Local Flavors: San Sebastian, Spain - #107

Every city in the world has a local flavor, a flavor that comes from the signature dishes of the town, from a group of favorite ingredients or a type of restaurant that is only found in that area.  It's a flavor that comes from appreciating a particular piece of cooking equipment or a cooking technique.  This is the land of the Basques.  It runs along the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula, with three provinces in France and four in Spain.  Surrounded by the Pyrenees Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, their history goes back for hundreds of thousands of years.  In fact, the Basques have the most ancient culture in Europe and accordingly, the most ancient local flavors. 

So please join me, Burt Wolf, for a taste of the local flavors of the Basque country of Spain.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: For hundreds of years, Basque fishermen followed whales across the Atlantic, eventually ending up off the coast of Newfoundland and discovering the huge schools of cod that lives on the grand banks.  Many historians believe that the Basques knew a great deal about the new world long before Columbus showed up, but didn't tell anybody about it because they considered it a commercial advantage.  And it makes perfectly good sense.  If you found gold, why would you want to tell the competition where your mine is? And cod turned out to be a gold mine for the Basques.  Dried cod was a way of preserving valuable nutrients and became a popular food throughout Europe.  The demand for cod increased when the Catholic church required meatless meals, and the Basques were the major suppliers.  Today, codfish is an essential ingredient in the local flavors of the Basques, and their chefs are considered to be some of the greatest seafood cooks in the world.  But cod is not the only important fish in the Basque kitchen. 

Walk through the market in the city of San Sebastian and you will see the other local favorites, langoustine, which is a European species of lobster, monkfish, tuna, hake, sardines and anchovies.  Because Basque country is as much about mountains as it is about the sea, lamb has always been an important part of the local cuisine. 

The sheep also supply milk, which is used to make a number of traditional Basque cheeses.  The cheeses take on the flavor of the mountain plants on which the sheep fed.  In the United States, you can find a number of Basque cheeses.  The Basque are also famous for their hams.  The mountain forests, filled with acorns and chestnuts, became a natural habitat for the pigs, and ham is an essential part of the Basque diet.  The little upside down umbrellas are there to catch any drippings.  The local flavors of the Basque kitchen, like all local flavors, reflect the history of the region.  Ancient Romans did a little trading with the Basque and introduced wheat, olive oil and wine making, which was rather important, since all three elements are essential to one of the great gastronomic traditions of the Basque, a tradition known as the pintxos bar.

GABRIELLA RANELLI & BURT WOLF WALKING: I've gone to this bar, which is the place that I've had breakfast in almost every day for the last ten years. 

BURT WOLF: My guide is Gabriella Ranelli, a friend of mine who is an American and has lived in San Sebastian since 1989.  She’s a specialist in Spanish art and a serious eater.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Okay, this is a pintxos bar where they have ... pintxos are little snacks.  They're called tapas in the rest of Spain.  But here ... this is the breakfast one.  This is a little bit different from the one people go to in the evening, which are heartier.  And normally you know, if you come here all the time, usually you come stumbling in, they'll hand you the newspaper first thing in the morning.  They know whatever you like to eat.  Everybody has their favorite pintxos usually. And they know their clients.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA:  He’s pouring some txakoli which is a sparking ... well it's a local wine.  It's a white wine but they pour from a great height so it gets a little effervescent, but it's not a sparkling wine.  It's made with grapes which are grown on the steep hills next to the sea, so they don't get a lot of sun.  They get a lot of rain.  It's quite tart but it's an aperitif.  It's an aperitif, yeah.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: These are great.  It's just an egg omelet on a little piece of bread.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: A little roll.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: ... little piece of bread. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Yeah, very simple but it's absolutely ideal. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I want one of those.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA:  That's a Hilda.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Hilda?  Why is it called a Hilda?

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Well it’s actually … in English we would probably say Gilda.  It’s after the Rita Hayworth film.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Oh, okay. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Had a lot of impact here.

BURT WOLF ONCAMERA: It’s anchovies, little peppers and olives on a toothpick.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Uh huh.  Every bar has its own version of that. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Rita Hayworth.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Yes, like Rita Hayworth.  Right.

BURT WOLF ON CAAMERA: Rita Hayworth was considered spicy.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: That scene where she takes off her gloves, you know, that revolutionized the entire country.

