The Batzan valley, lost amongst the foothills of the Pyrenees, in northern-east Navarre, remains a world apart. Here, in quiet villages and isolated caseríos, or farmsteads, a way of life forgotten elsewhere has been preserved and events outside the valley’s gently peaked horizon, even in the neighbouring Basque lowlands, are spoken of as ‘what happens down there, beyond the mountains’. For the most part, the valley is clothed in an intense green; at other times in the golds and rusts of autumn. In winter snow blankets and camouflages the contours of the mountains, here tempered into gentle hills. Wild horses, sheep and goats graze on its rich pastureland.
Nestled in the valley and round about it are small, picturesque towns of sturdy houses. Here, the caseríos are not always lonely and remote from each other as in other Basque provinces; they stand alongside other substantial buildings with several floors, built in stone and timber, with double pitched-roofs and in the historic part of each village which dwells in the shadow of the church bell-tower. Great stone coats of arms on their facades recall adventures, triumphs and misfortunes.
In the heart of the valley, near the border with France – defined by the arbitrary decision of men who live elsewhere – lies Errazu, a Basque-Navarrese village. Here lives Domingo Echandi, the kaikugileak, or man who makes kaikus, scoop-shaped wooden milking pitchers. Once they were made in many places in the Basque Country, but the work is too hard for today’s taste and these days the number of kaikugileaks can be counted on one hand.
Domingo is a small wiry man. He wears a beret, blue apron and black esparto-grass slippers; his hands are large and suntanned. Most of his working days have been spent in a sawmill and he began to work as a woodturner only in his spare time. Since his retirement he has been able to give all his time to kaiku making. Such is his dedication that he has now even given up social pleasures, like meeting his friends for a Saturday evening drink, to make the time he needs for his work.
Domingo, his wife Nunchi and their German shepherd dog, who answers to the name Canela, meaning cinnamon, live in a white caserío built faithfully in the local architectural style. On the first floor, at the top of a carved wooden staircase, are the living quarters: a large main room with a great open fireplace and a chiming clock accompanying the sound of the crackling logs burning in the grate. Leading directly off it, there is a tiny, well equipped modern kitchen. This part of the house is Nunchi’s domain. Calm but quick witted and worldly, she personifies Basque matriarchy. According to her, men are just a little the superior species; they are stronger physically and the problem is that for centuries women have allowed them to lead. But it is she who runs the house and the family economy. Domingo has never set foot inside a bank, nor does he know the colour of the saving cards in his wife’s charge. His life is centred around his workshop, a spacious room, with large windows which give good working light throughout the daytime hours. He opens the door to it with the pride of a man who knows that his skills will be appreciated. In the centre is a large table where the pieces are finished. On the wall hang tools, each in its place. Originally Domingo had no tools because they no longer existed for this kind of woodwork, but over the years he has ingeniously designed and made everything he needs. Some are traditional such as the chisels, (zintzelak), hammers (mazuak), compasses (zurgin-konpas), and saws, but others are his own invention.
In front of the workshop, protected by a heavy waterproof canvas sheet from the sun, rain and, above all, the wind, are stored various lengths of birchwood which is used for making the utensils. Domingo explains that cut while it is still young, it has all the right qualities for crafting. More important still, it will not crack if heated, and contains none of the pigments which taint foodstuffs with strange flavours. During the winter months, with the help of several friends, Domingo fells the chosen birch trees. Sometimes he buys them from private estates, at others he obtains the necessary permission to cut down trees in the common woodland surrounding Errazu. The date and place of the felling are agreed in the village ciderhouse, which serves at one and the same time as grocery and wine shop. On this occasion Domingo will pay for all the cider he and his friends drink as they arrange the final details and play a few games of dominoes on the single, square, marble-topped bar-table. Early the next morning they go to the hills to begin the felling. The woodland vegetation is luxuriant; the birches, pines and chestnuts grow beside narrow streams of rushing, sparkling water whose continual murmur is a reassuring presence. Until a few years ago Domingo and his friends used the axe for felling the birches, but now they have power saws which cut quickly and precisely. Once the tree is felled they remove the side branches from, the trunk and Domingo makes his preliminary calculations; they will cut as many times as are necessary for the required number of kaikus and other utensils. Gradually the lengths of wood are stacked on the trailer which, drawn by a tractor, will slowly wend its way back to the village.
