Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. This is Bas Country part two with Phil Walter.
So what did we talk about last time we talked about pinchos, we talked about grilling. What
else what else do you think is important to mention? You mentioned Persebes last episode,
but I don't think we elaborated on what Persebes actually are. Sure, go ahead. Well, Persebes
are for me anyway, they were very unique products to like that region, you know, that I've never
seen before. And their delicacy, their goose barnacles, they're like, we can't really call
them shellfish, can you? But the seafood that grow as barnacles on rocks out in the ocean
that then get boiled, and then you basically peel them and suck the meat out of them sort
of similar to a clam, kind of like a razor clam, actually, if you think about it, the
flavor and texture wise, yeah, I agree. But they look completely different. They look
completely different. They look really freaky. If you've never seen a goose barnacle, they
look kind of like an alien. I was going to say an alien. Yeah, but they're really, really
tasty. And they are a delicacy. I mean, they are very notoriously difficult to harvest.
And goose barnacles are big business in the Bas Country, because, you know, people go
out and gather them, but it's very dangerous. So not everybody does it. But you can sell
them for a lot of money. You know, fair amount of people die each year trying to get them.
You also have this whole culture around mushrooms when they're in season. Yes. And my favorite
mushroom dish is the one you get at Gambara. Yeah. Which is just grilled boletus. Boletus
is the same as porcini sliced, grilled with an egg yolk. And that's it. And it's amazing.
It's so good. It's just so extremely simple, you know, and then you get the raw egg yolk
in the center that you kind of break and dip the mushrooms into. And it's I mean, it's
amazing. I mean, it's crazy. If you're in the Bas Country, especially around that season,
you know, you have to go eat the Gambara mushrooms at least once. Like, it's a little bit shocking
because a plate of mushrooms costs you like 20 quid, I think. Yeah, around that. Yeah.
But it's you know, the mushrooms are amazing. Like it's a prime ingredient, you know, like
boletus is not cheap. Another of my favorite places is Chepecha. This is a place that specializes
only on preserved anchovies. And you get like a slice of toasted bread with an anchovy on
top. It's not even toasted the bread and a topping on top of the anchovy. So it could
be like a vegetable vinaigrette with a vegetable bournoise. Or my favorite is with preserved
sea urchin, which is amazing. I've never tasted anything that tastes so much like sea. And
the other one would be like with a mixture of mayonnaise and king crab, which is also
pretty good. That's amazing. Well, of course, we also have to talk about all the Michelin
starred chefs that are in the region, like San Sebastian for a long time was the number
one place with the largest concentration of Michelin stars per capita. Now it's Kyoto
and San Sebastian is second. But I mean, it's like 180,000 inhabitants city. And there are
how many three Michelin star restaurants? Mugarich has two. They're also a bunch with
one. It's crazy. I mean, they're just meters away one from each other. It's crazy. Yeah,
especially because, you know, San Sebastian isn't like a huge city. It's a it's a town,
you know. And again, it's just like this food centric culture in the Basque country. This
like obsessiveness with cooking and with, you know, high quality food and high quality
ingredients and dislike technique forward drive is really unique, you know, around the
world. It also has been very influential. Like in the 60s, culinary movement was developed
in France called the Nouvelle cuisine, where many things changed their tasting menus were
introduced ordering wine by the glass, having dishes designed with a specific portion, a
specific amount of sauce so that it could fix in a longer menu, the way of plating of
presenting dishes, like many, many things changed. And there were two of the most influential
Basque chefs that went to France to get impregnated of all this set of knowledge. These were Subi
Hana and Arasak. And they came back and about 10 years later, in the 70s, 80s, they replicated
this movement and adapted it into the Basque reality. And that's what kind of where it
started that all these restaurants started getting Michelin stars, chefs would train
with these chefs and create their own restaurants with their own Michelin stars. And it has
been like a legacy among Basque chefs that still continues today. And you still see the
influence of this in Pinchot's bars and in other culinary movements, such as the Spanish
avant-garde and the new Nordic cuisine movement were also influenced by the new Basque cuisine.
Yeah, the amount of influence is crazy. Like if you look at Arsak, you know, as like a
family restaurant in San Sebastian, and like he goes to France, you know, gets this inspiration,
comes back and the worldwide influence that he's had is crazy, you know, in so many ways,
you know, like now it's speaking about new Nordic cuisine, you know, and like all the
influence that that had together with Ferran Andrea and the Catalan sort of like movement,
it changed the culinary world worldwide, literally.
Did you know that the Ferran was cooking like classic until the mid 90s? And he was inspired
by Arsak to start doing crazy creative dishes as he does today.
I always remember that video of Ferran and Arsak in a bar together talking about gambas.
Have you seen that?
Yeah, I think Arsak is saying that squid is a blue fish and Ferran said, you're crazy.
What does that even mean? What does that even mean? Like a blue fish. And yeah, they're
talking about like that Ferran is saying sort of like, oh, when you get the shrimp in, you
have to let them rest for one or two days, then they're only really good. And Arsak is
saying, no, you have to cook them as fresh as possible. And they get really angry about
it. And he's like, no, no, no, you have to. Well, Ferran is kind of staying calm. He's
like, no, you have to just put them in the fridge for two or three days. And Arsak's
getting really angry. And he's like, what are you saying? You're crazy.
He's so cool, man. And everybody loves him. I was in a conference in Germany where his
daughter Elena was giving a presentation. And when they showed a picture of Arsak, there
was like a minute standing ovation from everybody. It was crazy.
