Table of contents

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I. ORGANISING FOOD INTAKE

Household meals on working days

Distribution of the meals

Times

Composition of each meal

Morning refreshments

Lunch

Afternoon snack

Dinner

Meals outside the home: shepherds, fishermen and others

Sunday meals

Sequence of the different dishes

Seating arrangements

The table

From the communal dish to the individual plate

Cutlery

 

II. PRAYING AT FAMILY MEALTIMES

Effect of the blessing

Family prayers

Rite of blessing the table

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

Nanny goats and kids

Large livestock

Cattle. Cecina (Cured, air-dried beef)

Horses

Rabbits

Poultry

Hens, chickens, capons and cockerels

Turkeys

Doves and pigeons

Ducks and geese

Game

 

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. EATING AQUATIC LIFE

Marine life

Shellfish

• • Molluscs
  • Crustaceans

Fish

• • Most frequently eaten species
  • Species eaten less frequently

Elvers: Fishing and preparation

Fresh water life

River fish

Crustaceans

Frogs

 

IX. EATING 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

The Hearth

Utensils

Culinary culture

Stocks and soups

Pulse and bean stews

Vegetable stews

Potato stews

Salads

Rice

Pasta

Meat

Pork

Mutton and lamb

Beef and veal

Poultry

Game dishes

Fried dishes

Fish

Desserts

Condiments

Vegetable seasonings

Oil

Animal-based seasonings

Other condiments

 

XI. BEVERAGES

Water

Lemonade

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)

Beer

Spirits: Eau-de-vie, Pacharán (liqueur made from fermented sloes) and others

Other beverages

Coffee

Herbal teas

 

XII. TOBACCO

Starting smoking

Tobacco substitutes

Growing and producing tobacco at home

Tobacco forms of presentation

Benefits attributed to tobacco

Pipes and cigarette holders

Pouches and cases

Lighters

 

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

Household celebratory meals and communal meals to mark the patron saints' festivities

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. CHANGES TO THE HOUSEHOLD DIETARY REGIME DURING THE 20TH CENTURY

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