BURT WOLF: I don't see the bagels, but I definitely see the smoked salmon and the cream cheese.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Uh huh.  You take whatever you want and at the end, we just tell them what we've had and they'll tell us how much it is.  They're very good at math.  So it's the honor system, and people are very honest.  Nobody cheats at pintxos. 

BURT WOLF: At night, the pintxos bars take on a different menu and a different character.  Groups of friends come together, forming a loose assembly of like-minded pintxos-lovers.  They know what they like to eat and they know where they like to eat it.  They have a pre-planned route and they move along it.  One team that I traveled with always starts at eight o'clock on Thursday nights at a specific bar.  They go there because they like the mushrooms.  After about thirty minutes, they move on to the next place.  If you miss the eight o'clock opening, you know where to catch up at eight thirty, and that would be true for the third or fourth spots as the night continues.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: You've got to pace yourself.  That's why the wines are so small also.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Ah, that's right. Big glasses with a little bit of wine.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: But you might have to go to twenty bars, and so if you were drinking an enormous tankard full of wine, you wouldn't make it passed four.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Also, one of the nice things about this is it gives a lot of room on the top for air, which means you get a better flavor from the wine.  Shall we?

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Sure.

BURT WOLF: The streets of San Sebastian's old city are packed with pintxos groups moving from bar to bar.

GABRIELLA RENELLI: This is where we're going, okay?  Now you can always tell the best pintxos bars because they've got the most people in them.

BURT WOLF: This place is jumping.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Yeah.

BURT WOLF: Wow.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: You've got to elbow your way in here.  It's a time-honored tradition.  But this restaurant is very well known for its seafood.

BURT WOLF: What's this?

GABRIELLA RANELLI: It's baby eel.  It's come down from the mountains.  You have to eat them with a wooden fork.  And stir them around, give them a good stir.  The reason you use a wooden fork is also because if you used a metal fork,  the eels would slip right through it.  They come from the Sargasso Sea.  Nobody knows where.   They travel here, they get here when they're about three years old.

BURT WOLF: It looks like pasta.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Well yeah.

BURT WOLF: If you didn't tell me they were baby ...

GABRIELLA RANELLI: It doesn't taste like pasta, let me tell you.

BURT WOLF: How much is that?

GABRIELLA RENELLI: Uh ... they cost about $500 a kilo.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: $500 for two and a quarter pounds?

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: That's the traditional food that they eat on the day of San Sebastian, the 20th of January.

BURT WOLF: I want to finish every eel this bowl.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Right.

BURT WOLF: At $250 a pound, this is serious stuff.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: It's delicious.  One of the things they have here ... one of the selections they have are goose barnacles.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Goose barnacles? Geese get barnacles?  I mean, they move around a lot but I didn’t know they got barnacles.  Goose barnacles.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: It’s a specialty here that most people enjoy.  They’re big barnacles.  And we must have some wine because ...

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Wine is good.  Wine goes with goose barnacles.  Is there a particular wine that you drink with goose barnacles?

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Here are some goose barnacles.  They’re hot.  You’d better wait a minute.

BURT WOLF: I’m actually quite full.  I ... I just ... I don’t know if I have any room left for a goose barnacle.

GABRIELLA RENELLI ON CAMERA:  Have to wait on the goose barnacles.  (Laughs)

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Are you sure I have room for goose barnacles.  Yeah, I do.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: I think that ... uh ... the best way to eat the goose barnacles instead of ... uh ... well warm.  I wouldn’t eat them this hot because they have a special sort of flavor.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Yes.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: But I think ... why don't you finish your eels?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Oh, eels are fine.  The eels are okay. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI: We're gonna need these ... we're gonna need these actually because eating goose barnacles can be a little messy.

BURT WOLF: Oh yeah.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: So just keep one handy.  Okay.  I think that looks like a good one.

BURT WOLF: Oh, it looks like a wonderful goose barnacles.  Now what do I do?

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Okay, find a good spot like there, between the nail and the body and kind of pull it open.  No, you have to use your nail, get your nail in there and twist it open. 

BURT WOLF: I'm not gonna be able to do this.  I don't have to eat it.  No.  All right.          

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Obviously this is not one of my talents.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: That was a defective barnacle.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: A defective barnacle.  Okay, so you've opened one for me.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CMAERA: There you go.

