Spanish

In late summer, when tomatoes are at their ripest, I crave slices of heirlooms and mozzarella sprinkled with sea salt and olive oil, rather than a cold soup of diced raw veggies, heavy on the tomatoes. Then I tried a gazpacho by Dani Garcia, a prodigy of molecular cooking and chef at Restaurant Calima, in Marbella, off the southern coast of Spain. His gazpacho is a sweet puree of cherry tomatoes studded with pistachios and anchovies, topped with cheese snow (made with liquid nitrogen). In this version, whirl native tomatoes with garlic, chilies, sherry vinegar, and cumin.

Pipérade (Gascon) or Piperrada (Basque), from piper (pepper in Gascon) is a typical Basque dish prepared with onion, green peppers, and tomatoes sautéd in olive oil and flavoured with red Espelette pepper. The colours coincidentally reflect the colours of the Basque flag (red, green and white). It may be served as a main or a side dish. Typical additions include egg, garlic or meats such as ham.

Gazpacho as most people know it is the Andalusian soup of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and stale bread. This chilled soup also includes a slew of cold vegetable purees, some that omit tomatoes and add almonds. White gazpacho reflects Spain’s ancient Arabic past. These bowls of soup would have been made with a mortar and pestle, but use a blender and give it plenty of time to whir and lots of olive oil, and you’ll get a velvety texture. Let the soup mellow for at least several hours in the refrigerator or overnight for optimal flavor.

Gazpacho (a traditional chilled soup that originated in Spain) becomes a sauce for fish fillets.

When Anthony Sasso was growing up in Woodstock, N.Y., “soups were something that you ate to warm you up, a recovery food,” he said. If someone in the family had a bad cold, a soup was made with a stock simmered with beef bones or a few chicken legs, and a handful of vegetables. As for cold soups, Mr. Sasso said no thanks. In 2006, he went to Spain for a year to live and cook. In a town called Palafolls in Catalonia, he ate the first cold soup he liked. It was a white gazpacho: almonds, garlic, bread, grapes, olive oil, sherry vinegar and water — blended into a rich, subtle summer soup.