[Spanish cuisines and dependency on raw ingredients]

Some things are fakeable, yes, but some others are simply out of the realm of possibility, John, and let me insist: you cannot, absolutely, have Castilian lechazo asado in New York today - no ifs and buts.

Now if someone begins importing Castilian baby lamb into the US... But see, here's the fact: they are not doing so. Or angulas or secreto de ibérico or saffron-cap agarics... When the products become available, we'll talk about the talent of cooks using them. Since they are not available, it's a moot point.

[Spanish cuisines and dependency on raw ingredients]

Let's see, John. We're not in a macho contest to see which produce from which country is best. The discussion here is on the importance of ingredients for authenticity in Spanish traditional cuisine. I say it's crucial for many dishes, and you say with 'replacement ingredients' the results can be very satisfying, thus agreeing with José Andrés' mantra. They can, but in many cases the dish will be so thoroughly transformed that it will bear no resemblance with the original and therefore should be called something different.

Let's take a reverse example. I've been for many years very fond of a dish that is, nowadays, rather unfashionable (not to mention politically incorrect from a dietary viewpoint): New England clam chowder. Well, I make a pretty tasty chowder here in Spain, but I never call it 'New England clam chowder' even though there are potatoes and smoked bacon and cream in it, because I cannot add what I consider a crucial element: huge, fresh quahog clams, of a size that will allow me to chop them into small morsels, are just not available in Europe. So I cook a very good 'New England-inspired' chowder with nice large Atlantic 'almejas', but the taste and texture are just not the same. I have to go to Boston to taste the real thing again.

You have tasted roast Castilian lamb in Spain, if I remember right. Do you sincerely believe that you can go to any market in New York and purchase a lamb that will enable you to replicate the recipe, the taste, the texture... the whole culinary experience?

(Reminds me of a rather infamous example from way back when Mama Leone's still existed in New York, and a visiting Italian soccer star was taken there for lunch. He later said: "Well, that dish they call lasagna here was not at all like what we call lasagna in Italy"… Of course, Babbo and Il Mulino are much better than Mama Leone's and the whole Italian scene in NYC is so vastly improved now.)

I've thought of some key regional dishes and of their adaptation to US produce availability. For example (a very partial list):

Catalonia:

Cargols a la llauna (seared snails on a metal sheet): impossible to replicate because the specific 'bobero' snail, which lives in vineyards, is necessary.

Fricandó de vedella amb moixernons (a stew of milk-fed veal with rehydrated fiairy ring mushrooms, Marasmius oreades): easy to replicate because the dried mushrooms are available in tins

Calçotada (roasted fresh scallions/onions with a spicy romesco sauce): can only be imitated because the necessary type of Tarragona scallion/onion, always kept underground, is not available in the US.

Mandonguilles amb sèpia i pesols (meatballs with cuttlefish and green peas): easy to replicate.

Botifarra amb mongetes (butifarra pork sausage with kidney beans): can only be imitated because Spanish-made butifarra and the small 'ganxet' beans are not usually sold in the US.

Valencia:

Paella valenciana can only be imitated using dried rosemary instead of snails because the small 'vaqueta' snails that imparts the crucial rosemaryish flavor are not available.

Gambas rojas a la plancha (seared red prawns): cannot be replicated because the Denia red prawn is an entirely different

Castilla-La Mancha

Morteruelo, gazpachos manchegos, perdiz a la toledana: all of these recipes use wild red-legged partridge meat, which is unavailable in the US (unless purchased from Venison America, which rarely carries it), so they can only be imitated.

Castilla y León

Cordero/lechazo asado (roast baby lamb), cochinillo/tostón asado (roast sucling pig), cabrito asado (roast kid): the raw materials are not available in the US, so these roasts can only be imitated, with results that don't resemble the original.

Basque country:

Merluza en salsa verde (hake in a green sauce): impossible to replicate as hake is not usually available in the US. Scrod or codfish can be used for imitations.

Bacalao al pil pil (dried cod in a garlic emulsion): easy to replicate.

Besugo a la espalda (sea bream, split open and grilled): impossible to replicate as sea bream is not available in the US. Porgies and other members of the Sparidae family may be substituted for an imitation.

Angulas en cazuela (baby eels, pre-cooked and briefly reheated in olive oil with garlic and guindilla peppers): impossible to eplicate.

Galicia:

Lacón con grelos y cachelos (pork's fore leg with spicy chorizo sausage, potatoes and turnip flowers): can only be imitated using turnip greens, since turnip flowers are unavailable in the US.

Caldeirada de rape (monkfish stew): easy to replicate if you can find whole fresh monkfish.

