EITb: Basque Gastronomy

EITb published an article on Basque gastronomy, here it is:

Basque Gastronomy: a way to understand Basque people

A must for visitors

07/20/2006

The gastronomic habits of a people are, as are so many other customs, a good clue in order to approach its culture, and any understanding of the history and the daily life of Euskadi must necessarily filter through the gastronomy of Euskadi.

It is vital to acknowledge that the traditional and popular diet of the Basques has been a sparing and frugal one. However, Basque people have learned how to convert the simple harvest that is extracted so laboriously from the sea and the earth into works of culinary art, respecting the character of some choice materials that rarely endure complicated preparations, and prudently assimilating external influences upon our cuisine.

What is understood as traditional Basque cuisine has remained practically unaltered through time, its secrets passed along in the domestic hearth by the women, and in gastronomic societies by the men.

In the mid-seventies, aware of the risk of this tradition becoming decrepit and abandoned, the generation of young chefs undertook the renovation of the Basque cuisine, combining its traditional values with the more universal culinary and dietary trends. Today, the traditional cuisine and the restored Basque cuisine coexist in harmony, and they share the purpose that gastronomy in Euskadi has always held, that of becoming a pleasure that the Basque people offer to all our visitors.

However, we cannot describe traditional Basque gastronomy without mentioning a unique phenomenon, the gastronomic societies, which can be found throughout the entire country and which keep alive the Basque culinary orthodoxy and without which it would be difficult to understand the widespread social embracement of the present-day Basque cooking. By tradition exclusively male, in these masculine clubs men who at home would never come near the cooking hearth come together to cook for friends and for each other, making gastronomy the foundation for their relationships while they keep alive the most traditional recipes.

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