Domingo works ceaselessly during the week following the timber felling; the wood must be turned speedily before it rots. He places a piece of timber on his work-bench. Using a compass he draws a circle on to the cut surface which will serve as his starting point, and does the same with the part which will be the handle, all on the same piece. Then, with great patience and strength, he begins to hollow out the centre of the wood. Once the hole is deep enough he inserts the drill into it together with a goilareak, an elongated scoop with a cutting edge. The task will last for hours and, once started, it cannot be stopped, as the precious single piece of wood is vulnerable at this stage. Little by little the kaiku takes the shape of a scoop-shaped pitcher. Next, using the marruza, a curved knife, Domingo gradually shapes the outside of the vessel; the handle is also completed and nothing remains but to smooth the wood with sandpaper. Three long and exhausting days have passed since he outlined the circle.
The finished kaikus are used mainly for milking, their shape, particularly the angled handles, allowing them to be carried with one hand. They have been used in this way for centuries since milk and dairy products have always been crucial to the valley economy. Nowadays few families rely on this kind of cottage industry. Instead the surplus milk is sold to the central dairy where cheese is produced on a larger scale in a more mechanized fashion. But some families make enough for their own requirements and the shepherd still makes sheep’s milk cheese with which to supplement his earnings from livestock sales.
The kaiku is also used for heating milk with hot stones, an ancient method which can be traced back to prehistoric times. Then, long before the discovery of earthenware cooking pots, the inhabitants of Euskalherria filled kaikus with water and cooked food in them. The custom has survived using round pebbles called kaikuarri in Basque, collected from the river, because they add a delicious burnt taste to the milk, called Errausana. The kaikuarris are removed from the hearth using large metal or wooden tongs, and once the ash has been cleaned off with a little hot water, they are put into the kaiku. If the stones have become polished through constant use, when they are removed from the fire they emerge so clean that rinsing is unnecessary. Sometimes a little sugar is sprinkled on the hot stones to add a caramelized flavour. The hot milk is also used for making mamia, a delicious local junket. Traditionally, this delicacy was seasonal, made between the months of January and June with lamb’s rennet, but now it is made all year round and most people use vegetable rennet, which you can buy in small glass jars at the village shop. It is eaten on its own, with a little honey or apple preserve or, in summer, with fresh fruit: peaches, nectarines, wild strawberries or, best of all, fat black cherries are my favourite. The fruit can also be added to the junket itself.
 |
To make Mamia with fruit you need some small moulds. Locally, these might be the smallest size of kaiku or the little straight-sided wooden cups called oporra, also used for drinking milk, or any mould available, glass or ceramic. In the base of the mould put the fruit, either fresh or gently stewed in the oven with a little sugar, cinnamon and a drop of orange liqueur. Pour over some milk which has been brought to the boil and then allowed to cool until tepid and to which a little vegetable rennet has been added. Leave in a cool place so that the curds will set around the fruit. |
The other utensils Domingo makes are primarily for traditional cheesemaking. Each valley’s cheese production is slightly different. Nearby, in the Roncal valley some of the best hard cheeses of the Peninsula are made from the milk of Rasa sheep: slightly dry, they have a compulsive flavour and texture. In the Batzan valley, by contrast, the caserío cheesemakers and shepherds make a white creamy cheese using milk produced by the Latxa breed. It is at its best eaten young, any time after four months, and before a year has expired.
