Journal #4: Under the Basque Sun by Simón A. Crespo Pérez
In the summer of 2018, I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to visit Spain with my extended family. It was a beautiful trip which center and main point was food; consequently, we went to different cities in different regions: Barcelona, Córdoba, Granada, Madrid, San Sebastián, Sevilla, and Toledo. Among the various destinations, food was especially extraordinary in San Sebastián, which is one of the major cities of the Basque Autonomous Region in Northern Spain.
According to our tour guide in San Sebastián, Basque cuisine is among the best in the world for two main reasons: its taste and its meaning. Regarding its taste, he explained to us that the city has one of the highest numbers of Michelin Stars per square meter, and that they have their own style of tapas, known as pintxos, for 1 to 3 euros each. Regarding its meaning, he explained to us that for them, eating is a way of socializing. Meeting with family or friends practically always means eating in a restaurant or cooking at home.
Pintxos consist of small slices of bread upon which an ingredient or a mixture of ingredients is placed and fit together with a toothpick, which gives the food its name (pintxo means toothpick). I will proceed to describe the ingredients of the very best pintxos I tried, which always go with a bread and toothpick.
Gilda: it is considered the first pintxo in the city, and it is made of olives, anchovies, and pickled pimento.
Txuleta: it is made of grilled steak made from aged, grass-fed beef.
Kokotxas: it is made of hake cheeks with pil-pil sauce (salt cod, garlic, and olive oil).
Foie Gras: it is made of fattened duck liver and marmalade.
Spider Crab: it is made of crab with tart (flour, butter, and sugar).
For this journal entry, I have decided to imitate Winter Kitchen Notes – Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. The reason I chose that piece was because it mixes beautifully the first part, which describes the author’s emotions, with the second part, which are delicious food recipes. Principally, I learned, about the Tuscan culture and about my own culture, the importance of geography in the creation of food. Something that Tuscan, Basque, and Ecuadorean cuisine have in common is their dependence of their landscape, especially since they both are heavily inspired by both their access to water and access to vast land. Even though they are three completely different countries, they both have fish presented in different ways: in San Sebastián, they have kokotxas pintxos; in Italy, they have pici with quick-tomato-cream sauce (taken from Mayes’ text); and, in Ecuador, we have our classic fried fish. The style is completely different, but the key ingredient is the same.
I would say there is cultural DNA present in both the piece I read and the one I created because there are clear examples of the social characteristics of each group. In the Mayes’ reading, we can see the ingredients which are based on geography and the importance of order (antipasti, primi piatti, secondi piatti, contorni, and dolce). In my piece, we can also see the ingredients which are based on geography and the importance of Basque cuisine in differentiating their tapas from the rest of Spain. After all, they take their autonomy very importantly. In these little details, for those who analyze carefully, cultural DNA is present.