Praski’s Mini-Guide to Catalan Food

If you’re a bit of a foodie and like to try out different cuisines, here’s something a bit less obvious that you may not have thought of - Catalan Food.

Praski’s Mini-Guide to Catalan Food by Jan Sandford tells a little bit about the nature of this region's cooking and introduces you to some typical, mouth watering recipes. Here are few extracts form the book.

Having already written three books in my Praski Mini Food Guide Series I decided I would like to include a book covering Spanish cooking. I spent a lot of time travelling through Spain every year for ten years on my way to Portugal. The journeys were long, taking in many regions of this fascinating country. The problem is that Spain is a large country and doesn’t have one cuisine; I would say that there are six different culinary regions, consisting of Andalucía, Central Spain, Catalunya, the eastern region including Valencia, Galicia and Asturias (north of Spain) and the Pyrenees. As my books are only mini-guides I have decided to write a short book on each cuisine starting with the food of Cataluya.

For most Catalans, weekends and holidays are times when families get together for lunch. This is generally a lengthy meal lasting 2-3 hours, eaten outdoors, weather permitting. Barbecues in the garden are popular, on the beach and also in the countryside.

The feeling of being outdoors is prolonged and appreciated by collecting food that comes free, for example, wild asparagus, picked from the hedge grow in spring, mussels boiled on the craggy rocks in utensils filled with sea water in summer, mushrooms gathered from the forest floor in autumn, snails tenderly tweaked from blades of glass in the fields after rain has fallen, all the year round. Adding to this list there are delicacies that can be caught like fish on the line, partridge or quail from the hills. Catalans have a name for this regional style of food, Mar i Muntanya, which when translated means food from the mountains and the sea.

To find out more, you can buy the book at a very affordable price from Amazon.

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