Life and Food in the Basque Country by Maria Jose Sevilla

Life and Food in the Basque Country by Maria Jose Sevilla

Author:Maria Jose Sevilla
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Amsterdam Books
Published: 1989-03-19T16:00:00+00:00


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



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