Behind the Cookbook: Andaluz by Fiona Dunlop

ckbk is pleased to announce the addition of Fiona Dunlop’s critically-acclaimed cookbook Andaluz to our collection. In this Behind the Cookbook feature, the author tells us about the journey which led to this cookbook.

Andalucia (also written Andalusia) is a vast swathe of land covering southern Spain. Rugged sierra, olive groves, a coastline heaving with fish, rice fields, vineyards (sherry!) and wooded pastures where black pigs roam are just some of the sources of its inimitable food. More than just that, though, Andalucia’s history of successive invasions - from Phoenicians to Romans, Visigoths and Moors - has left a unique imprint on the produce and plate. This is what I set out to unravel.

Conceiving, researching, writing and producing an illustrated travel-cookbook is not exactly a piece of cake (or tortilla?), as my experience proved with this latest book, Andaluz: A Food Journey through Southern Spain. 

The reason? This hybrid genre involving both food and travel is fraught with daunting logistical obstacles. In this case the greatest challenge lay with attempting such an ambitious breadth of contents on a limited budget. 

After I signed a modest deal with my American publisher following an animated chat at a London supper club, the next step was investigating how to fund my research on the ground. Certainly, owning a house in Andalucia got me off to a promising start, but it wouldn’t be sufficient to just pop down the road to discover salivating, authentic recipes. Because my goal was to uncover recipes across the entire span of this bewitching region — bigger than all of Ireland, about 400 km east to west, with many mountains in between.

On the road

So, I needed a rental car and accommodation which finally, after considerable to-ing and fro-ing, the Spanish Tourist Office agreed to fund — though imposing severe time limits on my research trips. No siestas! Over long years of writing solo travel-guides covering vast countries such as India, Mexico and Indonesia, I’d been used to agonisingly tight, complex schedules, but this project turned out to be different.

In fact, by the time I had finished the first research trip I was totally bushed, hardly sleeping due to the angst of getting through the next day. When I meet people and tell them what I do – “food and travel writing” – they inevitably respond “oh how wonderful! lucky you! my dream job!”. Ha ha, if only they knew!

There I was tearing across eastern and central Andalucia (without Sat-Nav), negotiating city traffic, one-way systems, squeezed underground car-parks and twisting sierra roads, sometimes covering two restaurants in a day, meeting chefs and restaurateurs (on my best behaviour), interviewing in Spanish, noting down recipes, styling dishes for the photos – and yes, eating!

Let’s say tasting, as my appetite was soon stretched to its limit. In one case I had to do an entire shoot of six dishes in an hour due to the imminent opening of the restaurant to the public; in another, the chef hadn’t realised I needed to take photos, so the dishes weren’t ready. Yet another kept changing our rendezvous according to how many diners were in his restaurant that afternoon. WhatsApp thus became a vital tool.

When the second research trip loomed, I was much wiser and paced myself. Still, in Spain there’s always some unexpected curveball. In this case it was a puente – or long holiday weekend, which meant restaurants were far too busy to deal with a demanding foreign food writer. Luckily, over the coming months, I managed to fill in a few gaps with side-trips from my house. Then, oddly, I even started to feel nostalgic for the adrenalin rush of those frenetic research trips.

Piecing the jigsaw together

Once the writing started, I realised that there would be four entwined threads running through the book. My starting-point was an investigation into the culinary legacy of nearly 800 years of Muslim Al-Andalus, therefore historical; secondly I wanted to reflect contemporary Andalucian cooking in typical restaurants; thirdly I wanted to interweave travelogue to give a sense of a personal journey across this magical, diverse land, and fourthly I needed to introduce my own story. Because why should I, an Englishwoman, be writing about Andalucia?

Hardly straightforward. However this can of worms turned out to be a godsend. I hope that the end result is a book which works on several levels – from the three separate introductions (The Andalusian Kitchen – then and now; Al-Andalus – a brief history; Andalusia and Me) to three travel diaries inserted between the regional breakdown (East, Centre, West) as well as portraits of twenty or so cooks and chefs. 

When it came to laying out the book itself, including selecting from my hundreds of photos, I worked with an incredibly patient US-based designer who was open to my suggestions. I also kept finding little jewels - snapshots of Andalucian eccentricities, traditions or landscapes – from my archive of 25 years or so (my analogue slides from before that mostly gather dust) which the designer cleverly slotted in among the recent shoots.

