Tomasina Miles is very posh and incredibly enthusiastic, and has a fetching gap between her front teeth. She won Masterchef and now owns a Mexican restaurant in London called Wahaca (she clearly doesn't trust English-speakers to pronounce Oaxaca without help, but as it's in Covent Garden all her guests will be American, probably, so she may have a point). Now she's touring Spain to talk about and cook food for Channel 4. Last night's first show narrowly missed the Alpujarra - she was in Almeria, cooking not Almerian dishes like olla de trigo or gurullos, but paella. From Valencia, the traditional rice producing region 300 miles away. Oh, and ajo blanco (she insisted on calling it "white gazpacho") from Malaga, 125 miles in the other direction. This wouldn't have annoyed me had the show not made such a big thing about travelling around the country to discover authentic local specialities. She did correctly identify salmorejo as a dish from Cordoba, but she prepared it in her kitchen in England and we didn't get so much as a glimpse of the Mezquita. Then it was off to Huelva for jamon de bellota and a matanza, which was a bit more fun, what with intestines having the fecal matter squeezed out of them before they could be turned into sausages. As with most depictions of rural Spain, there were lots of incredibly fit old people running around killing and cooking things at an age when most self-respecting British people are dead, or at least suffering from Alzheimer's. Next week she's off to Castilla for saffron, but what's the betting she prepares a Basque fisherman's stew while she's in Toledo?
Anyway, despite my criticisms I think you'll enjoy it if you love Spain and food. When it comes around to buying the book of the series, though, don't. Get Sam and Sam Clark's Casa Moro instead.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Casa-Moro-Cookbook-Sam-Clark/dp/0091894492
1 comment:
This blog is really interesting.I love Spanish food very much and i have tried many spanish recipes which i got from YouTube , recipe books and many other website at home. I like visiting Spanish restaurants in weekend.
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