Catalan Cuisine by Colman Andrews Harvard Common Press

From this book's first paragraph, where Andrews lists typical Catalan ingredients--anchovies, grilled onions, foie gras, figs drizzled with anisette--to the book's last recipe--Roast Lamb with Twelve Heads of Garlic, you will be salivating, your fingers itching to chop, peel, toss, and taste.

This cuisines Spanish, writes Andrews, by virtue of being prepared and consumed in Spain, but is not based in Spain's primarily Castilian culture. (It's a cuisine, by the way, because it is more than just a collection of regional dishes. Andrews points our the Catalan cooking is a complex and sophisticated system of recipes and techniques, first codified as early as the fourteenth century.) This cuisine was born of Roman settlers and later influenced by invading Moors and still later by French and Italian merchants. But like any regional cuisines, the character of Catalan cuisine comes from the selection of local ingredients are used in distinct, and to our taste buds, surprising ways--nuts thicken a sauce, vegetables appear in desserts, fruit in salads, pork sausage is served with lemon juice and sugar, fried eggplant is dipped in honey.

But even without access to a brace of freshly dressed rabbits or a wood-burning brick oven, the dishes are an intriguing exploration of flavors for the home cook. The recipes are as simple as toasted bread rubbed with tomato, oil, and salt, or as complex as a casserole of game birds, meatballs, potatoes, dressed with garlic sauce (and charmingly called es nin, the nest). Andrews describes these surprising flavors and dishes as a cuisine with "top spin."

We began with Allioli amb Ous is an Alioli (Alioli with Eggs), a version of the garlic mayonnaise found all through the Mediterranean. The garlic is whipped into a smooth sauce with whole eggs and olive oil in a food processor. The taste, as Andrews describes it, is "emphatic". And the flavor is decidedly so; werewolves will steer clear of your house, along with colds and heart disease, if folk remedies are true. But this recipe was written before raw eggs presented the danger of salmonella; so use it carefully, on guests with strong constitutions.

We used it to great effect in Patates amb Allioli, scalloped potatoes with allioli. The potatoes are peeled, sliced and boiled until soft--just 10 to 15 minutes--then layered with alioli sauce and baked. The eggs in the sauce make a puffy brown crust and the aroma of mellowing garlic carries throughout the dish and through the house. The dish is satisfying without being overly rich. The leftovers were good in a potato omelet the next day, which is not a traditional preparation, but one can easily imagine a thrifty Catalan housewife preparing it for lunch the next day.

Trempo is a Majorcan salad of thinly sliced onions, tomatoes, and peppers with the unusual addition of apples or pears. The salad is dressed with olive oil and salt, and left to sit and blend, creating a fresh play of sweet and bite in each mouthful.

The Catalan coastline introduces seafood to the cuisine's repertoire. Dishes range from simple sautés of garlic and parsley to totally unique dish of squid stuffed with ground pork and dressed with a savory chocolate sauce. We tried the more prosaic Calamari Saltejats amb All i Julivert, Squid Stuffed with Garlic and Parsley. A simple dish, made in Catalan with squid or octopus no more than an inch long, the squid is sautéed in a hot pan scattered with coarse salt, then the garlic and parsley is tossed in and the dish served. As with most simple dishes, ingredients and technique are paramount, and perhaps ours weren't up to scratch. The dish was good, but could have used more punch.

Cotzas a la Marinara, Algherese Mussels Sailor-Style, are cooked with vinegar and anchovies, a common sauce in ancient Rome. The mussels are steamed with garlic, parsley, basil, and white wine along with the vinegars and anchovies. After only a few moments on the stove the mussels are bright and briny.

Cooking Rostit de Festa Major, Holiday Roast Chicken was a real adventure. In Catalan, this chicken is the traditional dish for each town's saint's day festival, and is usually served with cava, champagne. Each household brings their casserole to the local bakery's oven and Andrews recalls seeing phalanxes of these casseroles filled with succulent chicken. We proceeded with our decidedly unromantic electric oven and a glazed, cast-iron pot. First we browned the chicken pieces on the stove-top with onions and garlic, then added a bay leaf, a cinnamon stick, salt and pepper, and one cup of cognac. And that's where the adventure began.

The cognac heated to the point of combustion and the oven door flew open, lames leapt out into the kitchen and around the casserole. We had our own festival excitement and thanked our own saint for saving the house from fire. But in the end, the chicken was not burnt and delicious. Next time we'll leave the oven door slightly ajar.

We didn't try any of the desserts for this review, but they have a medieval, mysterious quality that we will return to. Fried Almond-Milk Pudding, Mint and Cream Cheese Tart, and Fig Mousse with Walnuts sound like food for infants and troubadours.

With his extensive research, Andrews has created a trip through time and taste.

© 2000 Claudia Kousoulas and Sandy Tallant