Table of contents

I. ORGANISING FOOD INTAKE

Household meals on working days

• Distribution of the meals

• Times

• Composition of each meal

• Morning refreshments

• Lunch

• Afternoon snack

• Dinner

 

II. PRAYING AT FAMILY MEALTIMES

Blessing prayers

• Blessing formulas in Basque

• Blessing formulas in Spanish

• Remembering dead relatives

• Prayers after meals

• Polite forms of address

• Tongue-in-cheek blessings

 

III. TRADITIONAL BREAD MAKING

General points

• Frequency of the batch bakes

• The flours

Preparing the oven

• Utensils used and operations carried out in the oven: Fuelling, lighting and cleaning spreading and building up the embers, sweeping the floor, loading and removing the loaves

• The fuel

• Other uses of the oven

Wheat bread

• Yeast: Source, storage and preparation

• Kneading and preparing the individual loaves

• • The trough
  • Cleaning the trough
  • Sieving the flour
  • Kneading
  • Fermentation
  • Second kneading
  • Dividing up the dough and shaping the loaves
  • Baking
  • Storing the bread

• Additions to the wheat flour

• • Usual dough ingredients
  • Adding boiled potato
  • Product to make sweet rolls
  • Other flours: barley and rye
  • Rye bread

• Shape and weight of the bread. Types of bread

• • Bread loaf
  • Torta (Flatbread)
  • Wholemeal bread
  • Sweet rolls
  • Rolls for children
  • Bread with egg or chorizo sausage

• The bread today

Corn flour

• Cornbread

• • Area eaten
  • Cornbread names and shapes
  • Yeast
  • Preparing cornbread
  • Baking cornbread
  • Eating the cornbread

• Talo (Corn flatbread)

• • Eating talo
  • Preparing talo
  • Utensils to bake and toast talo
  • Food eaten with talo

• Morokil (Corn porridge) and similar cereal porridges

Rites and beliefs associated with bread

• Ritual treatment of household bread

• The bread offered to beggars

• Bread handed out at church

• Offertory bread: During the funeral, at the family grave, on All Saints and All Souls'

 

IV. DOMESTIC SLAUGHTERING OF ANIMALS

Pig slaughtering

• Fattening

• Timing of the slaughter and beliefs

• Slaughter

• Carcass singeing

• Gutting

• Cooling and resting

• Weighing and jointing

• Cured meats

• • Black puddings: Preparation and varieties
  • Chorizo sausages: Preparation, classes and drying
  • Other cured meats: Sausages, salcichón (cured sausage), butifarra (blood sausage), boar's head (brawn)

• Preserving others parts of the pig

• • Hams
  • Bacon
  • Loins, ribs, ears, legs and snouts

• Gifts at slaughter time

• Changes in the domestic slaughtering of the pig

Ewes and lambs

• Slaughter

• Cured meats

Large livestock

• Cattle. Cecina (Cured, air-dried beef)

• Horses

Poultry

• Hens, chickens, capons and cockerels

• Turkeys

• Doves and pigeons

• Ducks and geese

 

V. MILK AND DAIRY PRODUCTS

Milk

• Types, consumption and marketing

• • Ewe's milk
  • Cow's milk
  • Goat's milk
  • Ass's milk

• Spoiled milk

• Hot stones

• Cream

• Colostrum

Cheese

• The cheeses depending on the type of milk

• Traditional methods for making ewe's cheese

• • Milking
  • Filtering the milk
  • Coagulating the milk
  • Beating the curds
  • Shaping the curds
  • Pressing
  • Adding salt

• Whey

• Maturing and storing the cheeses

• Shapes and types of cheese

• Marketing the cheese

• Utensils used to make the cheese

Other dairy products

• Curd cheese

• Junket

• Butter

• Yoghurt

 

VI. CONSUMING AND PRESERVING VEGETABLE PRODUCTS

Consumption of horticultural products

• Pulses and beans

• Leafy vegetables and other vegetable products

Domestic preserving methods

• Drying

• Preserving using sugar

• Preserving in vinegar

• Bottling and canning

• Cold preservation

Preserved products

• Fruit

• Dried fruit and nuts

• Pulses and beans

• Vegetables

Freezing

• Pulses and beans

• Leafy vegetables

• Fruit

• Mushroom

• Other non-plant products

• Cooked food

• Frozen food

 