BURT WOLF ON CMAERA: And I just kind of like, eat it?

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Just eat ... don't eat the nail.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Is that sauce?

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: No no no.  They're cooked in sea water for one minute.  I guess they got a barnacle juice off them or something. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Like a snail.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: They're a great delicacy here. 

Not a first date kind of food.

BURT WOLF: You know, they're really very good. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Yeah.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: All right, I can hang up and ship out.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: This is my treat.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Sorry I left ... I didn't finish all the goose barnacles.

Another traditional aspect of Basque gastronomy is the cider house.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The Basques have been growing apples for thousands of years and making cider since medieval times.  At some point, a farmer decided to sell his excess capacity and thought it would be a good idea to let everybody have a taste just after the fermentation.  They brought alone something to eat and before you knew it, the tradition of cider tasting was part of gastronomy in the Basque region.  And cider houses developed all over the area. 

The cider houses became centers of social life.  During the cider tasting season, which runs from late January through March, the traditional cider houses open up and people stand around tasting cider. During the rest of the year, they're closed.  But here in San Sebastian there's a restaurant called Sideria Donostiarra, which is open all year round and has an atmosphere that is very much in keeping with the old farmhouse tasting rooms.  One big space, long wooden tables without tablecloths, an open kitchen, grilled food, vats of cider along the walls and patrons filling their glasses with the traditional cider catching technique. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The process for making apple cider is basically the same process used for making wine, with ... uh ... apples sitting in for the grapes.  There's a natural yeast on the crushed apples that turns the sugar in the apples into carbon dioxide gas and alcohol.  The carbon dioxide gas makes the cider bubbly and the alcohol makes the cider. 

There was a standing menu in the cider house.  First, slices of cod omelet, and a green salad.  The main course is grilled steak.  The dessert, slices of local cheese, strips of quince jelly, and walnuts.  And of course, as much cider as you want.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA:  Another traditional aspect of Basque gastronomy, along with the cider houses, are the eating societies.  The first eating society opened in the old city of San Sebastian when a bunch of friends decided that they needed a place where they could eat or drink that was not controlled by the laws that controlled the opening and closing of the cider houses.  But the actual origin of the eating societies goes back to the Peninsula wars of the early 1800s. 

In 1813, as part of his attack on Napoleon's army, the Duke of Wellington ordered a siege of the city of San Sebastian.  When the English and Portuguese troops broke through the walls of the town, they raged through the streets, murdering both the French troops who had occupied the fort, and the local inhabitants.  Most of the city was burned to the ground. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The Basque men who came together to rebuild their city, came from every social level and from every occupation.  They were faced with an enormously difficult task and they had to learn to cooperate and to treat each other as equals.  They did treat each other as equals during the work and in the communal meals that they would take together to discuss their situation and their plans for rebuilding.  And it was out of those communal meals that the Basque eating societies developed. 

Today there are over 200 eating societies in San Sebastian and hundreds more throughout the Basque provinces.  They're all male clubs where members gather together to talk, to play cards and to cook. Some clubs have twenty or thirty members.  Some have hundreds. 

But each is based in its own meeting hall, where all members still come together as equals.  The recipes that are prepared are traditionally Basque, learned by the cook from watching his mother.  But each cook has also tried to add his own personal touch to the dish.  He may only know how to cook two or three different dishes, but he is considered a master at each.  Some anthropologists believe that the eating societies also reflect an ancient division between the roles of men and women in Basque culture. 

Until very recently, women were at home.  The men were at sea.  Months, sometimes years, passed before the men returned.  These extended periods away from home and family are thought to have produced a preference for all male social contacts, a preference which is met during the time on land by the eating societies. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Now that theory is a little bit of a stretch for me, but as I talked to the guys who belong to these societies, they all express an appreciation for a place where they can come, feel at home, and yet not be expected to answer personal questions asked by the women in their family or to express their feelings.  You know, if women are from Venus and men are from Mars, then the Basque eating societies are a place where guys can come together, relax, talk about their old planet and spend a little time in outer space.  The preparation of traditional Basque dishes continues in the eating societies, in the homes and in the restaurants. 

But it is also being exported.  There is a large Basque community in the United States and some very good Basque restaurants.  Gerald Hirigoyen is a Basque chef who came to America and opened up two fine restaurants in San Francisco. 

