Remembering The Great Donn Pohren: His Passing & His Significance "Embedded in me like a memory chip is the spirit of Donn Pohren and his book Adventures in Taste: The Wines and Folk Food of Spain."

* * * * *

Madrid, Spain - American writer and well-known Flamencologist Donn Pohren died in Las Rozas [a Madrid suburb] on November 5, 2007. His wife, Luisa Maravillas provided a brief statement: "I regret to inform you all that Donn passed away the 5th of November, during the night. Sometime in the near future I intend to organize a gathering of friends and aficionados in Las Rozas."  - - Contributed by: WMC_News_Dept.  11/07/2007 08:35AM

Donn Pohren was regarded as one of the leading experts in Flamenco in the English language and wrote several influential books about the subject. "Donn Pohren's book was the first thing I bought when arriving in Andalucía, before I even knew how much my life would be involved with and changed by flamenco. It helped me understand a lot that was to come," says British expatriate Kate Edbrooke, who runs a recording studio in Granada and has produced several Flamenco recordings by local artists.  Pohren wrote several books on Flamenco, including The Art of Flamenco, Lives and Legends of Flamenco and A Way of Life.  He and his wife Luisa ran the Society for Spanish Studies, first out of Morón de la Frontera and later from Rozas outside of Madrid.

Que descansa en una juerga de “pura ma're” with a copita in front of him
and Diego del Gastor playing alongside him.

* * * * *
The Significance of Flamencologist Donn Pohren

and His Impact on Spanish Wine & Food
 
Copyright by Gerry Dawes 2017. 

In 1972, Donn Pohren, a Minneapolis-born American who lived in Spain for decades and was the world's greatest foreign expert on flamenco, published his idiosyncratic underground classic, Adventures in Taste: The Wines and Folk Food of Spain. I was living in southern Spain when I first encountered Pohrens's book (privately printed in Spain) soon after it was published and it had a profound effect on me. In the early years, I never traveled without it. At first, I merely wanted to have some of the wine and food experiences that he had described. Soon, I was having new experiences of my own, experiences that would eventually lead to my becoming a widely published writer on Spanish wine and food and a recognized authority in the field.

  

Donn Pohren's Adventures in Taste: The Wines and Folk Food of Spain

Adventures in Taste, self-published by Pohren in 1972.

Pohren wandered around the Iberian Peninsula in the 1960s exploring the nooks and crannies of Spain's 4,000,000 acres of vineyard lands, the largest acreage of any country in the world. He would pop into a village bar, ask for a glass of the local vino, then casually ask who made the best wine in town. On many occasions, Pohren would soon find himself being offered several samples as one vintner after another vied to show this foreigner that his wine was the best in the village. In his book, Pohren described encounter after encounter with artisan winemakers who were making excellent wines, many of which were unknown to the outside world in those days.

Pohren's Map of the Wine Regions of North Central

 (He did not cover Galicia!)

However, many of the wines Pohren described were wines whose charm soon faded if anyone tried to transport them beyond the boundaries of their home region. The winemaking techniques were often primitive. In many places the grapes were still crushed by treading, then fermented in open stone or cement vats, and aged in less than meticulously cared for barrels. The result was a flawed wine, which often tasted good with the local food, but was simply not stable enough to "travel" and was not the stuff to thrill sophisticated wine connoisseurs. Still, Don Pohren swore by the inherent quality of many of these Spanish wines and he was right.

His experiences have always been in the back of my mind and have served me well on numerous occasions, such as an encounter on my first trip to then unknown Priorat in 1988. Firmly in Pohren's shoes, I entered an old-fashioned, untidy cellar, where I was given a flawed wine to taste, but the underlying base wine was clearly very good. I judged the prospects for this region to be so promising that I came back wrote the first major article about the potential of Priorat. Alvaro Palacios and crew arrived the next year and began to make history. Recently, in Ribeira Sacra, I have run into some flawed wines (less so every year), just as a did in Priorat nearly twenty years earlier. Tasting "underneath" the sometimes inexperienced wine making techniques, I found enormous potential. I know Donn would have as well.