Andalucía:

Gazpacho: easy to replicate

Secreto, entraña, pluma, engaño, lagarto, carrillera, sorpresa or pestorejo of Ibérico ham: these pork cuts are impossible to replicate, both in grilled dishes and in stews, because Ibérico pork products are not available in the US.

[Spanish cuisines and dependency on raw ingredients]

We're talking about recognizably Spanish cuisine here, so let's stick to that. I, for one, am not claiming 'absolute superiority' for a product over another one (although I have very little doubt as regards Ibérico pork vs. any other kind of pork in the world...), and that is certainly not my point. My point is: 'lechazo asado' is one of the great Spanish dishes, and you cannot have it in the United States because it demands a specific kind of baby lamb that is not available there, and a 40-lb New Zealand lamb just will not do (although it'll be great for other dishes).

My second point: despite vast improvement compared with a very sad and lacking past that I knew well, the availability of Spanish produce in the US remains absolutely marginal vis-à-vis the availability of French or Italian (or German or even Japanese) produce. Beginning with the still ongoing ban on Ibérico ham, of course, but with many more absences.

Oh. And Jaleo is not really much as a 'Spanish' restaurant, but it's interesting and fun as a 'Spanish-inspired' restaurant.

[Spanish cuisines and dependency on raw ingredients]

Ferran's products are pristine, no doubt - but not specifically Spanish. Fine beef, free-range chicken, can be found all over if you have the $$. With, for instance, 'llenega negra' (Hygrophorus latitabundus) from the Montseny mountains, it's not a mere matter of $$, but of going out there and picking those delicate mushrooms, or of knowing the people who pick them...

[Spanish cuisines and dependency on raw ingredients]

Sorry to say so, but José Andrés is full of......

'Decent' chorizo enables one to make a pleasant fabada in the US, granted - but how does he replace Ibérico ham (and Iberian pork cuts of fresh meat), churra breed lamb, red-legged partridges? How about Cantabrian sea bream, red prawns from Denia?

Indian Ocean fish, New Zealand lamb, San Marzano tomatoes, even bread baked in Paris are readily available in the US. But Spanish produce is scarce and usually not of the best quality. Spanish cheeses are kept in laughable condition at Dean& DeLuca, for instance.

As Barcelona-based French cook Philippe Regol rightly points out in his interesting blog (http://observaciongastronomica.blogspot.com/), in comparing the cuisines of Ferran Adrià and Santi Santamaria, Ferran's is much more publicized and celebrated internationally because of its brilliance, but it's actually easier to replicate or imitate all over the world because raw materials play a secondary role in it, whereas Santi's depends on elusive shellfish or wild mushrooms that are local, scarce and expensive, so either you visit Can Fabes or you won't be able to appreciate the experience.

On a more mundane level, traditional Spanish cuisine is heavily dependent on very specific raw materials - even more so than, say, regional French or Italian cuisines. There's not a lot of technique involved in roasting lamb Castilian-style - but if you don't use churra-breed lamb that's just a few weeks old, the result will be entirely different from the 'lechazo asado' as made in Campáspero or Roa...

Possibly José Andrés is too much into sushi these days to spend much time musing on such obvious facts...

[Restaurant openings]

Madrid seems to take its role as the new mecca of exotic cuisine in southern Europe (Ken Hom dixit) very seriously: if you compare the number of openings of traditional Spanish places with those of sushi bars, the rate may be three-to-one in favor of sushi right now. Add other Asian openings (from Vietnamese to Indian), and it's four-to-one... There's obviously a public, here as elsewhere in the Western world, for Asian cuisine, and younger people have taken to Japanese food with great enthusiasm.

Yet in contrast with this general trend, the greatest success story of the past few months in Madrid is certainly that of Las Tortillas de Gabino, a thoroughly Spanish and traditional restaurant where bookings must be made long in advance. The trick has ben to update, in a very modern décor, the cuisine that the Redruello family has been offering for 70 years in its two La Ancha 'tascas'.

The two youngest siblings, Nino and Santi Redruello, have launched this new branch which recalls the great Gabino, who created the house style for 'tortillas' (the Spanish version of omelets or frittatas, not of Mexican tortillas) back in the 1960s: they are cooked, only on one side, in round earthenware dishes, which hold the quasi-liquid omelet together. The classic 'de patatas' is one of them, but there are many others: 'guisada con callos' (on top of Madrid-style tripe), 'negra' (with squid), 'lascas de bacalao con crema de porrusalda' (with codfish slices and a leek-and-potato cream)... Terrific stuff.

