I read cookbooks for fun, not just the recipes and how to prepare the dish, but I read the writing; cooks have so much more to say than give directions. It feels like we are so eager to know exactly how to make a dish we forget it has a very important story. After a trip through Spain and a discovery of her work I devoured all 600 plus pages of Claudia Roden’s The Food of Spain. By the end of the first page I was taken, it was clear she was setting me up for a journey of people and land and connections. Returning from my travels last quarter I came back with so many more questions than I had when I embarked. I wondered about the history and people and land and what I encountered there. She answered so many of them – in a cookbook! I would like to go on and at some point in my studies I will continue this writing, and for the sake of time I will leave you with this quote:
It is surprising how dishes can appeal directly to the emotions. They say that with food, as with music, you can touch people and even make them cry.” Pg. 2
I decided to cook through some of the amazing recipes in her book to gain another level of experiential learning through the food of Spain. It was tough to choose, I wanted to cook everything but that would take a year and alas I had a quarter, so I began by slowly eliminating choices from my endless list and ended with a few recipes from the regions I visited and some iconic Spanish dishes.
The kitchen is a place where I lose time and can fully immerse myself. I use all my senses when cooking and recipes are usually mere suggestions for me. I tried my best to follow the recipe as written through this process, and it was so much fun it felt like I was cooking alongside Claudia. Here is a snapshot of what I cooked – I can say it was all delicious!