Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain by Penelope Casas Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain
Book Review: The little dishes of Spain
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a reasonable book. Probably the best of its type on Tapas; although some dishes may be plain and simple. Book Review: Some good recipes but not for everyone
Summary: 3 Stars
I love tapas and became hooked on them while living in various cities. There are some good recipes in the book and it is authentic, however there are lots of recipes that call for head cheese, pigs feet, lamb brains (I kid you not). Frankly, I am not interested in experimenting with food that consists of pig feet, etc. I ordered this book based on previous reviews, however I wish they gave me the total picture as knowing what I know now and the small # of recipes I actually would try I would not have bought this book. Book Review: Leading Title of both Spanish and Little Bite Recipes
Summary: 5 Stars
`Tapas, the Little Dishes of Spain' by noted Spanish cookbook specialist Penelope Casas is one of my very favorite types of books which Ms. Casas has brought off with great success. It is part of his great influence on American culinary writing that even this recent book written after the death of Craig Claiborne, still shows his fingerprints as a major influence on Ms. Casas actually producing the book.
This is only the second book on Spanish cuisine I have reviewed, and it is clearly more valuable than the first, `My Kitchen in Spain' by Janet Mendel. While both Casas and Mendel know Spanish cuisine as well as anyone writing in English, Casas is a bit more of the scholar which shows in her deeper background information on the nature and origins of `Tapas' and the great variety of Spanish tapas bars in Spain. This variety should be no surprise to someone familiar with the Italian food scene, as it closely parallels the variety of `restaurante', `trattoria', `osteria', and `enoteca' in Italy. The book also benefits, I'm sure, from the firm hand of the `El Suprimo' of cookbook editors, Janet Jones.
A quick look at the book gives one the sense that it is a no nonsense collection of recipes with few frills and an emphasis on number of recipes rather than on the quality of recipe writing. This is a mistaken impression. The very first thing I did was to compare Ms. Casas' recipe for the tapas poster child, `Tortilla a la Espanola' with that in Ms. Mendel's book (which I have just finished making) and find that Ms. Casas' description is virtually identical to Ms. Mendel's with the added touch of suggesting to interleave sliced onions with the potatoes rather than just sprinkling in chopped onions. This simple change is eminently in keeping with the consistency you want, where you don't want the potato slices to stick together to create an undifferentiated mass of potato. Ms. Casas also adds a mini-recipe for a tomato sauce to the Tortilla, something I have seen with no other recipe for this dish. But then, I give credit back to Ms. Mendel for largely duplicating a recipe from a book that specializes in Tapas recipes.
Aside from the quality of the recipes, the large number of recipes, and the very informative introduction to the subject, the next best thing about the book is the organization of recipes into chapters that most easily distinguish styles of preparation and presentation. The chapters are:
Tapas in sauce
Marinades, Pates, Salads, and Other Cold Tapas
Tapas with Bread or Pastry
Tapas with Some Last Minute Preparation
I'm tempted to say that this organization could be have been taken one or two steps further. It would not have been hard to imagine all the frittata styled dishes to be in a separate chapter. The author warns us to not serve too many similar tapas at one party. For example, don't do too many bread based tapas at one time. This (and tapas in general) remind me of Thomas Keller's rationale behind small servings. He argues that the first bite impresses, the second bite verifies that the first was not a fluke, and with the third bite, boredom starts to set in. One could easily apply the same logic to using tapas as the basis for an entire meal. Otherwise, even if tapas are served in their usual role as a supplement to sipping sherry or other afternoon drink, they should still be kept small so as to not blunt the appetite for supper.
This book is an excellent supplement to Clifford A. Wright's `Little Foods of the Mediterranean', Joyce Goldstein's book `Enoteca', Anissa Helou's `Mediterranean Street Food', Diane Kochilas' `Meze' and Carol Field's `Italy in Small Bites'.
Highly recommended.
Book Review: A Good Introduction to Tapas
Summary: 4 Stars
This is one of Penelopes first books and in my opinion it rates a bit higher than ok. I don't want to be too harsh as the book is 20 years old but the downside is that it is poorly assembled with all of the photos at the center of the book and brief descriptions for each dish.
Having said this there are many many recipes (about two on each of 200 pages) making this a good source of ideas and information, but if you're planning on flipping through looking for a photo of something appealing, this is not the book for you.
Book Review: One of my "Must Have" Cookbooks
Summary: 5 Stars
If I had to weed down my cookbook library to just 5 books this would be one of them. I have been visiting, living, working & eating in Spain for some 40 years and whenever I read this book it takes me back to tapas that I have eaten & the bars I have visited. The recipes are 100% authentic and mostly easy to make - the anecdotes about the sources of the recipes fascinating.