They don't restrict themselves to tortillas and have other simple, tasty dishes ('croquetas de jamón ibérico' (Ibérico ham croquettes), 'carrillera de ternera glaseada' (glazed veal cheek), a simple salad of Kumato tomato and spring onion with extra virgin olive oil, some sautéed sirloin chunks... But the tortillas are the stars, no doubt. There seems to be still a market for traditional fare here - if cleverly updated.

Other openings of distinction in recent months in the Spanish capital:

-Real Café Bernabeu, a striking minimalist space inside the Real Madrid stadium, right above the playing field, with clever, modern, moderately priced fare designed by a talented but fickle Franco-Spanish chef, Ange García, who's back in town after 15 years. His deconstructed 'cocido madrileño' is brilliant, and his 'timbal de huevos rotos con tartare de bacalao ahumado' (a scramble of eggs-and-potatoes with a smoked codfish tartare) has become a quick star.

-Adoc, the ultra-sophisticated restaurant run by Etienne Bastaits, a fine, devoted Belgian chef previously at La Broche. Nice tongue-in-cheek deconstructed dish: 'tortilla española interpretada por un belga' ('Spanish omelet as interpreted by a Belgian'). Interesting trivia fact: the first written mention of a potato omelet anywhere in the then-Spanish empire is to be found in a 16th century Belgian text, back when Belgium was part of that empire.

-The wonderful library at the Santo Mauro Hotel, with an entirely new menu since the recent appointment of Carlos Posadas (ex-El Amparo) as chef. Luxurious but good cuisine: stewed partridge ravioli in a black truffle broth, hare 'civet' with a smoked eel stuffing.

-The entirely revamped and redecorated Boccondivino, Ignazio Deias' Sardinian restaurant that's one of the best outside Italy for the island's hearty cuisine. including the stupendous pasta, 'malloreddus', and such dishes as a mille-feuilles of Sardinian bread with pecorino sardo cheese, black truffles and a quail egg...

-A discreet, almost non-descript Mexican restaurant, El Chile Verde, with a young cook, Amalia Arévalo, who shows a light touch with classic fish ceviche or with 'cochinita pibil' tacos.

-And, of course, some other places we've already mentioned here such as Sudestada or Dominus.

I hear you asking: well, what about all those sushi bars? Well, the best one among the new ones I've been to is 19 Sushi Bar (Alex Moranda is an alum of Kabuki). But Kabuki and Miyama remain 'the' places in Madrid.

[Fabada]

Indeed, as butterfly says, the quality of the 'compango' (which is the Asturian name for the pork-based components of the fabada), plus the tenderness of the 'faba' kidney beans are crucial to the success of the fabada. The unavailability of those wonderful, smoked blood sausages abroad makes it difficult to replicate the dish outside of Spain. There is the not-negligible alternative, for nostalgia's sake, to stock up on canned fabada: these kinds of dishes take well to the tin. Some brands (Litoral, La Tila) do it particularly well.

BTW, in Madrid there are several highly authentic Asturian restaurants that will whip up a fabada that's pratically as good as the great ones at Lugones: El Oso is the undisputed leader, followed by Casa Portal, Casa Hortensia (which as recently moved to the Casa de Asturias regional house on calle Farmacia), La Hoja, Ferreiro, the great wine bar/restaurant Asturianos (featured this month in Wine & Spirits magazine) and the amazing Mesón Arturo, a bar in the nondescript suburb of Hortaleza. In many of these places there is a different, bean-based, lighter Asturian dish for those who have overdosed on fabada: pote asturiano.

[Tomatoes in Italian Cooking: Tips & Techniques]

There's a historical reason for the very early arrival of tomatoes to Naples, while they were ignored elsewhere in Italy: the kingdom of Naples belonged to the kingdom of Aragón and to Spain between 1443 and 1713, so that tomatoes naturally reached it from Mexico as rapidly as they reached Seville and the rest of southern Spain.

[Cinc sentits, Sant Pau, and Commerc 24]

You're perfectly right, Bux. In Spain, where until 10-15 years ago all cheeses of any consequence were hard cheeses, the habit has been to include wedges of cheese (manchego, but also idiazabal, roncal and the like) with slices of ham, olives and potato chips as basic pre-meal tapas. The growth of soft cheeses such as torta del Casar or Tou dels Til.lers, combined with the French influence, has accelerated the move to a cheese course at the end of the meal.

Indeed only in the UK do they eat cheese after dessert - but not only plain cheese, also such hot savoury dishes as Welsh rarebit! The French saying, 'entre la poire et le fromage', has led some to believe that the French used to do the same, since it appears to signal that a pear came first, then cheese. Current thinking goes that, in reality, back in the 14th century it wasn't a full dessert course that came before cheese, but just, specifically, an apple or a pear. The purpose would have been just to clear the palate, and if that's so, it would appear to me that this was a thoroughly modern use of fresh fruit!