Nunchi makes her cheese by hand using Domingo’s utensils. Early in the morning, she hooks an idaztia, a funnel for straining the warm milk, usually lined with nettle leaves to remove any impurities, on to an abatza, a pail with two handles into which the milk filters. After all the milk has filtered through she adds a little rennet and leaves the mixture to stand for half an hour before beating it well with the malatza, or stirring-spoon. Once the curds have separated from the whey, she gathers them up in her hands and puts them into a zumitza, a cylindrical mould with holes in the bottom, which is left to drain over a small board or kartola. The base of the mould is carved so that the finished cheese, unmoulded and salted that evening, is patterned on the top, perhaps with a geometric combination of triangular and quadrilateral shapes or overlapping rings. The cheese is then put to dry and to mature for three to four months. Nunchi sells some of the cheese direct from the house, but she and Domingo eat much of it themselves. The older cheese, matured for nearly a year, can be used for cooking, for example in this delicious onion soup.
One evening, Nunchi and I sat around the fire, eating talos and chestnuts baked in a little earthenware pot, while she reminisced about growing up in the valley. Her childhood memories are happy ones, though there were few amusements and plenty of work. As a child she had milked the sheep and cows on her parents’ small farm and later, during the Civil War, she went into service with a French family. She maintains that young people now do not know what real deprivation is, or realize how hard their parents worked at the same age, just to earn their keep. She recalls the apple trees in bloom, the chestnuts which are beginning to disappear and the paths which the shepherds would follow each year, up into the mountains. She particularly remembers the rare occasions when her mother would light the wood-fired oven and bake bread which filled the house with an irresistible aroma. What she would have given then to be able to eat her fill, although it was only maize bread!
In those days, nothing was allowed to go to waste in the kitchen. A number of these old dishes have survived. One, known as Baztansopas, is famous throughout the Basque Country. It belongs to the waste not, want not school of cookery. A sheep’s head, intestines and tripe, together with a little of its fat, are used to make a broth, which is served over well-soaked sops of bread. Sometimes a little chilli is added to make the soup more spicy. The sopa is followed by a second course of the intestines, tripe and any pieces of meat from the head, chopped finely and fried in a pan with onion and olive oil. You could be forgiven for thinking that this dish sounds unappetizing, and, to be truthful, I have never been able to work up much enthusiasm for it, but its flavour and richness is greatly appreciated by the locals who consider its delicacy far superior to any other dishes made with mutton or lamb.
Another interesting old delicacy is Txuri-ta-Beltza which is Basque for black and white. Again it comes from the days when nothing could be allowed to go to waste, but, if made properly, it can be quite delicious and it can still be found on restaurant menus in the valley.
|
Txuri-Ta-Beltza is made from the large and small intestines of a lamb. Clean the small intestine, boil it and chop finely. Mix with garlic, an onion and a little parsley, all raw and finely chopped. This forcemeat is bound with 5 well beaten eggs. Then prepare the large intestine, clean it and turn it inside out like a glove. Fill with the stuffing, tie well and boil in water until it looks like a sausage and is thoroughly cooked. The second part of the recipe involves boiling the animal’s blood. Once this is cooked put it in a casserole with a little oil, garlic and a small piece of fatty bacon. Sauté well and add a little tomato and onion sauce, prepared beforehand. Allow the sausage to cool and then cut into thin slices and serve with the blood cooked with tomato. |
My own personal favourites among the shepherds’ dishes are simpler sopas that the shepherds would cook in a three-legged iron pot over an open-air fire. One of them, migas de pastor, literally shepherds’ breadcrumbs, is a dish made throughout Spain wherever man tends livestock in the hills. The only difference from one area to another is in the flavouring ingredients added to the bread; towards the south, for example, these include grapes. The speciality of the shepherds in the mountains of the north of Navarre, flavoured with ham and sausage, is quite delicious and very easy to make.