One is called Fringale, the other is Pastis.  He's also written an excellent book on Basque cooking, with recipes adapted to the American kitchen.  The book is well thought-out and the recipes are easy to cook.  I stopped into Pastis to watch him prepare a few dishes from the book and to talk about cooking equipment.  We started with potato and white bean soup.  Originally, this was eaten for lunch as a mash of beans and potatoes.  Now it's served as a thick, smooth soup.  What do you look for when you pick up a knife?

GERALD HIRIGOYEN ON CAMERA: Well, when I pick up a knife, I think ... first of all, I think what's really important to me ... uh ... it has to be very sharp, because I think if you have a knife that's not sharp enough, you can really injure yourself.  I like a big knife.  I mean, I'm not gonna use a big knife for everything but I think a big knife can be pretty versatile and ... and you can do a lot of things with that. 

BURT WOLF: There's some research that indicates that people cut themselves more with dull knives than with sharp knives. 

GERALD HIRIGOYEN: Uh huh.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Because they're afraid.  Whenever I go for a knife, I look for balance, which I can easily spot that way.  I like a full tang that goes all the way back through, so it gives me better balance in the handle, smooth rivets that don't stand up, and I like a bolster point that's very smooth here, so I can put my finger ...And the big ... for me, the bigger, the better. 

GERALD HIRIGOYEN ON CAMERA: Exactly, and you know what I love with the bigger knives is that I can crush my garlic with that, so it's really easy and that's how we do it.  So when you have a big knife like this, it allows you to do things like that.  And then we can mince it if you wanted to after that. 

BURT WOLF: The soup begins with olive oil being heated in the sauce pan, chopped onions and crushed garlic go in and are sautéed for five minutes.  Then dried white beans that have been soaking in water overnight, and potatoes, along with a sprig of rosemary.  Gerald porous in vegetable stock and the soup simmers for an hour. 

GERALD HIRIGOYEN: And also what I like about this soup too ... it's mostly vegetable and it has a great flavor to it.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And very low in calories.

GERALD HIRIGOYEN ON CAMERA: Exactly. 

BURT WOLF: While the soup is cooking, olives are pureed in a blender.  When the soup is cooked, the rosemary is removed and the soup goes into the blender to be pureed. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: All right, a few thoughts on picking out a blender.  Bigger is usually better.  I'll always pick something that's four to six cups because when you're actually using it, you only fill it halfway, so the bigger it is, the fewer refills you have to go through.  I like a glass container because I want to see what's going on the inside.  I think it's very important that the content measurements be easily readable.  You want a top that's wide and fits on securely.  You want to be able to take out some portion of the center of the top so you can add ingredients when you're blending, but also to be able to open it up when you add warm ingredients, so steam doesn't build up.  That's a very important safety feature.  You want a good grip on the handle, you want it to fit securely on the blending base.  You want the base to be heavy enough so that it doesn't dance around when it's running.  You want at least two to five different speeds and it's nice to have the kind of blender ... what's it called?

PRODUCER ON CAMERA: Step start.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Step start.  I always forget that.  You always want to have a step start so that it begins slowly and builds up to its speed.  I think that's what I want in a blender.

The soup is poured into bowls and the olive puree and some chives go on top. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The next dish is a tureen of ham and cheese layered together.  Tureen is a dish, but it's also the name of what comes out of the dish, like casserole.  You want a heavy one. It can be porcelain or enamel over cast iron.  You want it to have a slight V-shape so whatever you're going to try and get out of it will release easily.  It should have grips or handles on the side. You're going to need a heavy top that will hold everything down inside, and you want it to have a little hole in here because if you're cooking, you want the steam to be coming out.

All right.  Let's make this dish.  Gerald starts with a three and a half inch deep tureen that is lined with plastic.  He alternates thinly sliced layers of ham and cheese until the tureen is full.  He's using Bayonne ham and sheep's milk cheese, which are two of the staples of the Basque region.  But the dish will work just as well with prosciutto and Monterey Jack.  About twenty layers of each go into the tureen, at which point it is refrigerated overnight. 

GERALD HIRIGOYEN ON CAMERA: So now we're going to unfold it and that's pretty easy.  We just want to pull on the side like this, and then it should come pretty easy.  And that's it.  So when it's really nice and cold, it's pretty ... it's a pretty easy job to do.  So as you see, we have all our layers right here.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Oh, that's nice.