[One Frenchman's take on things in Spain]

No, it does not IMHO. It reflects the interests of a majority of participants in eGullet - which is not such a large group, and is basically made up of residents in the US, where fixation with a few very precise Spanish subjects really is more marked than in other places. Simon qualifies as an honorary eGulleter, of course.

But, I insist: he did include Ca' Sento in Valencia. So his geographic restrictions were not so tight. His in-depth knowledge of the subject, OTOH, does seem faulty.

[One Frenchman's take on things in Spain]

I don't think so, Bux. If that was his intention, what's he doing mentioning Ca' Sento in Valencia? His text doesn't mention immediate proximity ("En commençant là-bas, de l'autre côté des Pyrénées. Pour les amateurs de bonnes tables, la distribution y est proprement passionnante. Les adresses abondent et on y rivalise de bonne humeur, de trouvailles et de faconde. Voici une jolie pincée avec le secret de leurs succès".) "De l'autre côté des Pyrénées" is generic French lingo for... Spain.

[One Frenchman's take on things in Spain]

Well, Simon did make one mini-trip to Valencia - good for him! All of his nine other recommendations are in Guipúzcoa and Catalonia: two great culinary regions, no doubt, but hardly a picture of "Spain" as a whole giving France some lessons...

[Valencia Restaurants: Reviews & Recommendations]

More Madrid places: Dantxari, Zaranda, El Fogón de Trifón, Sudestada, Imanol, Asador Ansorena, El Pescador, Combarro, La Castela.

And, in a simpler, cheaper vein, for food lovers who aren't into political correctness: Las Tortillas de Gabino, Alfredo's Barbacoa, Taquería del Alamillo, Maruzzella, The Wok, La Gorda, Gumbo, Don Lay.

[One Frenchman's take on things in Spain]

No disagreement at all, John - I was just trying to describe and explain the restaurant that so impressed Pierre Casamayor. It could certainly have been a truly traditional Basque 'asador' (grill), like Imanol, but it was Goizeko Wellington, and there we have a more progressive and creative type of a place.

Indeed, the crucial test IMHO for identifying truly fine cuisine lies in ascertaining which innovations bear the hallmarks of a future classic, and which ones are destined to fade from the culinary scene sooner rather than later...

[One Frenchman's take on things in Spain]

One important fact, John: Goizeko Wellington is no bastion of tradition (the strange name stems from its Basque heritage and from the fact it's in the Wellington Hotel, that bastion of the bullfighting world). It gladly gets into the techie, tongue-in-cheek thing - terrific raw oyster salad with a gin tonic granité; tempura of curry-marinated langostino prawns and vegetable rings; low-temperature turbot with a turbot-head consommé and wild mushrooms... It's just that Jesús just propels the beautiful piece of fish or meat, the spectacular vegetables, to the center of his dishes and puts all the rest, technique included, at the service of that center piece. So his terrine of sautéed goose foie gras just gets a dose of the now unavoidable 'spherics', but these are made with the great Casta Diva sweet muscat from Alicante, and the combination rocks and makes the goose liver even brighter.

It's not a battle of traditionalists vs. modernists, in my mind. It's a dispute between people with a 'classic' sense of real gastronomy (whatever their attitude to innovation or to roots - this can vary widely, no problem!), i.e. people with a sense of taste, of pleasure, of palatability, of respect for great natural textures... vs. the fashion victims. Jesús Santos is modern, but a 'classic', not a fashion victim. So I'm with him.

[One Frenchman's take on things in Spain]

Pierre Casamayor, the outstanding French wine taster (a professor at Toulouse University and a member of the tasting committee at La Revue du Vin de France) has been tasting with me the past few days at the Bacchus wine contest in Madrid - Spain's foremost wine festival. It's been held at the spectacular, 'Belle Epoque' Madrid Casino on calle de Alcalá, where the Michelin-starred La Terraza del Casino is also located. I offer here some comments Pierre was making today, because I think they offer some food for thought:

"I've had dinner at La Terraza. Enjoyable, mainly because it stresses the fun part of high-tech modern cuisine. [Liquid nitrogen reigns supreme at this Ferran Adrià franchise.] But then I have also had dinner at Goizeko Wellington, Jesús Santos' place, and that was a real feast. They stress top-notch ingredients, including amazing fish, cooked with utmost precision, and with just enough innovative touches to keep things interesting. A wonderful, immensely enjoyable experience."

