Basque History of the World

by Mark Kurlansky

  Part Two

  THE DAWN OF EUSKADI

  * * *

  The Basques are said with good reason, to be agile and deft and have earned their reputaton of being good shots.

  —ILLUSTRATED GUIDE FOR THE TRAVELER TO SAN SEBASTIÁN, 1909

  The Basques . . . are a religious, deep driking, non-swearing race who live on the mountainous south-eastern shores of the Bay of Biscay. They are profoundly nautical; they swing and fish in the Bay without ever feeling sea-sick.

  George Steer, THE TREE OF GERNIKA, 1938—

  * * *

  * * *

  The Basque Onomatopoeia

  Food is always, more or less, in demand.

  —Adam Smith, THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, 1776

  * * *

  FOR THE REST of the world, the little-remembered Carlist Wars were to have only two lasting consequences: the invention of the political term liberal and the popularizing of the beret. These two brutal and complicated nineteenth-century civil wars were to shape the destiny of at least six generations of both Basques and Spaniards. Their enduring impact is most easily seen in features of daily life such as food and clothing. Carlism resulted not only in the famous Basque hat but in the creation of their most mysterious, and therefore some might argue, most Basque sauce.

  According to popular and unverified legend, in 1836 a Bilbao salt cod merchant named Gurtubay placed an order by telegram saying, “Send me by the first ship that lands in Bilbao, 100 or 120 top quality salt cods,” which in Spanish was written “100 o 120 bacaladas.” The telegraph code was misinterpreted as “1,000,120 bacaladas.”

  In any event, Gurtubay got a lot more salt cod than he had expected, and had no possibility of returning it, because by then the First Carlist War had begun and Bilbao was under siege. The mistake might have been ruinous had not the city started running out of supplies. As the food shortage became more severe, Bilbaínos became an eager market for Gurtubay’s million dried fish, and Gurtubay became a rich man, which is the way Basques like their stories to end.

  It is often said that this is why the people of Bilbao eat so much salt cod, which is probably not true. The Basques, including Bilbaínos, had been eating salt cod since they developed the product many centuries earlier. But a typical salt cod dish of the day was a stew with many ingredients. During the siege, no fresh food could get in to the city, which in time left its inhabitants with little more than three nonperishable staples: olive oil, garlic, and dried pepper.

  The First Carlist War, drawn by M. Miranda, Panarama Español, Madrid, 1842.

  Salt cod cooked in olive oil with slices of dried guindilla pepper and garlic became a popular dish called pil pil, though the origin of this name is not clear. The tendency is to assume that this odd-looking term means something in Euskera. Disappointingly, it has no more meaning in that ancient language than it does in Spanish or English. As with the origins of the Basques themselves, explanations abound, ranging from a reference to pelota to the sound of sizzling olive oil. As with many Basque words, the orthography became almost a question of personal preference. Pil-pil with a hyphen was often used, and a 1912 book called it pirpir, one in 1919 said pin pin, and one in 1930 wrote of pirpil. The 1892 General Dictionary of Cuisine published in Madrid defined “pil pill” as “the name of a new red sauce the Bilbaíno gastronomes have invented now to eat with their famous chipirones, or squid:” The only explanation for this definition is that it was neither the first nor the last time a Madrid publication got its Basque facts wrong.

  All of these variations on the name lend credence to the theory that the word is an onomatopoeia attempting to capture the sound of sizzling olive oil. An 1896 book, Lexicón Bilbaíno by Emiliano Arriaga, stated that the dish while cooking made the sound “bil-bil” but that, since there is a tendency to transpose ps and bs, which he also stated is the origin of the name Bilbao, the sauce became known as “pil-pil.” The only problem then is that pil pil doesn’t go “pil pil” anymore.

  At some point later in the century, it was discovered that if the cooked salt cod was placed in an earthen casserole with warm but not at all sizzling oil and garlic, and the casserole was moved in a circular motion over a very low heat, the oil would thicken into a creamy, opaque, ivory-colored sauce.