Recipes and restaurants

And then of course there are over 100 luscious, varied recipes, fine-tuned by me and my copy editor from the initial notes. Some are sophisticated, such as those from the Michelin-star restaurant, Alejandro (sadly now closed for retirement), on the Almerian coast - but who could resist their cherry and tomato gazpacho? Or the succulent Lamb confit with couscous? In fact this was one of the few restaurants I found that used couscous, inherited from the Moroccan migrants of Al-Andalus.

I’ll admit to a penchant for country-style cooking, and this I found in the mountains of central Andalucia. At La Alcadima in the Alpujarras, south of Granada, a sustaining Butternut squash soup with almonds, egg and bacon won me over instantly. Further northwest, in the lesser known hills of La Subbetica, blanketed in olive groves, I indulged in wonderful fusions of fruit and meat such as Duck leg with quince (at Finca Las Encinas) and then their mouth-watering Stewed rabbit with olives and sherry — a classic in that rustic hunting-ground.

The place where I sourced most dishes with clear al-Andalus heritage was, not surprisingly, Cordoba, the first Islamic capital in Spain. Here I interviewed the ageing doyen of andalusi gastronomy who had even cooked for blackguards such as the dictator, Franco, and disgraced former king, Juan Carlos. Above all this gastro-pioneer recovered Moorish dishes from a 13th century Baghdadi manuscript - the source of many intriguing recipes that found their way to southern Spain. Today similar dishes such as Remojon (cod, orange and olive salad), Aubergine fritters or Mozarabic meatballs in almond and saffron sauce can be found at any branch of Bodegas Mezquita. Jewish cuisine features in this atmospheric city, too, due to the community that prospered before its expulsion in 1492 by the Catholic conquerors; at Casa Mazal I discovered Duck couscous and a complicated Slow-roasted lamb jam. But perhaps the highlight of my trawl through the centre of Andalucia was Restaurant Plaza de Toros which I found inside a vast bullring dating from 1848; their Porra (a version of Cordoba’s much loved Salmorejo) hit the spot as did the Stewed Partridge with rosemary.

Down near the coast I discovered even greater Middle Eastern influence at El Jardin, owned by a British chef who chose to settle in the stunning pueblo blanco of Frigiliana and introduce Lebanese ingredients. Hard to beat his Coffee-roasted Medjool dates with labneh as a dessert.

Out to the West, source of peerless seafood, sherry, rice, fighting bulls and Seville’s dazzling choice of tapas bars. Here La Eslava is now legendary for its inventive tapas and main courses; the bar section heaves with aficionados, many after a perennial favourite, Spareribs baked in honey.

Forested hills also enter the picture on this side of the region, notably the verdant Sierra de Aracena where black pigs snuffle acorns in autumn, to later become that Spanish religion: jamon iberico. At the refined village restaurant, Arrieros, I obtained a recipe for Marinated Iberian pork with raisin couscous - a perfectly balanced delight. In the Cadiz area came exceptionally fresh and varied seafood, visible at its huge market - a feast of gleaming fish and crustaceans with massive hunks of atun rojo (bluefin tuna), only fished in season using a Phoenician technique. Here I sourced superb recipes at El Faro, part of the greatest food dynasty of Cadiz. Their delicate fish soup with orange is a winner, as are their Clams with spinach and brandy, and Mozarabic monkfish with a sweet wine, raisins and pine-nut sauce.

My gastro-journey was not quite over, as I then made a pilgrimage south to a simple country venta - once a wayside inn, a typical Andalucian tradition - to meet a legend: Teresa Montero, now in her 90s. This warm-hearted, much lauded woman, backed up by some of her 11 children, still cooks fabulous comfort food such as Wild venison in sherry sauce with rice - or Chicken with rice and wine. Not far away, in a verdant valley, I tracked down a younger version, Angeles Sanchez, whose intuitive cooking produces luscious dishes like Pasta with wild mushroom sauce or a sumptuous Confit pork belly with apricots, prunes, dates and orange. 

So here you have it again - even if pork is hardly reflective of Muslim Spain, the mix of dates and other dried fruits with meat is unremittingly andalus. An influence that endures - always with a twist.

About the author

Fiona Dunlop is a seasoned travel and food-writer who has been ‘abroad’ for much of her life. She doesn’t count countries but aims to dig deep beneath the surface of the places she visits. Food has increasingly become her focus, without forgetting art, architecture and design. Andalucia is her second home, but French her second language!

Two more of Fiona’s cookbooks can be found on ckbk alongside Andaluz: New Tapas (which includes a chapter on Andalucian tapas), and The North African Kitchen.

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