My father used to make a marvellous migas de pastor. He would cut the bread left over from the previous day into very thin pieces; these would be placed in a large serving dish and moistened by sprinkling a little warm water over them to which a pinch of salt had been added. Then he would melt a knob of lard in a frying-pan and fry three unpeeled cloves of garlic, cut in half. When they were golden brown he would remove them. The best part of the migas came next – the little pieces of cured ham and chorizo (spicy pork sausage) fried in the garlicky oil. Next the bread would be added and turned in the fat with a wooden spoon. Sometimes to make a more substantial dish, shepherds break some eggs into the bread in the frying-pan.
|
A similar dish of which I am very fond, is called Tostón de sopas de horno, meaning oven-baked sops. For this a long loaf from the previous day is used and cut into small pieces. They are placed in a flameproof dish and water from cooking various green vegetables, such as asparagus or cabbage, is poured over the top. Some cloves of garlic and a little cured ham cut into small cubes are fried in olive oil, a teaspoon of paprika added and mixed into the bread and the whole dish put into the oven until golden brown. |
Bread dishes are primarily cooked during the winter months and costrada is one of the best examples. This recipe is a clever combination of fresh vegetables, sopas de pan (thinly cut bread), eggs and chorizo, which works to perfection. Although any kind of good quality chorizo could be added, the traditional Pamplona chorizo is ideal.
By the beginning of this century, emigration had become common practice. The young men would leave for California and Chile, to work there as shepherds while they were still bachelors. Some came back while they were still young, with a little money in their knapsack, to marry a local girl. Many more returned late in life, to retire to a comfortable house bought with the savings they had accumulated during many years of effort and, usually, loneliness and homesickness. Nunchi’s eldest brother returned from California some years ago and now lives alone in the mountains; he bakes talos and likes living in the silence which he became accustomed to when he was in America. He worked in Idaho where the first Basque shepherds arrived more than a century and a half ago and there is still a Basque language television channel. Other emigrants never came back. Today there are some three generations of Basques in America keeping alive their customs, folklore and the Basque language. Some, the cleverest among them, escape their ten year work-contract and move to New York or Chicago, where they eventually open a bar. Others set up restaurants in California. In June every year the chilenos, literally the Chileans, the families of those who emigrated to seek their fortune in South America, come back to spend their holidays in the valley’s hotels. The disappearance of the men left many unmarried women earlier this century, as a result, today there are many elderly spinsters. It also helped to produce a tradition of late marriage. Nunchi, for example, married Domingo when she was twenty-seven and that was considered relatively young since most men and women did not marry until they were thirty. Now, most people marry slightly earlier as the doctor says that thirty is too old to start a family.
These days, there is hardly any Basque emigration to America and people can afford to set up a house at a much younger age. The economy of the valley is still based on the exploitation of its natural assets, such as timber, wool, coal, meat and cheese, but now they yield a good return. Tradition and modernity co-exist side by side. Elizondo, the capital of the district, is full of cars, banks and people living at an unheard of speed. Parents dream of sending the children to Pamplona or another university town, where they can be educated and be prepared for the world down beyond the mountains. Predictably, many of the kaikus Domingo makes are no longer used for their original purpose, but destined to rest on a shelf unit or in a glass case of a farmhouse in Elizondo. Nevertheless, small villages like Errazu, have clung on to many old traditions. Each village usually has its combined bar and shop, selling all sorts of food and gadgets and utensils for the house and the farm. At Arizcun a few kilometres from Errazu, the bar doubles as a restaurant and a music school, where the local txistulary, the man who plays the txistu, a regional wind instrument which has a very soft sound, teaches the children of the neighbourhood. The instruments used to play an important part in all the fiestas, as music and dance always do in the Basque Country, but unfortunately today few villages have kept their txistularis. In this sense, Arizcun is a fortunate village since it has retained everything that means most to its inhabitants: church, pelota court, restaurant and music. Old habits die hard here. Electricity and gas may have arrived, but the women still continue to go into mourning wearing black and covering their heads with a large black scarf.
Festivals remain a strong thread of continuity with the past. Christmas and Carnival (Shrove Tuesday) were the times when food was at its best in the past, with luxuries like wheat bread and honey or sugar sweetened desserts on the table. Many of these were milky puddings which made ingenious use of the abundance of dairy products. At Christmas, a sopa cana, a sweet almond milk found in many regions of Spain, is still traditionally eaten.
