Am I the only one to be wildly disappointed by this dumbed-down, wretched waste of a film crew? It's patronising to the Spaniards and their food, and to its audience. What a shame C4 didn't use its budget to send Sam and Sam Clark (of Moro) to make a programme about Spanish food instead.
I found it patronising in the way that the female presenter continually expressed surprise that the people she was talking to had strong opinions about the way their produce should be handled, as though she knew more about how to cook their food than they did, and which ingredients should be included. She seems to lack the most basic appreciation of the cooking traditions and history of the areas she visits, which is either patronising to us (if she's just pretending to know so little) or disrespectful to the Spaniards. Spanish cooking may not be as well known to British cooks as some other regional styles, but Claudia Roden, the Clarks (in their Moro books) and several other writers have set a standard I think this programme fails to match by a long margin.
If you thought this series was patronising to the Spanish and dumbed-down you must be very narrow-minded. Tommi's appreciation of, not only Spanish cuisine, but of rural Spanish culture and lifestyle in general, came through palpably, from beginning to end. What you (incorrectly) interpret as "surprise..that the people..had strong opinions" was, in fact, not 'surprise', but 'fascination' (by the way Colin, these are not the same things).
You completely miss the point she makes time and again about the Spaniards uncompromising adherance to traditional family recipes, each family beleiving that 'their' way is the 'only way to prepare a certain dish. Therefore, there is often no 'singular' correct way, and she is quite right in demonstrating alternative ways to prepare a meal, drawing on her experiences gained in other villages or regions.
What is more, Tommi clearly has a wonderful way of communicating with the 'campesinos' she comes across, and this entails more than the speaking of the language...she understands their sense of humour and their rhythm. C4 couldn't have come up with a better candidate for this programme in my opinion.
I'm afraid I have to agree with Colin in that I was also disappointed by the series. I am in not doubt that she was excited and enthusiastic about Spanish cooking but it came across as a bit desperate. In her enthusiasm to promote Spanish cooking, she dismissed French and Italian food, such as the market scene in programme 2 when she commented on how nice the tomatoes in Spain were and that we could forget Italy. Both countries have great tomatoes, not need to favour one over the other and in the process offend people.
There are indeed many ways of preparing and cooking the same dish and Spain is not unique in this respect. Nor are they singularly uncompromising in sticking to traditional recipes. It seems to me unnecessary to push on that point in her programmes. I am sure she will say the same thing had she toured Greece, India, or China.
I, too am very fond of Spanish food and visit my friends in Spain - Barcelona, Madrid and San Sebastian - reputedly the best cooking in the whole of Spain, and look forward to be taken out to fabulous local restaurants. Sadly, Tommi rather spoiled it for me. So that whenever I eat Poulpo à la plancha again, I will think of her and it will take some time for me to get over it.
Generally agree with the lack of enthusiasm for this program.
If she was hoping to be representative of Spian she completely failed to understand the regionality of the country or at least failed to portray it properly. She made sweeping statements about dishes and food that were completely wrong:
E.g Andalucia - home of paella; Wrong actually it comes from Valencia originally Castilla - Spanish capital of the bean; I think the fact that Asturians 'national dish' is fabada a type of bean stew and have large amounts of cuisine to suggest otherwise.
When cooking for Spaniards she lacked the knowledge of the dishes to actually do this. For example cooking 'migas' with onions is somewhat like a Spaniard using Shark to make fish and chips. It's just wrong.
In addition (sorry about the rant) the food she cooked at home wasn't vaugely Spanish apart from the fact it contained Spanish ingredients.
Not sure what the aim of this program was, but if it was to educate people about Spanish food it didn't do too well. Pity 'cos the concept was quite good but the execution was sorely lacking...
I agree with Phil-M. We have a vast variety of cookery programmes which don't assume the audience is stupid.
Also why is Spain allowed to break the EU law on animal husbandry? The scenes with the locals slaughtering the pig before making blood sausages should have been reported to the police not aired as part of the programme.
Blutoo - 'Also why is Spain allowed to break the EU law on animal husbandry? The scenes with the locals slaughtering the pig before making blood sausages should have been reported to the police not aired as part of the programme.'