GERALD HIRIGOYEN: It's nice and packed right here, so we have a beautiful tureen right here. 

BURT WOLF: It's cut into slices that are about a half inch thick, dusted with flour and sautéed in olive oil for a minute.  Gerald uses a non-stick pan, which is usually a good idea when you're sautéing something with cheese.  Then the slices are served on a frisée salad, with a little vinaigrette on top.  The main course was roasted chicken in the style of the Basques. 

GERALD HIRIGOYEN: So we're gonna put our shallots into the saucepan and then I'm gonna add two cups of wine and then we're gonna let it reduce, bring it to a boil and then reduce.  All the way down.  And then we're gonna add the butter. 

BURT WOLF: And the red wine and shallot mixture is blended together with some butter and refrigerated for a few hours.  Half that mixture is rubbed in between the body of the chicken and the skin, and then on the skin. 

GERALD HIRIGOYEN: Generously, of course. 

BURT WOLF: The remaining shallot, wine and butter mixture is used to coat dried bread cubes that are stuffed into the chicken.  It's a very easy stuffing.

GERALD HIRIGOYEN: Yes, exactly. You get enough flavor of the red wine, the shallots.

BURT WOLF: Then the chicken is roasted to an internal temperature of 185 degrees Fahrenheit.  And the best way to tell what the internal temperature is,

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA:  is to use an instant thermometer.  This is actually the most extraordinary one I've ever tested.  It's made by Thermapen.  It's digital.  It gives you a reading within five seconds.  Has a very long probe but very thin at the end here, so the hole that it makes is quite teeny and will close up quickly.  You won't lose any of the juices.  You could angle it any way you want.  It has a heat-proof grip and the read is enormous.  Even I, with my diminishing eyesight, can spot that.  And when you finish using it, you just close the probe and it turns off to save the batteries. 

Finally, the chicken is sliced and served with the stuffing.  For dessert, we have a gateau Basque cake and cherry soup, which is a very nice way to end a meal that started with a soup.

BURT WOLF: Well that's a brief look at the Basque country of northern Spain, the oldest culture in Europe, with the oldest local flavors, all male eating societies where the men cook for each other and celebrate their ancient camaraderie, cider houses celebrating the juice of the apple and the traditional foods of the area, and pintxos bars, just celebrating.  I hope you've enjoyed this visit and I hope you will join me next time on Local Flavors.  I'm Burt Wolf.

If you would like free copies of the recipes from this program, or hundreds of other recipes from Burt’s programs, to read his special reports from around the world and interviews with leading food authorities or to order a copy of The New Cooks’ Catalogue, a critical guide that tells you what to look for when purchasing cooking equipment and utensils, with over 1,000 color photographs and recipes, just visit Burt online at BURTWOLF.COM.

Gatherings & Celebrations: The Spring Fiestas of Seville - #119

Seville is the capital of the region of Andalucia in southern Spain.  It was from this province that Christopher Columbus set sail.  And it was right here to Seville that he returned with his treasures.  For decades Seville had a monopoly on the commercial action between Europe and the New World.   The city of Seville is like a magnificent layer cake.  Each slice has a base that was put down during the ancient Bronze Age.  Then there were layers set down by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Moors, and Christians, one right on top of the other.  And when you take a bite of Seville, it all blends together.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  One of the best times of the year to see these layers of culture in action is during the weeks of the Spring Fiestas.  There are actually two weeks, and they are very different.   One is the week of the Seville Fair; the other is Holy Week.  Holy Week is actually a week of symbolic conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil.  There are stories told of tremendous heroism.  There are also stories of tremendous terror. For a while things look pretty bleak -- but in the end, the forces of lightness and goodness triumph over the forces of evil and darkness.

During the 1300’s the people of Seville began to group themselves into brotherhoods.  Each brotherhood agreed to produce an image from the Passion of Christ or a sorrowing Virgin and to venerate that image throughout the year.  Today a brotherhood might have up to three thousand members, and include both men and women.  The most important acts of veneration each year are the fifty-five processions, one for each brotherhood. They take place during Holy Week.  Each brotherhood owns from one to three floats with scenes showing Christ’s Passion or the weeping Virgin.  All the statues are very realistic and must be approved by the general public.  If the people don’t like the new image, it’s removed, no matter how expensive it was to build.

