Chefs Agree Spain's Cuisine More Popular Than Ever

On the American dinner plate, Spain is a side dish no longer.

Chef Jose Andres, of Spain, prepares a Veal Cheeks braised in Rioja Wine with Tzatziki meal in Coral Gables, Fla., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

(AP)

After years in the shadows of the cuisines of France and Italy, Spanish foods — as well as the men and women who craft them — are demanding and deserving main course treatment.

"Our gastronomy has never been as popular as it is now," Ferran Adria, the famed avant-garde chef of el Bulli restaurant in Roses, Spain, said in an e-mail interview translated from Spanish.

In cookbooks and on television, Spain's cuisine has become a must-have. Traditional ingredients once limited to specialty shops — manchego cheese, Iberian and serrano hams, chorizo, sardines and anchovies — are now commonplace.

And some of the nation's hottest menus are headlined by Spanish chefs, including Jose Andres, whose restaurants include Jaleo in Washington, an eatery credited with putting tapas — Spanish bar food — on the American food chain.

Even this year's Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival — typically a celeb-fest tribute to the American food scene — was kicked off with an ode to Spanish cooking, complete with a dinner for Spain's King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.

"People no longer think Spanish cooking is paella," says John Willoughby, executive editor of Gourmet magazine. "People are now starting to be more familiar with the ingredients. Traditional Spanish cuisine is pretty straightforward. It's not that hard."

Despite that, Spanish cuisine had a slow start in the United States, partly for lack of a large immigrant population, says Andres, who was born in Mieres, Spain and trained with Adria. Americans' constant quest for new tastes pushed the turnaround.

"This is not something that happened overnight," he says. "Everything has been gradual. Fifteen years ago Spain didn't even have a category in liquor stores in America. Now every one does."

Spain only recently found its culinary voice. During Francisco Franco's rule the cuisine was rustic and simple because of poverty and poor quality of ingredients, says Anya von Bremzen, author of "The New Spanish Table" cookbook.