Nunchi also remembers, the village fiestas, those rare days when the air of the valley was full of happiness and the girls were dressed in the new frocks of flowered material, which they had spent months making. Many of the old festival traditions survive in the Baztan valley. The men dance the mutil-dantzas to the music of the txistulary. These folkdances remain a male preserve. In Errazu, encouraged by the spirit of change, the local girls have tried to dance the mutil-dantzas, but the men have set themselves firmly against this. Winds of change may well be abroad, but there are still some things which Basque men refuse to countenance.
In each season there are still reasons to celebrate. Often these are pagan rites, their ancient origins lost in time, fused with later religious customs in an attempt to sanctify them. At Christmas, for example, the coming of Jesus has become merged with the arrival of the Olentzero, an aged charcoal burner who comes down from the mountains on Christmas Eve, bringing great merriment and good cheer to the villagers. One of the local youths paints his face, dons a big hat, puts a pipe in his mouth and is then carried on a litter through the village by the other lads to the accompaniment of a series of folk songs in which they describe him as a drunkard and a glutton, as well as some more flattering terms. Carnival, at the beginning of Lent, similarly blends folklore and religion.
Among the Carnival celebrations the most famous takes place in the mountain village of Lanz. There a mysterious legendary person, known as Miel-Otxin, is paraded through the streets amongst the music and dancing of young people, some of them dressed up in large sacks. The unfortunate Miel always comes to rest in the bonfire. In Errazu and Arizcun, the young people also go round the farmhouses singing regional songs to the music of an accordion and asking for a contribution. At the first house they may be given a txistorra, at the next a basket of eggs or perhaps a chicken or some money. At every house there is something. Whatever they collect they then sell and on Shrove Tuesday they have a meal at one of the local restaurants. At the inn in Errazu, María Dolores, a cousin of Nunchi and Domingo, cooks the traditional Carnival dishes: pigs’ trotters and leche frita or fried milk.
The pigs’ trotters are halved, deboned, boiled and coated in flour and egg and fried in olive oil, then placed in an earthenware dish where they are cooked slowly on top of the stove with water or stock flavoured with onion browned in olive oil, one or two cloves of garlic and a sprig of parsley.
|
The Leche frita is another milky dessert. For it you need 1 litre (1¾ pints) of milk, 250g (9 oz) of sugar, 75g (2½ oz) of cornflour, 7 egg yolks and 3 whole eggs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a few drops of olive oil, a little flour, a cinnamon stick and some ground cinnamon. Put half the milk to boil with the cinnamon stick. Meanwhile dissolve the cornflour in the rest of the milk in a mixing dish. In a bowl beat the egg yolks and the whole eggs and pour over the milk and cornflour. Then add to the milk and cinnamon, stirring all the time; bring back to the boil and simmer a few minutes, then remove from the heat. Add the butter and pour the mixture into a shallow, rectangular dish or cake tin to cool. When cold, cut into small squares. Coat these with flour and egg and fry in olive oil until golden. Serve hot, sprinkled with ground cinnamon and icing sugar. |
One of the oldest celebrations in the Basque Country is La Mascarada Suletina, the masquerade at Soule in the French Basque provinces where old invocations to bring good harvests are re-enacted. Five different characters take part in this dance, each one more extraordinary in appearance than the last: the Txerrero, sweeping away the evil spirits with his broom, the Zamaltzain, a horse, personifying the spirit of the maize; the Edaridum or inn-keeper’s wife, a female figure symbolizing the cult of wine; the Gatusain, who dances with a kind of wooden trellis symbolizing the lightning which brings the rains needed by the crops and finally the Ikurrindum at the rear bearing a flag and representing the Nation.