What Pohren tasted in those wines while researching his book forty years ago was the materia prima (raw material; grapes, soil and climate), the exceptional juice from grapes which often came from old vines, whose average yield of wine per acre of vines was less than half that allowed by the best appellations of Burgundy and Bordeaux.  Even backward winemaking techniques couldn't keep the underlying quality from showing through; Pohren's Spanish wines were diamonds in the rough.

In the years since Donn Pohren wrote his book, exciting things have happened which promise an incredible future for both Spain's traditional wines and those of emerging wine regions. Spain's nearly four decades-old democracy has been the catalyst for a modern renaissance in fashion, art, literature, cinema, and gastronomy and it has ushered in a technological revolution in wine making as well. A key element in this was Spain's acceptance in 1992 as a member of the European Economic Community, the Common Market (now the European Union), which posed a special challenge to Spanish wine producers: compete on a quality level with the other wines of Europe or enter the over-saturated European wine "lake," and be lost in the crowd.

Fortunately, Spain opted for quality. Many forward looking people in the Spanish wine trade began to see Spain's entry into the European Union as both a new challenge and a new opportunity for their wines. These challenges and opportunities would require a reassessment of their positions in both the domestic and export markets, an upgrading of their winemaking technology, and consistent quality in their wines. Emile Peynaud, Alexis Lichine, and other consultants were brought in from France to advise winemakers in the Rioja, Ribera del Duero, and Rueda. The best enologists from Rioja, Penedes, and Navarra traveled to other regions share their expertise. Young Spanish winemakers trained in Bordeaux, Burgundy, and at the University of California - Davis. Miguel Torres Riera, the maestro of Catalan winemaking, and Jose Peñin, Spain's foremost wine authority, wrote important books about Spain's future in the wine world. New wine books, periodicals, and gourmet journals proliferated. Seminars, international wine symposiums, and wine competitions began to be conducted on a regular basis. And, importantly, wine clubs and societies were formed as an increasingly affluent and growing middle class in Spain began to appreciate the wines of its own country.

During the past several decades, investments in new wine making technology (especially in the area of fermentation control), better barrels (although accompanying by a lot of oak abuse!), experiments with new grape varietals, and the replanting of vineyards in some areas have begun to have a geometric effect on the overall quality level of Spanish wines. This progress in winemaking technique in Spain would not in itself account for such a dramatic effect–in fact, it is now often a detriment to authenticity--if it were not for the fact that Spain is a splendid natural vineyard endowed with many areas whose grape varietals have become perfectly acclimated over centuries to the micro-climate and soil in which they grow. 

All that was needed in many cases were winemakers dedicated to quality and the technology to achieve it. The grapes produced in the best wine areas of Spain–Rioja, Jerez, Cataluna, Ribera del Duero, Navarra, Rueda, and in many up and coming regions–have shown they are capable of producing wines which can stand alongside the best of France, Italy, and California. The Tempranillo of the Rioja and Ribera del Duero, for example, is coming to be recognized as a grape which can produce wines to rival those made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, or Pinot Noir.

The established, classic wine regions of Spain like Rioja and Jerez, while refining the techniques and polishing the skills which made them famous, also created exciting new areas of interest with small estates like Remelluri and Contino in Rioja and the emergence of such high-quality wines as the almacenista sherries of Emilio Lustau and the late harvest Navarra moscatels from Julián Chivite, Ochoa and Viña Aliaga. Other areas whose wines were once underground legends in Spain, like those described by Donn Pohren, but whose viticulture was based on tiny artisan producers and ill-equipped cooperatives, began to realize their potential for making great wines.

Ribera del Duero, home of Vega Sicilia, Pesquera, Mauro, and Viña Pedrosa; Navarra, the producer of perhaps the world's finest rosés; Priorato (Cataluna) and Toro (Castilla-Leon), whose rich, concentrated, blockbuster red wines have drawn international attention; Rueda, a surprising white wine region; and Rías Baixas, whose Albariños now count the U.S. as its most important export market, are just the most visible of the emerging wine regions capable of making first rate wine from native grapes. There are many more to come. 

