When a friend publishes a book, how do you answer the author’s question, “What did you think of it?” – usually asked before you have got round to reading it. Fortunately no collateral damage to a friendship was caused when Fernando Sánchez-Gómez launched his landmark book, “Cooking Critically”. The original Spanish version, “La Cocina de la Crítica”, has been available in paperback and on Kindle for some time, but the English version is a first in many respects.
Fernando’s book has been described as an indispensable reference book, dealing as it does with a subject that has not been written about before in detail. He traces the history of gastronomic journalism since its beginnings in France in the 19th century. This was when restaurants as we know them began to spring up, started predictably by cooks who had found themselves unemployed as a consequence of their employers losing their heads – literally. Restaurant critics started to write about these establishments, and a journalistic speciality was born.
Spain caught up two centuries later, again after a period of unrest, in this case the Civil War, and the first restaurant reviews were published in ABC newspaper and written by the Earl of the Andes. This book brings the reader right up to the present day, and contains fascinating material on present-day gastronomic critics and the way restaurant reviews should be put together. The detail is amazing, and it is not surprising it took several years to write.
Fernando Sánchez-Gómez has outstanding credentials for the task he has so successfully completed, being – apart from a professional journalist – an expert on food who writes regularly for the Andalucian press from Málaga, where he now lives.
His next book, almost ready for the printer, is titled “Arroz con Sabor a Málaga” (“Rice with a Málaga Flavour”), and it cost him not only work but the addition of several kilos, thanks to investigative trips that took him to every rice restaurant in the province. The book will have hundreds of paella recipes, as well as recommended eating places; and, as the organiser of the 2011 World Rice Congress in Valencia, Fernando’s qualifications are impeccable.
New Winery Concept
A good book deserves a good sponsor, and Palacios Vinoteca stepped forward when they heard about “Cooking Critically”. An unusual winery setup, only founded in 1999, the concept is new but already winning lots of attention. The main bodega, Trus, in Ribera del Duero (www.bodegastrus.com), is not designed for large-scale production: rather small but highly-crafted red wines.
In the same group there is a Rueda, Trillón, Albariño, Sete Bois and the only Rioja bodega making exclusively white wine, Nivarius. Finally, and unpredictably for a winery group, a beer and a bottle-fermented lager – Ceriux and Palax, respectively – complete the stable.
Cooking Critically: published by Amazon Books – www.facebook.com/lacocinadelacritica