Other feasts are linked to the strongly rooted local belief in witches. For while the Basques are not superstitious by nature – the philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno once described them as ‘lacking in fantasy and creative imagination and, all in all, rather sceptical’ – they believe strongly in ancient tribal traditions. The most famous example of this is the story of the witches of Zagarramurdi, a small village not far from Errazu and a few yards from the French frontier at Dancharinea. There is nothing particularly remarkable about the place; a church, two local restaurants, some twenty houses. Nearby, however, are a series of beautiful caves where a group of witches who are said to have terrorized the village held their sabbaths. Here on a plaque at the entrance to the caves, one can read their story: In the year 1610 a wave of witchcraft hysteria, of the sort which periodically gripped the Basque country, swept across the region; the inquisitor, Don Juan del Valle Alvarado, was sent to carry out an investigation. Forty men and women, said to be members of the witches sabbath, were arrested and taken away to Logroño, the capital of Rioja. The Inquisition accused these people of worshipping the Devil, practising metamorphosis, calling-up storms to shipwreck vessels making landfall or putting to sea at San Juan de Luz, putting curses on fields, animals and people, and of vampirism and necrophilism, among other things. As a result of all this twelve witches and wizards were burned at the stake, five of them in the form of an effigy, since they had already died in gaol, and the rest received punishments such as confiscation of their goods or incarceration for life.
Today all that remains are the caves, the Devil’s cathedral, as they were afterwards known, and the stories of the vicissitudes of the people of Zagarramurdi with their witches. Amongst these legends is the tale of how the inhabitants of Zagarramurdi, in an effort to rid themselves of the witches, went in procession to the caves, one 15 August 1650. Once there the priest spread out a robe, which had been blessed and sprinkled with mustard seeds, to frighten away the witches for as many years as there were grains of mustard on the robe. None have been seen since.
Every year, in commemoration of that procession, a great banquet is held in the caves on the 15 August. This feast is the celebration of the Zikiro, the roasting of a castrated lamb by a very ancient method to symbolize the killing of the male witch. People from all parts of the Basque Country, even Bilbao, arrive between the 15 and the 19 August. Until just five or six years ago only men attended the banquet, but the women of the French Basque provinces decided that the time had come to break away from this long tradition and began to attend as well, swiftly followed, as one might expect, by the women from the other side of the border, who did not wish to be outdone. The great roast takes place in the main cave, in the middle of which they build a bonfire. Around its sides are wires supporting the stakes on which the joints are impaled vertically to roast. Each carcase is cut into four pieces. Apparently this is one of the best methods of roasting meat since the fat falls to the ground, rather than into the flames, and thus does not alter the flavour of the meat which cooks slowly and evenly; the fire cooks the meat both by convection and radiation. The lambs they roast have been raised on beans and local vegetables. One can eat as much as one wishes, followed by eggs cooked with peppers, finishing with a good meaty soup. Food, as always with the Basques, has become the excuse for all sorts of events.
The village inn, a fine building with its family coat of arms carved in stone over the main doorway, looks more like a farm than a restaurant. There are no bedrooms here, only meals twice a day, served in a large traditional dining-room on the first floor. An enormous front portico leads through to the cowsheds, the chicken coop and the pigsty. On the opposite side of the building, a wide wooden staircase leads up to the kitchen. Here María Dolores, Nunchi’s cousin, cooks excellent, if simple fare. Indeed, the inn has won such local fame that French cars can be found parked outside every day, their drivers lured by the homely dishes. Rumour has it that the beans cannot be bettered. ‘Though the beans they cook in the town of Tolosa may be famous, they do not cast those of Errazu into the shade,’ said María Dolores, her good nature shone through in an infectious smile. Then she explained how she prepares them. ‘If they are freshly picked, they need no soaking. I put them into warm water to cook, but in the months of March and April I use cold water. A few drops of good olive oil, a small piece of salty, fatty bacon and a bit of cured ham, are all that are needed. If I happen to have any txistorra sausage, then I add that too. The beans must be boiled all morning, at first quite briskly, later on one side of the wood-burning stove.’
The kitchen of the inn is just the same as it must have been a century ago, and little different from that of the other farmhouses in the village. Traditionally, the kitchen is the focal point of daily life, the front room being used only when there are visitors. The floors are normally wooden and the walls covered with plaster painted a pastel colour. On the rear wall will be the low canopied fireplace and around it a number of stools where the family sit. Above the grate there would be iron bars on which to rest pots and pans.