Previously unknown regions–not many of which unknown to Donn Pohren–such as Bierzo, Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra, Valdeorras and Monterrei, along with Jumilla and many others–have either jumped onto the world wine stage or are just in the wings awaiting their call to stardom. Producers like Miguel Torres in Penedes, Julián Chivite in Navarra, Carlos Falcó at Dominio de Valdepusa and Codorniu's Raimat estate, just to name a few examples, have achieved new heights with foreign varietals, though even the best examples often fall short of the intriguing, delicious, uniquely Spanish wines made from indigenous varieties–the kinds of wines that Donn Pohren loved.

Embedded in me like a memory chip is the spirit of Donn Pohren and his Adventures in Taste.  Following his example, I still ferret out little known producers and drive many kilometers out-of-the-way just to eat a dish in a little-known regional restaurant and, like Don, look beyond rusticity (or fancy trappings in some places) to find the core of something that is undeniably wonderful and unique to Spain. Only adventurers and indefatigable travelers can do what Donn Pohren did. I can attest to how indefatigable and adventurous he was from averaging six trips a year to Spain (eight per year in the past five years).

Without Don Pohren’s book (and to a great degree, James A. Michener’s Iberia) I may have never caught the spirit of the Spanish road that has sustained me now for more than 50 years. For that I owe Donn a now un-redeemable debt of gratitude and so do people such as Steve Metzler, who built a great and exemplary Spanish wine importing company, Classical Wines, based on his Pohren-inspired wine travels. Because of Donn, Metzler was inspired to find not only Pesquera and make Alejandro Fernandez's wine world famous, he even met his wife, Almudena. Neither of us saw Don Pohren as much as we would have liked to over the years, but fortunately several years ago in Madrid, I had an opportunity to let Donn know just how much his work meant to me and to the many who carry Spain in their hearts.

Pohren visited my late former wife Diana and I for lunch at our house in Mijas (Málaga) in 1974.  

Donn autographed Adventures in Taste to us.

I will miss the fact that Donn is no longer with us in body, but he will never die in the spirits and hearts of those who followed his incredible Quixotesque passion for Spain, flamenco, Spanish wine and traditional food and all things Spanish. (Quixote may have been a dreamer, but not a madman; those windmills he was tilting at were brought from the low countries and represented the domination of the foreign House of Austria, a powerful, inquisition wielding force that crushed those who dissented like Don Quixote after his encounter with the windmill sails.)

Donn Pohren was a dreamer and he may have seemed like a madman when he lived his life like a candle in the wind during his awesome flamenco juerga years, but to me Donn Pohren was a profound inspiration and he always will be. 

Vaya con Dios, Don Donn. I will raise a copita to you often in my journeys. I can see the angels lining up now for a juerga--a Spanish wine, food and flamenco party--the likes of which even heaven hasn’t seen.

The End

Gerry Dawes©2026
gerrydawes@aol.com

 

* * * * * 

 

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

* * * * *

  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?

 

Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,

in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

In 2026, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2026 by Feedspot, now up to #7 . (Last Updated September 2026.) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

#7 Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

 
About Gerry Dawes

My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019

Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

 

Looking Back: Food Arts Magazine Silver Spoon Award Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak July 2003

Ferran Adrià.

Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak

by Gerry Dawes / July 2003 

Food Arts presents the July/August 2003 Silver Spoon Award for plata de ley performance to two Spaniards, Basque chef Juan Mari Arzak, the Wilbur Wright of modern Spanish Cuisine, and Ferran Adrià, the Catalan wizard who has taken Spanish food into the culinary stratosphere. Arzak, chef/owner of the Michelin three-star Arzak in San Sebastián, is revered as the father of Spanish cucina nueva vasca (new Basque cuisine), a cooking doctrine that was the vital bridge between traditional Spanish food and an internationally oriented modern cuisine. Adrià, chef/partner of the now mythical Michelin three-star El Bulli, which overlooks an isolated seaside cove two hours north of Barcelona, is widely considered to be the most innovative, creative, original, and, to some, best chef in the world.