Each float weighs between two and three tons and is carried through the streets of Seville by groups of young men.  For years the floats were carried by professional stevedores.  Eventually, however, their fees became too expensive for the brotherhoods.  People thought that carrying the floats through Seville would come to an end.  But the young men of each brotherhood came together to do the job and the general opinion is that the young men do an even better job than the stevedores did.  And there’s an art to carrying the floats.  The trick is to make them swing and sway so the figures seem alive and moving.

.”  It’s an ancient technique for a festival:  the town where the festival is going on is turned into the town where the original events took place.

The members who actually walk in the procession wear long robes in the colors of the brotherhood.  The pointed headgear, which looks rather terrifying, was originally designed to hide the identity of the person inside.  That gave them a chance to withdraw into themselves.  There’s a theory that being disguised in this costume gave men the opportunity to act in a very religious way, which was not an easy thing to do.  This is a culture that has often seen religious behavior in public as not-macho.  Under the hood, their emotions remain private.

There are people who are wearing the robes of the society but have taken the cones out of their hood.  They want the hood to hang down so they look more humble. These are people doing penance.  The visual symbol is like that of the cock that has become crest-fallen and is therefore no longer “cocky.”

The floats that pass through the streets of Seville express suffering and pain in two different forms.  There are the images of Christ -- images of pain in action --    and there are the images of the weeping Madonnas, images of the pain of looking on, knowing that you are helpless to prevent the suffering of someone that you love. 

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  This can be a very emotional experience for the crowd.  There are moments of sympathy, sorrow, and gratitude, and at the most intense points, a sense of almost direct contact with the love of Christ.  There is also a great appreciation for  the floats, the decorations, and the music.

It’s called a saeta, which is the Spanish word for “arrow.”  In this case it is an arrow of emotion, of passion, of sentiment.  And it passes between one of the statues being carried through the streets and one of the people watching the procession.  The viewer has been overwhelmed with feeling, and she expresses herself by singing the story of her love and her sadness.  Writing and singing saetas is an art form.  They’re one of the truly climactic moments in the whole celebration, but they are also very personal moments, and usually it is only the singer who knows when and where a saeta will take place.  And sometimes the singer only finds out because he or she is suddenly singing!

The processions go on all day and all night for seven days.  Each one takes from eight to twelve hours to complete.  Each float must pass through a pattern of specific streets and every float must stop at the Cathedral. 

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  It reminds everyone that there are journeys in life that we must make if we are going to learn to find our way in the outside world and other places that we must visit if we are going to learn to find our way into our inner heart.  Holy Week concludes with a final procession that ends up at midnight.  The Cathedral bells start to ring; Easter has begun.  Light and life have triumphed over death and darkness.

Shortly after Holy Week ends, Seville turns to Fair Week.  This is a celebration of life, of the sensuous aspects of existence.  It started hundreds of years ago as a cattle market and some of its rituals are designed to show the superiority of humans over animals.  There’s a celebration of the way horses increase human power by raising us up, and lending us their strength.  Bullfights take place to illustrate a man’s skill and daring in the face of extraordinary animals.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  The Fair has always been involved with sort of a balancing act with Holy Week.  Holy Week is religious; the Fair is secular.  Holy Week takes over the streets of the city for its festival; the Fair moves outside of the city and sets up a “pretend Seville.” 

Each year an enormous, newly-designed entrance gate is made for the Fair.  The actual design of the doorway is of considerable interest to the people of Seville, and its presentation and opening a major public event.  One of the strategies of a festival is to produce elaborate architecture and then tear it down as soon as the event is over. 

Taking away the physical elements that contained the celebration is a way of keeping each occasion unique and memorable.  The setting disappears with the end of the festival.  You are bound to the event by memory and that makes it even more special.  It’s also in the tradition of sheer extravagant waste that is often a “must” for a good festival.

On each of the six days of the Fair there is a parade along the main street.  Men in leather pants, boots and stiff-brimmed hats ride along on horses.  It is considered extremely chic to have a woman sitting side-saddle behind the man.  No unisex imagery here.  This is a clear gender-differentiating picture.  It is meant to be sexy.

