Spanish & Portuguese Food & Cooking

Web Sites

Sites in English

• Cheese from Spain
  This website from the Trade Commission of Spain in New York describes the major cheeses of Spain.
• Epicurious: La Rioja: Come for the Wine, Stay for the Food
  An article about locations in La Rioja by George Semler.
• Epicurious: Spanish/Portuguese Recipes
  Browse through 292 recipes arranged by course and ingredient from Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines.
• Food & Wine: Spain's Great Escapes
  Three short gastronomic excursions: from Madrid, from Seville and from Barcelona. Each includes visits to cultural destinations like the Dalí museum, gorgeous drives, overnight stays in paradors (government-owned hotels) and stops at top wineries.
• Food from Spain News
  Foods from Spain News is a magazine published four times a year by Foods from Spain, a division of the Trade Commission of Spain in New York.
• Made in Spain
  This is the PBS television series with Jose Andres.
• Spain: Gastronomy
  This website from the official tourism site of Spain, takes you on a tour of the different gastronomic regions of Spain.
• Sally's Place: Focus on Ethnic Cuisine: Spain
  General information on Spanish food and cooking with references by Lou Seibert Pappas.
• Soft Guide Madrid: Eating Out Dictionary
  Spanish food terms and their English equivalents.
• Spain - On the Road Again
  This PBS television series is a foodie roadtrip through Spain with Mario Batali, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Bittman, and Barcelona native, Claudia Bassols. It is done in conjunction with the Spanish tourism bureaus so one hopes for authenticity. Unfortunately in Pittsburgh, you can only get these if you subscribe to HDTV. The Library has companion book.
• The Spanish Table
  An online store offering Spanish and Portuguese cooking equipment and food items.
• La Tienda Fine Products from Spain
  This is an online store of Spanish food products that also offers information about Spanish food and culture and a collection of recipes and links.
• Wines from Spain
  A website to inform consumers about Spanish wine, from the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (Instituto Español de Comercio Exterior, ICEX). You can find a wine or winery by clicking on the map or searching.

General Spanish Sites

There are a large number of food and recipe sites in Spain but most are in Spanish.

• Consumer.es EROSKI: Alimentacion
  This online consumer magazine by the Eroski Foundation offers articles about food and nutrition as well as recipes. In Spanish. Eroski is a chain of supermarkets.
• Enciclopedia de Gastronomia
  Un portal gastronómico. A gastronomic portal in Spanish by Pepe Igelsias, a Spanish author and journalist.
• Recetas.net
  Recipes of all kinds, but the majority are Spanish. By MediaLabs of Madrid. In Spanish.

Magazines

• A Fuego Lento
  A professionally developed online cooking magazine from Spain in Spanish. Includes recipes (searchable), a glossary of cooking terms (Spanish to Spanish but great if you are trying to read a Spanish cookbook), this week's recipe's from Koldo Royo's television show on the cooking channel.
• Hola.com: Gastronomia
  This fashion magazine from Spain offers a gastronomy section with recipes. In Spanish.

Regions of Spain

The European Union offers a Map of Spain that can help you locate the regions.

Basque Country

• Food & Wine:Basque Country Cooking
  Food from San Sebastian, Spain
• Food & Wine:Basque in Glory
  Recipes by San Francisco chef Gerald Hirigoyen.
• Food & Wine:Clams with a Spanish Accent
  An article by Penelope Casas
• Gastronomia Vasca
  This extensive site is available in Euskera (Basque) and Castellano (Spanish). It is created by the Escuela de Hostelería de Leioa (Hotel/Hospitality School of Leioa) and offers a glossary, recipes, and videos about cooking procedures. Very well done. Look here for Pintxos (tapas).

Catalonia

• Catacurian
  Culinary vacation in Catalonia, Spain. Their website (in English) offers information on Catalonian cuisine.
• Cuines
  A site in Catalan from the Catalan TV station with weekly collections of recipes from restaurants. A good way to practice your Catalan! (Not impossible if you know Spanish and French...) There are thumbnail photos of the dishes in the top lefthand corner.
• Food & Wine: The Sparkle of Spain
  "Just west of Barcelona, in Spain's Catalonia, three generations of the winemaking Huguet family gather to toast the New Year, sharing a few favorite dishes as well as a few glasses of their Champagne-class cava." A January 1999 article by Brian St. Pierre.

Galicia

• Empanada Gallega
  Todo sobre la empanada y la cocina gallega. Not just empanadas and its history but information in Spanish about Galician specialties.
• Pontevedra Gastronomy
  This is a very nice site in Spanish from the Rías Baixas Tourist Board of the Province of Pontevedra in Galicia. The site has a lot of information about the country, as well as recipes, the majority for seafood, the Galician specialty. They have a version in English.

Navarra

• Piquillo Pepper
  The piquillo pepper is a small red pepper, famously from Lodosa, that is roasted and peeled and packed for export. It is exceedingly sweet and flavorful and much more tender than pimentos.

La Rioja

• La Cocina Tradicional Riojana
  Traditional cooking from La Rioja in northern Spain. In Spanish.
• Epicurious: Rioja: Come for the Wine, Stay for the Food
  "From humble eating houses to the house that Frank Gehry built, there's more to Rioja than great wine."

Southern Spain

• Gastronomía y Cocina Gaditana
  Food and Cooking from Cádiz
  From the southern most province of Spain, this site by Carlos Spínola Bruzón offers traditional food from Cádiz, influenced by Phoenician, Roman, Arabic, and New World civilizations. It offers 125 recipes. In Spanish.
• grupo gastronómico gaditano
  A group interested in the cooking of Cadiz that has put many of its recipes online. In Spanish.

Valencia

• Orchata Daniel
  A site describing the cultivation of chufa and the production of horchata at this horchateria in Valencia. Chufa is a root (Cyperus Esculentus) from which the drink horchata is made in Spain. Called tiger nut and known as nut sedge or nut grass in the US. In Spanish.

Portugal

Although not part of Spain, Portugal is very close.

• Epicurious: Exploring Portugal — from Pork to Port
  Take a trip through six delicious regions of Portugal, sampling custard, sausages, seafood, and the country's namesake wine.
• Roteiro Gastronómico de Portugal
  Roteiro Gastronómico de Portugal is a website in Portuguese with many traditional Portuguese recipes.
• Leite's Culinaria: Portuguese Recipes
  Food writer David Leite's specialty is Portuguese food and his website has many recipes.

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Pittsburgh Region

• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Spanish paradise: A little Mediterranean, a little Moorish, needlessly mysterious
  An article in the Food Section of Thursday, August 10, 2000, by Marlene Parrish which describes the characteristics of Spanish cuisine drawing upon the experience of Janet Mendel, an author of Spanish cookbooks.
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Spanish Accents: National identity encoded in flavorful quintet of ingredients"
  This is the second article by Marlene Parrish, from Thursday, November 08, 2001, about Spanish Cooking which looks at the key ingredients -- pork, olive oil, garlic, paprika and saffron -- that are the flavor principles of Spanish cuisine.