VII. PREPARING AND PRESERVING EGGS

Preparing eggs

• Baked

• Cooked in water

• Cooked in oil

• Added to other ingredients

• Other applications

Preserving eggs

• Preserving in lime

• Preserving in salt

• Other preserving procedures

 

VIII. CONSUMPTION OF AQUATIC LIFE

Marine life

• Shellfish

• • Molluscs
  • Crustaceans

• Fish

• • Frequently consumed species
  • More restricted consumption species

• Elvers: Fishing and preparation

Fresh water life

• River fish

• Crustaceans

• Frogs

 

IX. CONSUMPTION OF MUSHROOMS AND SNAILS

Mushrooms

• Toxicity

• Preserving

• Growing button mushrooms

• Preparing mushrooms

• Introducing new species

• Harvesting

• Species description

• • Most consumed mushrooms
  • Restricted consumption species
  • Unspecified mushrooms

Snails

• Varieties harvested

• Harvest periods

• Different attitudes to eating snails

• Keeping the harvested snails

• Cleaning the snails

• Cooking the snails

• Preparing the snails

• Making stock using the cooking water

 

X. PREPARING THE MEALS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD

Meat

• Pork

• Mutton and lamb

• Beef and veal

Condiments

• Vegetable seasonings

• Oil

• Animal-based seasonings

• Other condiments

 

XI. BEVERAGES

Wine

• Consumption

• Production area and types of grape

• Wine making

• • The winery. Treading grapes in the winepress
  • Extracting wine from the press
  • Decanting the wine

• Types of wine

Txakoli wine

• Making Txakoli

Cider

• Harvesting the apples

• The press

• Cider making

• Drinking and bottling

• Pitarra (apple must)

 

 

XIII. RITUAL MEALS AND FOOD

Meals connected with festivities and times of the year

• The Christmas cycle

• • Food gifts: Snacks and treats
  • El Aguinaldo - carol singing for treats
  • Christmas Eve dinner. Gabon gaba. Olentzero gaba

• • • Ogi salutadorea. Christmas Eve bread
    • Christmas Eve dinner. Gabon afaria
    • Christmas Eve dinner at the start of the century
    • Christmas Eve dinner according to current surveys

• Christmas desserts: Intxaursaltza (Nut Sauce), compote, cinnamon soup, nougat and marzipan, sugared almonds

• Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Epiphany

Meals at Carnival time

• Candlemas. Cinnamon French Toast

• San Blas. Blessing of food

• Postulations and communal meals

• • St. Agatha's Eve
  • Las Marzas (groups of young people singing to welcome March)
  • Las Pascuas (groups of young people singing to celebrate Easter)
  • Basaratostea (Sunday after St. Agatha's Day)
  • Fat Thursday

• Carnival

• Traditional Carnival dishes

Fasting and abstinence

• Canon law

• Food on fasting and abstinence days

Easter Sunday

• Rites with bread and water

• Easter cake

Celebrations at chapels and shrines

• Light refreshments at the end of mass

• Pilgrimage meals

• Blessing food at shrines

• Brotherhood celebratory meals

Meals at the end of collective work

• Pig slaughtering

• Finishing the roofing of a house

• Auzolan (neighbourhood labour) meals Community work

• Meals at the end of collaborative work

Meals to celebrate the rites of passage

• Delivery and birth

• Baptism

• Birthday parties

• First Holy Communions

• Weddings

• Funeral wakes

 

XIV. TRANSFORMATIONS UNDERGONE DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY IN THE FAMILY’S FOOD REGIME

From monotony to diversity

• End of autarky

• Home-made products

• Changes in daily diet

• Attitudes towards food

• Changes in social context

• New equipment

• More recent transitions

 

XV. DIET IN THE NORTHERN BASQUE COUNTRY OR IPARRALDE

Organisation of meals

• Arrangement of the table

• Yearly calendar of meals for particular events in life

• Fruit and vegetable production

• • Fruits
  • Legumes

• Rites before and during the meal

• Bread

• La leche

• La carne

• Los huevos - El pescado - Los caracoles

• La miel

• Los condimentos

• Las bebidas: vino - sidra - bebidas alcohólicas - café - agua - tisana

• El tabaco