Spain - Body and Soul

By H M van den Brink

Whether it is in Madrid's cafés or in Barcelona's fish markets, H M van den Brink takes you on a trip through Spain where tasting and smelling are the key occupations. You will see the shop windows in Madrid displaying pig's  trotters, the famous serrano ham or typical Spanish sweet cakes. You will taste crispy pigs' ears but also a rich chickpea soup. You will smell the strong coffee and the damping tortilla when breakfasting out of doors. With historical background and personal memories and associations Van den Brink records a lively description of Spain, its culture and traditions both in the city and the countryside. This story focuses on enjoying various Spanish dishes in both exquisite restaurants and more commonplace settings. This book will definitely get you hungry and make you want to try out the recipes for yourself.



'This is another remarkable book from those nice people at Haus Publishing. This is truly quality food writing, travel writing, poetic writing, and thoroughly absorbing and charming. .... 
H M van den Brink paints marvellous landscapes with his words. Always well chosen, they describe scenery as well as could any travelogue. You’ll seek out the dishes he describes and thumb through a few of these pages as you sit in a cafe drinking a very small, very black coffee. If you are planning a trip to Spain then consider Spain Body and Soul as your companion.' 


Read the full review here at http://mostlyfood.co.uk/


‘It is the poetic strength and simplicity of the writing that seduces the reader.’
Daniel Topolski, The Guardian


'This is a book about food . . . In a very Proustian way, about the memories of eating food. So the writer evokes for us the sight and smell and taste of food that have evoked memories for him, and with these memories the circumstances which surround the eating of that food.’
Anglo-Spanish Society Quarterly Review






The Dutch author H. M. van den Brink was born in 1956 and lived in Spain as foreign correspondent for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. In 1993 his debut De vooruitgang was published, he achieved international fame with the short story Over het water (1998, On the Water) which was translated in many languages and for which he received several literary prizes including the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.