One can also ride a horse-and-buggy in the parade.  These are driven by men in somber, dark clothing and black hats, with women in bright-colored dresses in the chariot proper. 

The basic structure inside the Fair is a little canvas house called a casita.  Casita actually means “little house.”  Inside, the casitas are furnished with all the elements that you would expect to find in one of Seville’s homes.  Curtains, carpets, mirrors, tables, chairs, pictures, and places to cook.  The furnishings, however, are only emblematic of a “typical” Seville house.  It’s just a summary, a work of art, not the real thing.  The family or business that has set up the house invites people to stop in and have something to eat and drink.  The people of Seville see themselves as great presenters of dramatic displays.  They need an audience nearby to share the experience, and so in many ways they are very open and hospitable.  But Seville has had a long history of invasion by foreign powers, and so the individual family of Seville has become somewhat closed, except for the immediate membership.  Everyone is ready to go out eating and drinking and dancing.  But the operative words here are go out, rather than go home.   It’s a special occasion when an old and prominent Seville family entertains at home.  The “pretend houses” at the Fair give everyone a week to make believe that they are going to each others’ homes.

There’s music and dancing until just before dawn.   Then everyone finds a soft spot and sleeps for three hours, at which time the Fair begins again.  This goes on for six days and six nights.

Just south of Seville is the town of Jerez, and just outside of Jerez, the restaurant El Faro.  It’s one of the most picturesque restaurants in Spain.  The art on the walls of the front room will give you a quick idea of the restaurant’s specialty.  But the walls in the back room are just as important.  El Faro has an extensive collection of the wines, sherries and brandies of Spain.  Fernando Cordoba is the owner and the chef, and he comes from a family of restaurateurs.  He likes to take the classic home recipes of his native region and adapt them to our more modern tastes.  More of the natural flavors of the foods are allowed to come through.  I asked him to prepare some of the dishes that are typically served during the weeks of the Fiestas.

The first week of the Fiestas, Holy Week, is also the last week of Lent.  Recipes that contain meat or animal products are usually not on the home menu during Lent, but in their place are some outstanding vegetable dishes.  This one is a spring vegetable stew.  Three quarts of water go into a large stockpot, along with two cups of coarsely chopped onions... two cups of peas... and two garlic cloves that have been cut into slices.  Fernando continues to add the ingredients, which consist of a quarter of a cup of olive oil, one whole dried pepper, and three bay leaves.  Next in -- two cups of hearts of artichokes.  Fernando uses fresh baby artichokes, which are wonderful if it’s spring and the artichokes are available.  Otherwise, your best bet are frozen artichoke hearts.  Those are followed by four cups of broad beans, the younger the better.  Then four whole cloves of garlic and five slices of bread.  The heat comes up and the water is brought to a simmer.  Everything cooks along, uncovered, for an hour.  At which point the stew has thickened and it’s ready to serve.  A quick tasting for salt and it’s into a serving bowl... where neatness counts.

Fernando’s second dish is a whole fish baked in coarse sea salt.  It looks a little strange, but it tastes great.  A half-inch layer of sea salt goes down on a heat-proof dish that can hold the fish in a single layer.  Then the whole fish goes on.  It’s been gutted and cleaned inside, but the scales have been left on the outside.  The scales help prevent the fish from absorbing the flavor of the salt.  The primary role of the salt in this recipe is to conduct the heat to the fish in a way that is controlled and even.  Additional coarse salt is placed on top, until the fish has a generally even coating of salt, about an inch thick.  Then it goes into a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for about twenty-five minutes.  When the fish comes out of the oven, the salt has formed a hard crust.  Fernando cracks through the outer surface and removes the salt.  Then he peels back the fish skin and serves the top filet.  The bones are gently removed, the head and tail taken off, and the other filet is placed onto the serving dish.  It’s served with a light sprinkling of olive oil and some lemon juice.  It’s quite amazing -- there’s virtually no taste of salt in the fish.  The salt acts like a pot, and that’s it.

For dessert Fernando is preparing a recipe that is somewhere between a flan and a cheesecake, taking the best parts of each.  Five eggs are broken and set into a mixing bowl.  Four cups of cottage cheese are added.  The cheese has been drained of moisture by letting it sit in a sieve, over a bowl, in the refrigerator overnight.  Then one cup of heavy cream and one and a quarter cups of sugar go in.  Fernando uses his industrial mixer to blend everything together.  The mixture is then poured into a glass loaf pan that has been set into a second pan with enough water in it to go halfway up the outside of the glass pan.  All that goes into a 325 degree oven for twenty minutes.

