Introduction

The New Spanish Table is the result of my two decades of travel in Spain, an exhilarating odyssey across one of the world’s greatest foodscapes. The first time I visited the country was in the early eighties, as it was awakening from the isolation and destitution of the Franco years. I was instantly smitten with the regional rigor, the immense pull of traditions, the purity and warmth of the food culture. I became hooked on the rustic asadores of Castile where macho maestros roasted suckling lamb in wood-burning ovens. When I visited Valencia and Alicante expecting to find only one kind of paella, I stumbled upon whole cults devoted to rice. In the Basque country, I went crazy for pinxtos, the ornate local version of tapas. In Catalonia I marveled at the Mediterranean grace of the coastal cocina and at the intriguing inland combinations like salt cod with honey or rabbit with chocolate. In Andalusia I ate my way through an encyclopedia of gazpachos and stayed up until madrugada (dawn) gulping sherry at smoky flamenco dives.