  The people of Bilbao like to say that the chefs of San Sebastián are French influenced, and though this may sound appealing to the outside world, especially the French, it is not intended to be a compliment. But the unpleasant truth is that in the late nineteenth century, Bilbao chefs were developing a number of sauces for their salt cod, because sauces were the fashion in French cuisine.

  Nevertheless, this particular sauce was brilliant. Called ligado, meaning “bound” or “thickened” in Spanish, it had more craft and more originality—and more mystery—than the older, sizzling, clear-oil pil pil. Today almost no one makes the original pil pil, whereas ligado is considered the litmus test of a Basque chef. But apparently everyone still liked to say “pil pil,” and it has become the name for the thickened, ligado sauce.

  There is a sense of alchemy to the emulsification of a good pil pil. It happens slowly as the casserole is being moved, the low temperature perfectly maintained, a little—not too much—of the water the fish was cooked in added to make more liquid. This is not a mayonnaise; there is no solid suspended in the oil. It is a sauce made purely of liquids, some of which somehow become solidified and suspended in the remaining liquid. There is not even a change in temperature. In fact, most cooks agree that all parts of the pil pil should be maintained at the same constant tepid state.

  That is one of the few things agreed on. As with all Basque salt cod dishes, almost no one agrees as to how and for how long to soak the dried fish. Then, some insist it must be made in an earthen casserole or the emulsification will not take place. Many claim the secret is “in the wrist,” that is, in the correct circular motion of the cook’s arms while holding the casserole. Most recipes make a point of insisting on only the best-quality virgin, cold-pressed olive oil, but some cooks whisper that a few drops of corn oil helps the emulsion. But no Basque chefs would ever go on the record with corn oil in their pil pil.

  The gelatin in the cod skin may be what creates the emulsion. In any event, pil pil would not be made without skin because to a Basque, a skinless salt cod is a deep offense. It has been discovered, some accounts say it was at the Restaurant Bermeo in Bilbao, that a sauce made with leftover skin and bones and then poured over the fish has a stronger bind.

  The sauce is often described as a “triumph” of Basque gastronomy, but it is a triumph that was born of defeat. Bilbao put up a determined resistance and the siege was a disaster from which the Carlist cause never recovered. Bitter sentiments endured for more than a century, but both sides recognized that the siege of Bilbao gave the Basques a great sauce.

  JENARO PILDAIN of the Restaurant Guria in Bilbao is considered one of the masters of pil pil. His technique is unusual in that he cooks the fish directly in the oil and not in water beforehand. Pildain learned pil pil from his mother, who had a country inn in the 1930s, and her technique may date back to the original pil pil sauce, since the recipe begins that way and then develops into the ligado sauce.

  PIL PIL

  (for six)

  12 pieces of top-quality salt cod

  4 cloves garlic

  2 red guindilla peppers

  Soak the salt cod for between 36 and 44 hours. During this time, change the water every 8 hours. Taste to see if this period of time has been long enough for the fish to be perfectly desalinated. Remove the desalinated salt cod from the water and let it drain. Scale it well and remove the bones. Then place it skin side up in an earthenware casserole with abundant olive oil and garlic over a low flame, removing the garlic when it has been browned. If the salt cod is top qualiy, 5 minutes cooking will be sufficient. When done, remove the olive oil and begin to move the salt cod against the casserole in a circular rolling movement and add, little by little
, the oil that was removed until the sauce is thick, ready to be served.

  Decorate with garlic that has been fried in oil and with sliced rounds of guindilla.

  * * *

  7: The Basque Beret

  Federalism and superstition are expressed in low-Breton, emigration and hatred of the Republic speak German, counterrevolution speaks Italian, and fanaticism is expressed in Basque. Destroy these harmful and misguided instruments.