I pointed out to Pierre that La Terraza has one Michelin star, and Goizeko Wellington none (and its sister restaurant Goizeko Kabi lost its star last year), pointing out that Michelin was rather clueless in Spain. His reply: "It's not just in Spain. In France they're drifting aimlessly. They went from being exaggerated keepers of the orthodoxy to being exaggerated promoters of far-out innovation, and now they don't seem to have a clear set of culinary values."

[El Raco de Can Fabes]

Count me in the same camp, Pedro. Santi is a pros' pro (and he knows how to surround himself with very gifted younger cooks). And, of course, I too understood that you weren't 'reviewing' Can Fabes again, but responding to a specific query.

One more note: in general, menus tend to be the same for lunch and dinner in Spain. The idea of a shorter, lighter, less expensive menu for lunch hasn't really caught on here, for whatever reason. It would be interesting to hear opinions on that situation - and examples of people who do offer different menus. I know that there are a few - but not a whole lot, I think.

[Kabuki]

Call me provincial, but it has never occurred to me to have sushi with wine. (Actually, sushi purists don't even have sake with nigiri-zushi or rolls, since sake is considered redundant with rice. Sake is considered OK with sashimi.)

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I have travelled extensively in Japan with my importer there, and we've had wine all the time in very traditional places - including hallowed sushi shrines in Tokyo. Of course not red wine with sushi, and neither white Burgundy, because generally fat, oaky chardonnay is not the ideal accompaniment to raw fish. But the great white wines of Alsace, the Rhine and Austria are fabulous with sushi and sashimi, with riesling naturally at the top of the list, but the spicy gewürztraminer and Austria's great grüner veltliner also work extremely well. Also, in Kabuki's case one of its strong points today is its dazzling array of raw or briefly seared meats, and a good syrah-, mencía-, monastrell/mourvèdre- or garnacha/grenache-based red is perfect with that part of the menu.

[Girona Restaurants: Reviews & Recommendations]

Massana is closed un Sundays. A decent place for tapas might be Divinum, which is a good wine bar too. Fried seafood is not a very common thing in northern Catalonia...

[Gran Canaria restaurants, any experiences?]

whenever I asked for a recomandation at the restaraunts, they never suggested Canary wine...

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Sorry to say, but this is not at all a good sign about the restaurants you went to. Good Canarian restaurants will be proud of their native wines and offer a good selection of them. Of course Gran Canaria makes very little wine of any interest, but the following producers have some very original, enjoyable wines: in Tenerife, Monje and Viña Norte (reds) and Viñátigo (whites); in El Hierro, Tanajara (reds); in Lanzarote (whites and sweet whites are best), El Grifo, La Geria, Vega de Yuco, Mozaga.

[Girona Restaurants: Reviews & Recommendations]

Well, L'Esguard and Hispania are fine, but both are more than 40 miles away from Girona... For a good local alternative to Can Roca in a more casual style (not that Can Roca is very formal...), try Massana. Pere Massana has a way with Catalan traditions with an updated presentation - like a terrine of 'carn d'olla' (the Catalan 'pot-au-feu'), or a (pickled) escabeche rabbit, or pigs trotters with porcini. Plus a terrific cellar. Between 40 and 50 euros per person with a good wine. (A great wine will inevitably make things a lot hairier, of course...)

[Gran Canaria restaurants, any experiences?]

muscadet and sauvignon blanc

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How 'bout trying some Spanish wine next time? Preferably from the Canary Islands?

[Mugaritz and Arzak]

its chef seeemed to have an interesting philosophy towards cooking and food, similar to Michel Bras who I deeply admire. 

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Very good observation. Some of us here in Spain actually believe that Michel Bras has been the most important chef in this country's culinary revolution... His influence has been so pervasive on everyone here, from Adrià to Aduriz to Berasategui, that this (unfairly underreported) fact should suffice to pour a ton of balm on the aching hearts of proponents and professionals of French cuisine!

[San Sebastian Restaurants: Recommendations]

Cal Pep, Alkimia, Comerc24, Cinc  Sentits.

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It's really peculiar how the very same Barcelona restaurants get mentioned and scrutinized over and over again on eGullet - and some others never appear.

To my taste, for instance, Àbac is clearly better than any of the above. Yet it's very seldom mentioned here. Curious.

[Piri-piri]

The key, of course, is the 'right' red chilies. The Capsicum family is a large one, and a guindilla, a jalapeño, an habanero, a Padrón, an ají amarillo, a rózsa páprika have little in common... So indeed the small, red Angola pepper (resembles a chile piquín in size and shape) is crucial.