The 60-something Arzak and 40-year old Adrià have led the dizzying ascendancy of Spanish gastronomy to the point where a growing number of savvy culinary professionals, including envious Frenchmen, now consider Spanish chefs to be the most exciting in Europe. Arzak is not alone in believing that "at this moment, Spain has one of the most important cuisines in the world." On these pilgrimages to see the two maestros and other great Spanish chefs, many culinarians have also discovered the glories of traditional Spanish cuisine; thus, Arzak and Adrià have helped raise all boats in their wake.

Arzak was born in the building that houses Arzak (once his family's tavern/restaurant). He learned the basics at his mother's side and, through intelligence and imagination, elevated his family's restaurant to the Michelin three-star pantheon in 1989. With his daughter Elena in the kitchen alongside him, Arzak adds twists to traditional Basque dishes such as ventresca de bonito, lightly smoked cuts of choice bonito belly speared with a mentholated bone. El Viejo Rockero (The Old Rocker), as Arzak sometimes calls himself, still claims that his favorite dish is fried farmhouse eggs served with roasted red peppers.

Adrià, the creator of wildly imitated foams and other coolly calculated concoctions meant to stimulate the brain as well as the palate, is now the most sought after chef in the world. His recently published book, elBulli 1998-2002 (with brother/pastry chef Alberto Adrià and restaurant partner Juli Soler), the first in what will be three volumes celebrating Andrià's 20 years at El Bulli, will not be published in English until later this year, yet acolytes have bought up more than 100 copies at $175 a pop at Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City "as if it cost $14.95," reports Nach Waxman, the bookstore's owner. 

Adrià's menus, conceived in his off-premise laboratory during El Bulli's five month winter hibernation, are controversial, electrifying feats of artistic and technological virtuosity. His menú de degustación can total 30 samples of what might be called "tapas with attitude," several of which are indeed served on a silver spoon. Like Arzak's, Adrià's favorite dish is somewhat more plebeian: skillet cooked green asparagus, sprinkled with olive oil and sea salt, please hold the foam.

___________________________________________________  

About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

 In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

 ". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series  
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Food Arts Silver Spoon Award December (Written by José Andrés)

* * * * *

Some days, the Gods smile on you.  Tuesday, December 1, 2009, was one of those days for me. When I came home from Thanksgiving weekend there was a FedEx envelope on my front porch. In it was the December issue of Food Arts, which contained my Silver Spoon Award. The profile was written by my friend, the great chef-restaurateur-television personality-and expert on Spanish cuisine, José Andrés, whose new restaurant Bazaar has taken Los Angeles by storm.

I am very grateful to José for his kinds words in this supremely gratifying piece and to Michael and Ariane Batterberry, founders and publishers of Food Arts, and to my editor Jim Poris, who selected me for this prestigious award and got José to write it.

And many, many thanks--miles de gracias--to Ferran Adrià, the great Catalan chef whom many consider to be the greatest--and certainly the most innovative--chef in the world, who contributed this: 

 

"Spain wouldn't be as known to Americans without the stories Gerry tells and writes."


But, few lines could be better than the ones José Andrés wrote, especially these:


"As a young chef arriving in America from Spain in the early 1990s, I came to see Gerry as an ally. At the time, I found myself struggling to explain Spanish cooking because people either had no idea or they had the wrong idea.  It was a battle.  But Gerry's writing meant I was not alone in telling Americans about piquillos and escudella and jamón.  At a time when most food journalists were writing about France and Italy, Gerry went off in his own direction to become to first to really tell the story of Spain."


Like I said, some days the Gods smile on you and when the culinary Gods smile on you that is some great day indeed. For many years I have lived believing that the greatest day of my life is still ahead of me, not behind me. Receiving the Silver Spoon Award made this one of my greatest days and it also re-affirmed that the best day of all is still ahead.


