinct kinds of vinegar.

The only recipe I've made so far is the Romesco. It is so good that I would recommend buying this book just for that recipe. My husband and I went to Barcelona on vacation and I bought this book after we got back. It's exactly the type of food we ate, and I can't wait to work my way through it. The recipes are simple and flavorful. No "fancy play syndrome" that a lot of chef cookbooks have. Just pure, delicious, Catalan recipes.If you're thinking of going to Spain/Barcelona, you might like to buy this just to see what kind of food you will see. I wish I could get those special tomatoes in the US, because Tomato Bread was everywhere, and I miss its perfect deliciousness.

This cookbook of Catalan Food is very beautiful with mouthwatering pictures of the tapas and other dishes served in bars and restaurants in my favorite city Barcelona. It also has lovely photos of Barcelona and brought back many sweet memories of a beautiful city with friendly people and delicious food. The photos of the fish and pork dishes will make you very hungry, but the recipes are definitely not for the novice in cooking. Half the ingredients I would have to research, and I would need a full day to prepare. But now I know what to order next time I am in Barcelona! No one is that attentive to cooking here.JR

They screwed up the formatting on my kindle version which makes it a lot harder to read. I’m about half way through it & there’s a couple of interesting recipes so far but a lot of silly filler. It’s kinda like reading a blog recipe off a Pinterest link. Lots of unrelated content then a “you just rub the tomato on the bread but it must be crusty bread no more then a couple inches thick...” All while you flick through trying to find the recipe which ends up looking bland but you think you can make it work since the “secret” is apparently thin crusty bread.

I live in Madrid and I wanted an authentic Catalonian cookbook that I could reference when I was in the mood for Catalan. This book did not disappoint. It has plenty of traditional recipes with a few fusion type/updated recipes. Definitely recommend!

Having ordered on the way home from Catalonia, I definitely knew what dishes I was looking for and this delivered. I love that the ingredients have alternative suggestions for purchasing in the states, I also enjoyed the anecdotes about his family and experiences in Spain. Overall a worthy addition to my getting too big collection.

great product