Spanish 18-century recipe book wins respected cookery prize

A TRANSLATED 18th-century Spanish recipe book has won a highly coveted €2,000 cookery prize.

Vicky Hayward won the Jane Grigson Award for her book called The New Art of Cooking: A Spanish Friar’s Kitchen Notebook.

Originally published in 1745, the book was written by Spanish Franciscan friar Juan Altamiras.

With a new narrative added by Hayward reflecting the food culture of eighteenth-century Spain, the judges deemed the book “unusual” and worthy of the respected award.

“The biggest surprise was how delicious the food of an eighteenth-century Spanish monastery actually was,” said one judge.

The award, named after British food writer Jane Grigson, is for first-time food and drink writers of a book that has been commissioned but not yet published.

This year’s winning book will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in June.