He's such a funny guy, man. He's just a lovable guy.
Another relevant topic is dining societies. Yeah, that's something crazy about the Basque.
Absolutely. There are some crazy customs that you won't see anywhere else. One of them is
dining societies. I will get to that in a minute. But another one is what they call
cuadrillas. Quadrillas is like your group of friends since your childhood. I mean, everybody
has like a group of friends that you went to school together and perhaps you grow up
and you still have that group of friends. But here it's like an institution. It's like
an actual group with members and people get into it like, we have a new member for cuadrilla.
And then they also have this dining societies, which are like clubs. Let's say like a sport
club where you have like a tennis court or in a swimming pool and so on. But this is
like a culinary club with a well-equipped kitchen up to a restaurant level equipment
and then dining spaces and families will go there and cook and every family cooks something
different and they will cook something really special, not just whatever, like something
fancy like a rice with lobster or perhaps a traditional dish or these kind of things.
And then of course, families will exchange one with each other and make each other taste.
And if you're exposed to something like that since you're little, that's like the equivalent
to a bar. So everybody has been into a bar or a restaurant and here you also have dining
societies. And I think that's also pretty interesting and probably also one of the reasons
why people are so knowledgeable about food around here.
Yeah, absolutely. And it comes to show you how strong the cultural identity is for cooking,
you know, and yet he's like secret gentlemen's clubs only because it was like for like a
long time until very recently, it was just the men that were allowed to cook red. Yeah.
Like, like it was just men that went, I think also.
Yeah. And I think that there are still some like that today. I'm not sure. That's probably
not legal anymore. But I mean, every time I've been to a dining society, there were
women both cooking and eating. So that's not a standard anymore.
Yeah. And it's, you know, it's cooking, enjoying yourself drinking and often singing songs.
You know, it's just a nice way of spending an evening, you know, meet up with your friends,
cook delicious food. It's like a friendly competition going on who cooks the tastiest
stuff, you know, who fucks up the peel peel. It's good fun.
Yeah. It's not an easy sauce to cook if you don't know how to do it.
It really isn't. I don't think I've ever cooked the traditional peel peel, to be honest with
you. I mean, if you know the technique and how
to move the pot and everything, sometimes you use like a strain to whisk the sauce.
That's one of the tricks. Yeah.
You never want to use like a tour mix. Otherwise you will get like a foamy white mayonnaise
that has nothing to do with this kind of like liquid thick sauce that is usually what you
want. Everything has a way of doing things. And if you don't do it the proper way, you
will get a different effect and you will offend people. Like, no, that's not how you cook
that chuleta. Like overcooking a chuleta, it's like a crime around here.
Like a medium rare steak. Yeah.
It has to be raw. People get angry about that. They don't even
ask you how you would like your chuleta here. If you want the rare or meat, no, you will
get it as it is and you should eat it as it is. It is also a crime to ask to send a chuleta
back to get it a little bit more cooked. Honestly, I've never seen that. I've never seen anybody
do that. I saw that once, man. And the waiter was like,
are you sure? The guy like, yes. And he looked him with a face of, man, you have no fucking
idea. Disgusting.
It was a French guy. There was really hate in the waiter's eyes.
Understandable. So the other nice thing is the way they cook
grilled fish here, because it's quite common that they will grill the fish until it's very
raw in the middle. And then they would take the center spine out and put like a mixture
of super hot oil, garlic, just a slice of dried chili and a little bit of apple vinegar.
And they would throw this on top of the fish just to cook that last punch. And so that
it comes really hot to the table. And that's how 99% of the fishes are cooked around here.
And it's always perfect. It's always delicious.
It's super delicious. Yeah, it's super, super delicious. I love this, this like mix of oil
and vinegar with like garlic is super delicious. And it's like one of the things that I took
away from cooking in the Basque country for like using for fish, especially like seafood
is so nice. I mean, that's what I do at Elcano. They have like a glass bottle, like a pouring
bottle with I think that's it. So I think it's like garlic that's like lightly fried
in oil, then it's cut with vinegar.
I heard that the the ahomiji that this mojo sauce that they have at Elcano. And actually,
I haven't heard of other places that still have this kind of things. It's like a super
secret recipe that the owner would go like to the to like a different room every time
he is going to make it and then come back with the sauce already made.
It was like that at Chibari when I went to eat them in this is a long time ago, like
it was what 2013 now it's different now he's got chefs and stuff. But back then it was
still like only him, you know, cooking. It was him, another chef who was doing pastry
and then like three Asian guys who are just like cleaning salads and stuff who would interning.
Now he's got like actual chefs and people are plating and stuff. But like when I was
there, that's where we got like a kitchen tour and stuff. And they were saying like
when Bitor is cooking and like making the charcoal and stuff. Nobody's in the room.
Like it's just him.
That's crazy.
Hello there. I just finished editing this episode. And since this is part two of Basque
cuisine and gastronomy, I think it's worth mentioning that Eric is currently offering
some really cool food tours in San Sebastian. Go to Eric's website gastrogems.com and book
your private food tour. The link is in the episode description. You can expect the complete
hassle free eating frenzy. Eric will take you to the best bars in town and fill you
up with each place a specialty. You just have to follow along and eat. Oh, and drink amazing
Basque cider. Check out the different tour packages on his website and you will see it's
super affordable. Also, if you're enjoying the show, make sure to follow and subscribe.
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