Here, in the inn, neither gas nor solid fuel stoves have crossed the threshold: María Dolores cooks on the fine black iron range fuelled by wood. This type of stove is still widely used, even in some of the most prestigious restaurants, since the secret of some delicious Basque dishes consists merely of a drop of oil on the hotplate which separates fish or meat from the wooden fire. Probably one of the most memorable hake that I have ever eaten was cooked this way. The expert cook simply basted the thick slice of fish sizzling on the hotplate with a little of the best quality olive oil from time to time. After seven or eight minutes she turned it over with kitchen tongs, and then deftly removed the backbone and let it cook a little longer. The taste was unique.
The inn’s dining-room is furnished simply with wooden tables and an open iron hearth, which is lit when diners arrive; in winter, when the valley is very cold, there is nothing like a wood fire and a drop of Navarrese red wine to raise the spirits.
In María Dolores’ restaurant there is no written menu. The dishes simply change with the seasons and their festivals, following local ingredients and those which can be bought in Elizondo, in fact most of the dishes at the inn are based on the meat of the bullocks which graze every day on the excellent pastures of the valley, and produce meat of a quality which is hard to find elsewhere in the Peninsula. One of the inn’s specialities is redondo de carne, rolled beef, which María Dolores cooks with onion, garlic, parsley, carrot, white wine and a drop of wine vinegar. The best cut for this is skirt, which is reasonably priced, with the meat prepared and tied in a roll. Both the meat and the vegetables are sautéed in a little oil, then the wine is added, followed by a little good meat or vegetable stock and the dish is left to cook slowly until the meat is tender and succulent. There are endless variations on this recipe; at home we prepare it with a forcemeat of boiled ham and some very thin omelette, to which slices of olive have been added which give the dish a lovely flavour.
In the autumn when pigeon fly from northern Europe and enter the natural passes through the Pyrenees in search of fine weather, pigeon dishes feature on the menus of the valley restaurants and inns. Some birds meet their deaths in one of these passes between Echalar and Sare. Many nets are stretched between the trees whose tops form a natural pathway and the men of Echalar await, positioned in high wooden watchtowers on the slopes of the valley. Should the pigeon be flying very high then these men will hoist into the air a series of white paddles, rather like rackets, which the pigeon, flying overhead, take to be sparrow-hawks since these usually attack from below. In fear they swoop down steeply, seeking out the protection of the slopes amongst the paths through the trees. Many are trapped in the nets, others are brought down by the shots of hunters who have converged from all over the Basque Country. The number of birds killed in this way is small, but the dramatic spectacle of the flocks flying into the nets, against the backdrop of the Pyrennean passes, attracts tourists to come here for the weekend to watch. Here are two excellent local recipes for pigeon.
|
To make Braised pigeon first the birds are plucked, dressed and cleaned thoroughly, then, in an earthenware casserole they are browned in a little good olive oil and set aside. One or two peeled and quartered apples, a little finely chopped onion, one or two carrots and a leek are also sautéed until golden. Then the pigeon are returned to the dish, together with a little chopped parsley, a small glass of Navarrese white wine, and, once more, a little stock. The dish is cooked on a low heat until the birds are tender, when they are removed from the casserole and the sauce is strained. Traditionally they were served by putting some slices of fried-bread in the bottom of the dish beneath each pigeon, and sauce poured over them. The dish is then returned to the heat and served when it is nice and hot. |
|
Most recently wood pigeon has been used for variations on this interesting dish. Juan José Castillo, one of the fathers of Basque cookery, today prepares a delicious Pigeon in sauce. Each pigeon which has been plucked and cleaned, is cut into quarters, boned and covered with a cloth, while the rest of the dish is prepared: Sautée in a frying-pan 2 cloves of garlic, 2 carrots and 1 onion, all finely chopped, in a little olive oil. When they are golden brown add some poultry stock, prepared in advance and a little thyme. Simmer for a few minutes and then add the pigeons’ liver which has been brought to the boil and crushed to a paste with a pestle and mortar, or a fork. Stir a little until the liver mixture thickens the sauce and then remove from the heat. The pigeon are then arranged on the plates and flambéed with a little brandy from Jerez or Catalonia. Meanwhile, the sauce should be warmed again before pouring over the meat. This should be served immediately, accompanied by small new potatoes and a green vegetable, stir-fried with oil and garlic and served on a separate plate. |
As one might expect, lamb is widely available in the mountains between December and May; the best kind is lechal or milk-fed, spring lamb. María Dolores thinks that the best way of cooking this is to roast it in the oven of a wood-fired stove, sprinkled with salt and with a few rashers of bacon laid over it. A little garlic can also be added, but not too much. But the best known dish from these parts is, cordero al chilindrón, lamb cooked with peppers. This method of cooking lamb is common to a wide area in the north-east of the Peninsula.