  —Bertrand Barère to the French National Assembly, 1794

  * * *

  IT WAS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION that set off the chain of violent struggles—Basques against Spaniards but also Basques against Basques—that lasted well into the twentieth century. The Revolution quickly divided Europe between those for whom events in France held the promise of progressive reform and those for whom it was a menacing assault on traditional values.

  Under the French monarchy, like the Spanish one, Basques had carved out a complicated relationship in which their Foral rights of self-determination were respected. But the Revolution sought change. Even calendars and maps were to be redrawn. To carry out a detailed agenda of radical change, a true revolution, the revolutionaries in Paris wanted complete control. In 1789, the revolutionary National Assembly, which was to establish liberties, eliminated the three Basque provinces—Labourd, Basse Navarre, and Soule—and fused them with Béarn into a single Département. The entire Département system was created to break up the many ethnic identities within France and make all regions “equally French.”

  Having lost their provinces, French Basques would now be required to pay taxes to the French government rather than to their own Foral administration and to serve in the French military wherever they were sent, instead of being responsible exclusively for the defense of their own region. Paris even attempted to obliterate Euskera place-names. Ustaritz became Marat-sur-Nive, Baïgorry became Thermopyles, Itxassou became Union. Even already Frenchified names were changed. St.-Jean-de-Luz, long ago translated from its Basque name of Donibane Lohitzune, was now changed to Chauvin-Dragon. None of these revolutionary names would endure, but the centralism would.

  With the abolition in French Basqueland of the Fueros, or Fors, as they were called in French, Basques were suddenly required to abandon their traditional laws, codified more than 250 years earlier, and accept an entirely different system of law, eventually to be established in the Napoleonic Code of 1804. The ancient custom of collectively owned land would be abolished. The law of inheritance would be changed. Ancient Basque law distinguished between acquired goods, which could be willed, and inherited goods—the house, the etxea, and what belonged to the house—which had to be passed down, without distinction of sex, to the firstborn. Under the new legal code, each child had an equal claim to all property, which would result in ever smaller holdings. In time it would cause many etxea to disappear.

  Revolutions are always easier to admire from across the border. The affluent commercial class of San Sebastián and Bilbao was not concerned about the dismantling of the French Basque provinces. Instead, with great excitement, they were following news of the establishment of parliamentary rule in an elected republic. Guipúzcoans greeted the dramatic events in Paris with such enthusiasm that the Spanish began censoring press coverage of the Revolution. This could not stop pamphlets and political tracts from flowing into Guipúzcoa, nor could it stop Basque businessmen who had regular contact with France from bringing back news.

  The Basques got news of France faster than it arrived in Madrid. But in 1793, when the elected Convention, charged with creating a new democratic French state, declared a French republic and had Louis XVI executed, it took only thirteen days for the startling news to reach Madrid by mail. Spain, ruled by a related Bourbon monarch, marched 20,000 troops toward the Basque border.

  As the French moved their troops toward the Pyrenees, the inevitable conflict was certain to endanger Spanish Basque independence. Ever since the Basque provinces were first tied to Castile, the policy in Madrid had always been to let the Basques be Basque, let them have their Fueros—their own laws, taxes, and import duties. Then Madrid could count on these warlike people to be on Spain’s troubled border, ready to defend it, because they would be defending their own liberty. Basques were not even required to serve in the Spanish military, just as long as they were ready to defend their own provinces, which happened to be the border.

  It had been centuries since this defense clause had been invoked. Some towns and villages had at one time been divided into religious societies, and each society had been responsible for the defense of a specified section of the town wall. Once a year, this home guard would be reviewed. The day of the review had by now become the town festival, but its significance had been lost. Basques no longer trained in defense, nor did they have a draft capable of raising an army. When they finally did raise one, they had to deal with their own Foral issues. When Vizcaya sent an additional 500 men to the defense of Guipúzcoa, only 200 actually went, because the Fueros specified that Basques could only be required to fight in their own province.