Mil gracias a todos, Gerry

From Food Arts Silver Spoon Award December 2009 Gerry Dawes

____________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television
series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Food Talk with Mike Colameco WOR Radio 710AM New York

Mike Colameco speaks with Gerry Dawes about his expertise on Spanish food and drink. October 30, 2008


About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

New Spanish Cookbooks

Fall, 2006

With the publication in the U. S. of four more major Spanish cookbooks in the past several months, the good news for Spanish gastronomy and food products just keeps coming. For years, the only serious Spanish cookbooks that one encountered in the major bookstores were those of pioneer author Penelope Casas, whose body of work grew to more than half a dozen high-quality interpretations of Spanish cuisine over a period of some twenty years, including last year’s La Cocina de Mama. During the same period Janet Mendel, who lives in the village of Mijas on the Costa del Sol, was also publishing several Spanish cookbooks, but their circulation was confined mostly to Europe until recently.

Then came Teresa Barrenechea’s The Basque Table, which joined Colman Andrew’s classic Catalan Cuisine, in highlighting Spanish cuisines regional distinctions. And with the publication in English and importation of new wave cuisine books in Spanish–such as those by super star chef Ferran Adrià on his world-famous restaurant El Bullí–the library of culinary writing on Spain (coupled with its international acceptance as the new culinary mecca), has grow exponentially to lay the foundation for this year’s explosion of new literature. Now, four excellent new books are on the market: Teresa Barrenechea’s The Cuisines of Spain>: Exploring Regional Home Cooking (Ten Speed Press), Janet Mendel’s Cooking From the Heart of Spain, José Andrés’s Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America, and Anya Von Bremzen’s The New Spanish Table, all of which call for Spanish products and list American purveyors where readers can find them.

Barrenechea’s The Cuisines of Spain has the endorsements of four of Spain’s three-star chefs: Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak, Martín Berasategui and Santi Santamaría. Adrià wrote “Barrenechea captures the essence of our country’s authentic regional cooking in a way never before accomplished.” And Arzak says she has “transmitted the true essence of our regional cuisines through this book.” Barrenechea, in Chapter Two, The Spanish Kitchen has valuable essays on such Spanish ingredients as extra virgen olive oil, sherry vinegar, Spanish cured jamones (both Serrano and Ibérico), piquillo peppers, pimentón de La Vera (paprika), esparragos de Navarra and azafrán (saffron).

Janet Mendel, in her Cooking From the Heart of Spain, emphasizes that “La Mancha’s culinary roots are rural, but beneath their sturdy simplicity, a rich Moorish and Sephardic heritage imbues Manchegan cooking with an aroma of refinement, of delicate complexity. Some of Spain’s most outstanding products come from this region,” Mendel says, “Manchego cheese, saffron, fine wines, serrano ham, and extra virgin olive oil. To give the foods a sense of place, I tell stories about an artisanal cheese maker, a revolutionary wine maker, harvesting saffron, trout fishing, a partridge shoot and making Marzipan in Toledo.”

José Andrés, star of his own wildly popular Spanish television cooking series, Vamos a Cocinar, and executive chef of Washington, D. C. ’s Jaleo, Café Atlantico and its renowned avant-garde tapas Minibar and several other restaurants in the nation’s capital, was recently named Chef of the Year by both Bon Appétit magazine and the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (Rammy awards). His Tapas: A Taste of Spain, Andrés concentrates on modern small-plate tapas such dishes as lobster with clementines and grapefruit in saffron oil, slow-roasted beef tenderloin with Cabrales cheese and octopus with Spanish extra virgin olive oil and pimentón).

To promote her book on Powells bookseller’s website (Powells.com), Anya Von Bremzen, in a wonderful essay about her experiences in writing The New Spanish Table, wrote “Experimental chefs swoon over the luminous quality of native (Spanish) ingredients and the rigorous simplicity of classic preparations — hanging out at old tabernas, tascas, and tapas bars along with the rest of Spanish gourmands. Meanwhile, owners of old-school restaurants send their children and business heirs to apprentice with new-wave maestros for progressive kitchen tricks. I don't know any other place on the globe where the union of old and new is so strong. In the end it's this marriage of tradition and innovation that makes eating in Spain such a thrilling adventure.”

Von Bremzen’s essay sums it up very well. These days, eating in Spain and the quality of Spanish ingredients is indeed is indeed “a thrilling adventure.”