Atmosphere in a typical gastronomical society (La Unión Artesana)
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The many good restaurants and gastronomical societies founded in the Basque Country are a testimony to the enjoyment Basque people get from good food, and their fondness for cultivating the traditions of good cooking.
Atmosphere in a typical gastronomical society (La Unión Artesana)
For some people gastronomical societies are the best example of good eating habits; they are traditional meeting places, whose members compete to make delicious dishes for the others. Their members have also collaborated in preserving and recovering old recipes, as well as giving a new approach to cooking, by giving a new status to dishes of humble origin, but of high culinary merit. Until recent times admission to gastronomical societies was not open to women, except on the eve of St. Sebastián's Day, the city's patron saint. This anachronistic custom, still upheld in the most traditional societies, has been abolished in many of them. Nevertheless, the traveller who wishes to visit a gastronomical society would have to be invited by a member, because that is the only way to gain admission.
Members of the New Basque Cuisine.
On the other hand, Gipuzkoa has a great variety of different types and categories of restaurants, most of them offering high-quality food. Owing perhaps to the gastronomical societies, restaurants in San Sebastián show the influence of the traditional Basque cuisine in their simple and tasty home-made dishes. The combination of those two types of cooking have resulted in what is known as the New Basque Cuisine. Following the path of other modern cuisine, the New Basque Cuisine is based on seasonal fresh food, that is market oriented. The introduction of puff pastry, cream-based sauces, and exquisit dish presentation, clearly defines a style that lovers of good food always find in San Sebastián.
No traveller visiting Gipuzkoa should miss tasting some of the most characteristic dishes from its cuisine. To help him make a selection, we shall mention some of these dishes.
Delicious fresh fish dishes, cooked in such a way as to enhance their own flavour, can be savoured in the restaurants along the coastal strip in Gipuzkoa. Although sea bream and hake are the two most popular dishes, there is a great variety of other fish to please every palate. We shall start with hake (Merlanus Merlanus: european hake/european whiting). Connoisseurs prefer hake fished with a fishing line, because it bleeds to death, leaving the flesh in the very best condition, while a trawler-caught hake dies by drowning, and so macerates inside the net. Hake with a green sauce is the most usual way of cooking it. The sauce is thickened by emulsifying the oil with the juice from the fish, once it has been warmed; flour is not added. Many prefer the side closer to the head known as the nape. There is nothing tastier than hake's nape with clams and barbels.
On the other hand, grilled sea bream topped with lightly fried garlic is one of the favourites dishes in the seaside restaurants. Anchovies (the best come in spring) and sardines are grilled too. Many people, who visited San Sebastián a long time ago, come back with the memory of sardines and anchovies grilled that way in the typical little restaurants close to the port.
Basque people like cod very much. It seems that in the Middle Ages they discovered cod banks in Newfoundland, and developed a method of drying and salting the fish, which has survived up to the present times. It has been said that, until some years ago, cod was a poor man's food. Today it is a favourite dish, whether it is made "pil-pil" (with garlic sauce), or with "vizcaina" sauce (red peppers and tomato sauce).
Small squids (chipirones) in their own ink have the reputation of being the only black dish in the world. That is why it revolts people who see it for the first time. In summer, the little boats with white sails that catch them can be seen from the Paseo Nuevo in San Sebastián.
Summer is also the tuna season. "Marmitako", a stew with pieces of tuna potatoes, peppers and tomatoes, was a dish of humble origins, made in the small trawlers' kitchens. It is very nourishing, and it takes its name from the pot ("marmita") in which it is cooked.
Baby eels (angulas) is one of the most expensive and best liked dishes of all; strangely enough, other Europeans do not seem to like them at all. They are the elvers or young of the fish that swim back up the rivers from the Sargasso Sea. Cooked pil-pil style, they are best liked by the people from San Sebastián to celebrate dinner on the eve of St. Sebastián's Day (January 19th), and on other festivities. But owing to their growing shortage, the price of elvers is getting far too high for the mayority of people's pockets. It has been stated that future generations will not get to know this delicious dish.
We do not have enough space to speak about the large number of dishes that can be savored in the restaurants along the coast, but we shall mention at least the typical fish soap, as well as the backed crab (txangurro), among the long list of sea food.
Beans and corn, the traditional ingredients of Basque cuisine.
Apart from fish, there is a great variety of delicious vegetables, pulses, meat, mushroom dishes, ect. Among the pulses we have to mention the black beans from Tolosa. You can cook them slowly on the stove for many hours in an earthenware cooking pot, to which salami and pork rib have been added. They can be savoured in any restaurant, but the best ones are found in farmhouses and in restaurants located in rural areas.
Concerning meat-dishes, it is worth mentionin roast lamb. Ox steaks are very typical of the cider bars as we will see later on.
It is time for dessert, and one cannot leave San Sebastián without tasting the frangipane tart (franchipan) with cream and almonds that can be eaten warm. And we cannot forget the traditional curd made with ewe's milk that can be taken either with sugar or with honey.
Traditional cheese production Ixidro Legorburu from Idiazabal.
For those who love cheese, Idiazabal cheese made entirely with ewe's milk, and slightly smoked. will be an interesting discovery. According to your own taste, you can choose either new or milder, or dry, which is more mature and stronger in flavour.
Food is served with two delicious local beverages; a slightly sharp cider, mainly from the Astigarraga and Usurbil area, and txakoli, a dry sharp-tasting with wine, produced mainly in Getaria and Zarautz. But a rosé from Navarre, or a wine from Rioja, both very much liked by the Basque people, can also be drunk with any of the dishes.
If you visit Gipuzkoa from the end of January to the beginning of April you can enjoy a new experience by going to a cider bar. Cider has always been brewed on the Basque farms for home use since ancient times, and it is also brewed in the cider bars for sale. It seems that clients traditionally used to go to the cider bars to taste the cider stored in the big barrels, before they chose the one they wanted to be bottled for them. They used to eat cod omelette, and a grilled ox or steak to help them not to get too marry. Today the same menu can be savoured in the many cider bars located in Gipuzkoa, together with as much cider as anyone wants to taste out of the open barrels; for dessert Idiazabal cheese and nuts. In view of their success in recent years, there are some cider bars that have menus similar to those offered by any other restaurant. In general, neither a polished service nor too much tidiness should be expected (one should remember that cider bars are cider factories too); a lively din and a good atmosphere, on the other hand, can be relied upon.
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Last modified: Nov, 02, 1999