  The French crossed the passes of Basse Navarre and encountered little resistance as they marched through the deep Bidasoa Valley toward Guipúzcoa. Fuenterrabía, the fishing village with a hilltop cathedral, fell without a fight. In San Sebastián, the mayor turned over the city. The Junta General de Guipúzcoa even sent delegates to the French Convention and, apparently not noticing the fate of its sister provinces in France, proposed to the French that “the province [Guipúzcoa] be independent as it was until the year 1200.” Ten days later the Convention decided that, instead, Guipúzcoa would be governed by French military occupation without recognition of any special Basque rights.

  Nor did the troops of the Convention treat occupied Basque towns kindly. They burned churches and houses and destroyed religious relics as they swept through Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya, and into Alava. They even took Victoria, the Alavan capital in the south. Only in the Roncesvalles area did the locals do what they always had done, what the Spanish counted on Basques to do: resist and drive the invader back over the border.

  At this point, Basqueland was almost entirely in French hands and the closest it had ever been to a united seven provinces. But the Spanish won back at the peace table what they had lost on the battlefield. All they had to give up for the return of their Basque provinces were their claims to the western third of the island of Hispaniola, present-day Haiti, an area where a slave revolt would explode in a few years and destroy two elite French armies in a decade of brutal conflict.

  Many factors had contributed to the humiliating failure of the Spanish troops. The French had three times as many soldiers, and they were better trained and better equipped. But the Spanish military blamed the failure on the Basques. The fierce Basques on the border failed to be fierce, had not crushed the invader, had not even tried. A strong element in Madrid became hostile to traditional Basque rights and increasingly questioned the sanctity of the Fueros.

  CHRONIC WARS, or perhaps they were the same recurring war, erupted for the next century and a half between the two sides that had been defined by the Convention War. From the beginning, the divisions were complex. This was a dispute not only between pro-French and anti-French, the reformers and the conservatives, but also between urban and rural.

  While the people in San Sebastián were sending delegates to the French Convention, rural Guipúzcoa had been organizing to fight the French. The baserritarrak, people of the baserri, the farm, felt their world was besieged and being undermined by modernism, while the kaletarrak, people of the kalea, the street, were eager to embrace a new kind of society.

  The most volatile conflict of the nineteenth century involved the discord between declining rural agricultural societies and the growing urban industrial societies. This social fissure was at the root of many nineteenth-century conflicts, including the American Civil War. In Spain, much of this wrenching conflict was to be focused in Basqueland, where the industrial revolut
ion had been introduced to Iberia.

  Basqueland, unlike southern Spain, did not have the problem of huge wasteful landholdings, the so-called latifundia that led to centuries of social conflict in Andalusia, from where it was exported to Latin America. In those regions a small aristocracy controlled the latifundia, tracts of land that were too vast to be completely utilized, while the peasantry suffered from a shortage of arable land. Basques like to say that they avoided the latifundia problem because they had a more democratic tradition. But the reverse may well be true. Perhaps it is the land that shapes the laws. Fueros are a less feudal and more democratic code than other European medieval law because the land did not lend itself to the feudal system. The Basques lacked large tracts of fertile farmland. Nature broke up Basqueland into smaller plots.

  Small-scale farming has made the countryside picturesque, its produce of excellent quality, and its farmers poor and frustrated. But that is not to say that there were not rural Basques who tried to concentrate the wealth.

  One of the few Euskera words to have become part of popular American English is jauntxo, which in English has kept the same pronunciation and become the word honcho. A jauntxo was a wealthy, powerful, rural landowner. Derived from the word jaun, which means “sir,” “a lord,” or sometimes even “a god,” jauntxo has an ironic negative undertone. There is the implication of exploitation.

  The Basques had jauntxos. Between the voyages of Columbus and the eighteenth century, jauntxos amassed great wealth from grain speculation and agricultural expansion spurred by Latin American products and trade. But in the eighteenth century the prices of agricultural products plunged, and the jauntxos maintained their profits at the expense of the poor farmer.