New Art of Cookery a Spanish Friars Kitchen Notebook by Juan Altamiras
| Juan Altamiras' New Art of Cookery: A Spanish Friar's Kitchen Notebook by Vicky Hayward | |
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| Category: Cookery | |
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| Reviewer: Sue Magee | |
| Summary: A translation of a 272-year old cookbook interwoven with data near 18th century Spanish life and civilisation and topped off with advice for the mod cook: it's a delight! | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 320 | Date: June 2017 |
| Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield | |
| ISBN: 978-1442279414 | |
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In 1745 a Spanish friary cook, Juan Altamiras, published the first edition of his New Fine art of Cookery, Drawn From the Schoolhouse of Economic Experience. It contained more than two hundred recipes for meat, poultry, game, salted and fresh fish, vegetables and desserts. The style was informal, chatty and humorous on occasions and it was aimed, non at those who could afford to cook on a grand scale, but at those with more modest budgets, who sometimes needed to cook for big numbers. Whilst the ingredients were - for the most part - modestly priced in that location is a stress on the careful combination of flavours and aromas. Spices are used conservatively and the bluntness of some Moorish cooking is eschewed in favour of something much more subtle and we see influences from Altamiras' own region, Aragon, the Iberian court and the New Globe.
Now manifestly a 272-twelvemonth erstwhile book of recipes aimed at Spanish locals cooking for reasonably large numbers might not have a great deal of application in the early 21st century, but author Vicky Hayward has added considerable value to her translation by giving guidelines for today's cooks (from experienced chefs) and interweaving the story of eighteenth-century Castilian life, its traditions and civilization. It's well done, retaining the spirit and style of the original and making information technology attainable for the modern cook. The book is gloriously free from unnecessary illustration, which y'all can't say about many modern cookery books which seem to be padded out with glossy photographs.
You desire to know about the food, don't you? I'g going to tell you near my personal preferences, which practise include some meat dishes, only not in proportion to the number given past Altamiras. If y'all like meat you'll find many more to your taste than I do! I did even so like the blimp lettuces, although I made a vegetarian stuffing. This highlighted one of the nifty points most Altamiras and probably one of the reasons why his volume ran to twenty editions - he's not prescriptive about ingredients and you tin can adjust the recipes to take business relationship of what's in flavour or - more than chiefly - what's in the larder.
I enjoyed crumb custard - an eggy custard with crisp breadcrumbs on top. Information technology'due south a cheap pudding made more luxurious past the improver of some cinnamon and saccharide and it's economical with power - I constitute that it saturday quite happily in the oven alongside whatever else was cooking. Another utilize for breadcrumbs is breadcrumb noodles - a mixture of breadcrumbs and cheese, spices and raw egg extruded into a bowl of boiling broth. They plow into spoon shapes every bit they cook!
Particularly appealing are the fish recipes and I love the thought of salt cod with tomato and orange. I've often served fish and love apple or love apple and orange but I'd never idea of combining the three. I used fresh fish rather than salted, but the flavours work. I was nudged into having a look at fried breadcrumbs and I'1000 glad that I was, as I might take passed information technology by, but the mixture of breadstuff, onions and green peppers makes a adept satisfying dejeuner - although you will need to have started information technology the previous solar day. You'll notice more than breadcrumbs in braised onion wedges. The pot roasting creates a delightful sweetness which is so frequently missing when onions are cooked too quickly.
Practiced asparagus is something of a luxury these days, only asparagus revuelto makes a good dejeuner dish: the version with egg cooked over the peak is particularly skillful. My one reservation well-nigh a recipe in the volume is for tomatoes preserved in olive oil. I haven't tried it, but instinct tells me to beware!
The book was a proficient read and I got far more out of it than I expected. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If you lot'd like to know more than almost Spanish nutrient we tin can as well recommend A Belatedly Dinner: Discovering the Food of Spain by Paul Richardson. Information technology's a later menstruation but you might too savour Sucking Eggs: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You Most Nutrition, Austerity and Going Green past Patricia Nicol.
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