Table of contents

Contenido de esta página

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. 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

Heat source

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. 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