Have to say I can't agree with bluetoo there.
I'm vegetarian but I'd much prefer pigs to live outside in oak forests and then be killed like that than the way in which some pigs are intensively farmed here.
Also isn't what was done effectively what halal slaughterhouses do in Britain?
I thought the programme was ok, just like their other one was ok. I agree I would like to see the Moro Clarks do a programme. They have a new book out as well Moro East, which I shall get shortly.
I love Spanish food, I love most food especially Italian food. There are plenty of better writers out there IMO, however she is only young so give her a chance her edges will be rubbed off before too long.
Phil we all KNOW we live in a different Europe to everyone else so why should we be remotely suprised when folk in Spain can butcher their own pigs and no one bats an eyelid. We are too acquiescent in this country but at least a campaign is starting to help our pig farmers.
We live in the part of Andalucia where the 'matanza' took place. Spain is not so 'sanitized' as the UK. In one of Jamie Oliver's programmes he showed that quite a few British kids were so out of touch with food sources and types they didn't even know what a leek was.
Here not only does every family have their incredibly well cared for 'free range' pig or two they usually also still retain their family 'huerta' where all he vegetables are grown. The children know where their meat and veg comes from. In the UK there is massive cruelty to animals through intensive rearing. The pigs here have a happy life in the oak woods and then when their day comes it comes swiftly with all the family participating. They are not driven terrified in their dozens in crowded lorries. The men who actually cut the throats are usually professionally trained and not family members but all the family take part in making sure nothing of the animal is wasted.
In a way I think the Spanish have a thing or two to teach us, therefore I think the programme was educational and informative. Of course there are also bullfights which are regularly shown on tv and considered an art form here. I personally don't want to see one but it is a different culture and Ch4 was simply showing us a slice of that different culture.
Maybe British kids should really understand that an animal has to die before they can enjoy their chicken nuggets or burger. We don't take enough responsibility in the UK for what we eat and where it comes from. Perhaps the saddest thing is that Spain is getting more like us rather than the other way round.
Well, it seems like I am outnumbered and most of you posting onto the forum didn't like the programme at all. The general complaint appears to be that it wasn't 'educational' enough, but then I guess that really depends on two things: 1) whether its remit was to be principally educational, and 2)if it is, then what level of audience was it aiming to educate? Many of you commenting in this forum seem to have an active interest in Spanish cuisine and have then jumped to the conclusion that this programme's sole purpose is to act as a further-education module for you. That seems to me to be a bit narcissistic. The programme was never advertised as 'educational' and neither as a documentary. Its title: A Cook's Tour of Spain, described perfectly what this show was about....a tour of Spain as seen through the eyes of a cook, or.. a celebration of Spanish landscape, rural living and culture, with food & cooking used as the unifying vehicle. And for this reason I found it to be one of the most enjoyable TV 'lifestyle' programmes I've seen for a long, long while...precisely because it didn't obsess (as do so many programmes these days) with the food aspect alone, instead amalgamting an intoxicating fusion of Spain which i found myself enjoying on many levels (and bringing on a heavy dose of welcome nostalgia, I might add, for the ten years i spent there in the nineties! And I didn't find the programme patronising or dumbed-down at all!).
Whilst I respect anyone's right not to like something, some of the comments I'm reading in this thread make me suspect that the real issue here is actually one of food 'snobbery', something that seems to be increasingly common these days - as reflected in people's shopping habits, the populairty of shows like 'Masterchef' and those toe-curling food adverts by M&S - all symptomatic that the UK is turning into a spoilt nation of food 'luvvies'. What was really great and refreshing about Tommi & Guy's programme was that it was the antithesis of all that. What we got instead, was something raw and down-to earth...and hats off to the production team for going-about it this way, I say. Any of you who had watched Tommi & Guy's previous series ought to have realised that ACToS wasn't going to be another Rick Stein / Nigella Lawson / Gordon Ramsay clone-show, but instead something more akin to The Hairy Bikers. There is more than one way to skin a cat (though perhaps i shouldn't say that bearing in mind the evident squeamishness of those who wish a police-enquiry into the 'matanza' featured in episode 2?) and thank goodness for that!