|
For Cordero al chilindrón you need a leg of lamb, deboned, 4 dried red peppers, an onion, a small glass of white wine, a little meat stock, garlic and salt. Cut the meat into chunks and brown it in olive oil in a frying-pan. Transfer to a traditional earthenware casserole. In the remaining oil, sauté the onion and garlic and once they are golden brown add the meat, draining off the oil. Then add the wine, cook for a few minutes over quite a hot flame, reduce the heat before putting in the peppers, cut into strips, add a little tomato sauce, which has been prepared in advance. Cook for a few minutes before adding stock to cover. It should be cooked slowly until all the ingredients are tender and ready to serve. This sort of dish is often even better the following day. My grandmother, who used to make excellent chilindrón, would sometimes add small pieces of potato and some raw tomato. |
Not all the food of the valley is traditional, some small restaurants and local hotels catering largely for visitors have introduced dishes which are strictly modern in their inspiration, but the people of the valley rarely go to such restaurants. They have neither the time nor the inclination to do so.
At the small hotel near Errazu a van arrives every morning from San Sebastián loaded with all kinds of fish and shellfish as well as any other ingredients which the cook needs, but which it would otherwise be impossible to obtain in the area. Nonetheless, the chef still also uses the best of regional produce, as in this warm salad of brains and shellfish, a combination of raw vegetables, meat and seafood.
|
To prepare twenty Croquetas de queso you need 1½ litres of milk (2½ pints), 50g (2 oz) of butter, 50g (2 oz) of flour, 150g (5 oz) of creamy cheese, salt, pepper and ground nutmeg and for the batter 200g (7 oz) of flour, 50 ml (2 fl oz) of oil, 1 small glass of water, 3 egg whites and a teaspoon of baking powder. Make a roux with the butter and flour, add the milk to make a sauce, add a little salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the cheese, blend well and allow the mixture to cool. Form small balls of about 2.5 cm diameter. To prepare the batter mix in a bowl the flour, oil, water, baking powder and salt. Mix well to form a smooth paste, adding a little water, and cover with a cloth. Set aside for about twenty minutes or until the mixture has doubled in volume. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the smooth paste. Dip each ball into the batter and fry in very hot oil. |
It is Saturday and the Echandis, their sons and grandchildren have congregated around the dining-table. The contrast between the old villagers from Errazu and the children from Pamplona is interesting, the distance between them being much greater than merely that of the generation gap. The children will never learn to play the txistu or dance the mutil-danzas properly, although they still eat roast chestnuts and talos most weekends. They can feel the spell of the valley, Canela’s barking and the walks through the birches with their grandfather, but tomorrow they will be back in the city again, speaking Castilian and with the kaiku far away from their thoughts.
Over the last few years Domingo has tried to teach several youngsters his trade, but they soon tired and preferred to go off to the town to make their fortune; kaikus involve too much work and little economic gain. This saddens Domingo as he feels that his cherished kaiku will disappear once these ones are worn away, sadly with time and not use.