(By the way, M-Phil I'm afraid i disagree with your critisims of Tommi. Yes, sometimes she does make an exaggerated claim or two in a moment of hyper-enthusiasm, but the same can be said for any TV chef. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard Rick Stein or Jaimie Oliver exclaim that such and such a dish is 'the best they've ever had' or that 'you won't find a better x, y or z anywhere in the world'. And cooking Migas with onions isn't the equivalent of using shark for fish and chips however you look at it! Come on... give the girl a break!).
Originally posted by Robledo: We live in the part of Andalucia where the 'matanza' took place. Spain is not so 'sanitized' as the UK. In one of Jamie Oliver's programmes he showed that quite a few British kids were so out of touch with food sources and types they didn't even know what a leek was.
Here not only does every family have their incredibly well cared for 'free range' pig or two they usually also still retain their family 'huerta' where all he vegetables are grown. The children know where their meat and veg comes from. In the UK there is massive cruelty to animals through intensive rearing. The pigs here have a happy life in the oak woods and then when their day comes it comes swiftly with all the family participating. They are not driven terrified in their dozens in crowded lorries. The men who actually cut the throats are usually professionally trained and not family members but all the family take part in making sure nothing of the animal is wasted.
In a way I think the Spanish have a thing or two to teach us, therefore I think the programme was educational and informative. Of course there are also bullfights which are regularly shown on tv and considered an art form here. I personally don't want to see one but it is a different culture and Ch4 was simply showing us a slice of that different culture.
Maybe British kids should really understand that an animal has to die before they can enjoy their chicken nuggets or burger. We don't take enough responsibility in the UK for what we eat and where it comes from. Perhaps the saddest thing is that Spain is getting more like us rather than the other way round.
We need to get back to local abbatoirs. I live next to a sheep farmer, we lived through the agony of F&M. Why do animals have to be terrified and transported hundreds of miles?
I have also been to Andalucia a few times as I love that part of the world and the Iberico ham and sausage is to die for.
As for Tommi, she is competent and pleasant enough and pretty savvy, being a hunter gatherer myself I like that in her. Although he is not my favourite I have to take issue about Rick Stein. I like his programmes and his books and his food tastes damned good too
I wasn't entirely against her, I thought the idea of the programme was great it just fell down in the way it was excecuted.
All the Spanish people I know who have seen this programme generally agree she wasn't very reprasentative of Spanish food. If she had claimed that she was making food that was inspired by Spain fair enough but most of what she produced didn't fit in with what most Spanish people would recognise as their cuisine.
Fair point about the enthusiasm though, it's just that I know more about Spanish food that others so I'm less accepting when people get things wrong.
On the point of education. No I wasn't expecting to be educated during the programme although it was clearly trying to do so. I just wish that if programmes do try to educate there should be a little research into the subject beforehand so that they are factually correct.
The migas comment was slightly tongue in cheek, as anyway we do use shark to make some fish and chips - rock salmon anyone? My hyperbole may have got a little carried away with me at that point though...
I never expected that the programme was "a further- education module" for me personally. And what is so narcissistic for wanting to learn more on a topic one knows a little about? It was precisely the title of the programme which attracted me, A Cook's Tours of Spain; I thought the whole of Spain. I didn't know at the beginning that it was only going to be three programmes, so that was the first disappointment.
My lack of enthusiasm of the programme is nothing to do with "food snobbery". I actually enjoy the matanza and it is important that we know where our food comes from. I am not bother by her using onions in Migas. I personally don't think a particular method of cooking one dish can be regarded as pure or definitive. No, what irritated me was her harping on about how wonderful the Spanish in the rural areas were in their insistence of the freshest ingredients and the simplest of cooking method, as though this is unique to Spain.
By the way, don't knock Masterchef. It is a useful and entertaining programme and has served as the launch pad to a good number of chef, one of which is Tommi Miers.
I clicked Post Now before I finished my last post...
If people reading this thinking I have something against Tommi, you are mistaken. I think she is a brilliant cook and she is passionate about food. I only wish she could have done the Cook's Tour differently.
Moro East, which I shall get shortly.