While the cheese mixture is baking in the water bath, Fernando makes a sauce.  A half cup of honey and two cups of orange juice are heated together in a saute pan until the mixture comes to a boil.  Then it’s allowed to boil until it thickens into a sauce.  That takes about ten minutes.  When the cake is ready, it’s turned out onto a plate.  Two slices are cut and set onto a serving dish.  A few tablespoons of the sauce are drizzled on top.  A little fresh mint and it’s ready to go.  The sweet return of dairy products after Lent.

Many of the most unusual pastries in Seville are made in the convents of closed religious orders.  The recipes are transmitted by word of mouth.  They’re closely guarded secrets.  Perhaps the most famous place to buy this type of pastry is the convent of San Leandro in Seville.  There’s a list of what’s available on the wall and a revolving door.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  Mediokilo, por favor.  Si.   (It’s kind of like the world’s oldest vending machine.)  Gracias.  (It’s one of the few places in the world where you don’t have to count your change.)

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  For well over a hundred years,  the sherry  companies used real egg whites to clarify their wine.  That left them with a lot of egg yolks, which they donated to the local convents.  The convents would use the egg yolks to make candy like this.  Then in the 1980s, a new technology arrived.  They no longer used egg whites, they no longer donated egg yolks.  But the convents kept making the candy -- though, uh, slightly more expensive.

Over two thousand years ago the Greeks were shipping wine out of southern Spain and the region is still a wine-producing area.  But the most unique drink to come out of this part of the world is not just wine -- it’s wine that has been fortified to become sherry.  The world’s largest producer of sherry is a company called Gonzalez Byass.  They are the producers of Tio Pepe, the world’s most popular sherry.  Tio means “uncle”, and it’s made in the town of Jerez de la Frontera, just down the road from Seville.  The soil is filled with the fossilized shells of the marine life that lived in the sea that once covered these hills.  The shells keep the soil rich in limestone, which is good for the winemaker because it helps hold moisture in this hot, sunny climate.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  On a day of the winemakers’ choosing, the grapes are picked and crushed.  As soon as the grapes are crushed, the process called fermentation begins.  It’s actually kind of easy to understand.  On the outside of the grape, there is a natural yeast.  When the grape is crushed, the yeast comes in contact with the grape juice.  The juice contains sugar, which is the favorite food of the yeast.  It turns the sugar into carbon dioxide gas, which just floats off in the air, and alcohol.  What you have left is alcohol and grape juice, which, in its most basic form, is wine. 

The cellarmaster selects the best of the winemakers’ work and determines which sherry shall be made from which wine.  Sherries are usually not wines made from the harvest of a single year.  They are a blending together of sherries from different years.

During the fermentation of a wine that is destined to become a fino or an amontillado, a flower-like yeast forms spontaneously on the top surface of the wine. It’s called the flor and has a yeasty bread-like aroma that it gives to the wine. And as far as we know, this flor forms only in the area around Jerez.

The aging of the wine takes place with a method that is used only in the making of sherry.  It’s called the Solera System.  The wine barrels are held in rows, one on top of the other.  The newest wine, from this year’s vintage, goes into the cask on the top.  When the producer is ready to bottle the sherry, a portion is drawn off from the bottom.  The portion that was drawn off is then replaced with wine from the barrel just above.  And that’s repeated until all the barrels have been refilled from the row above except for the row on top.  That’s refilled with new wine.  At this point, the wine is fortified with distilled grape alcohol made from the same type of grape that made the wine.  The addition of the alcohol to the wine is one of the essential elements in the production of sherry.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  Which returns us to the story of Tio Pepe.  Tio’s nephew, who was the founder of the firm, was making a fine sherry, but it wasn’t exactly what Tio had in mind.  Tio remembered the flavor of his youth, and that was the taste that he wanted.  So his nephew made a couple of casks for him.  Tio kept those casks in the back of the winery and put his name on them so nobody would get into his stash.  He’d come around with a few of his friends and have a drink.  Everybody who tasted Tio’s sherry loved it.  It became quite popular.  As a matter of fact, today Tio Pepe is the most popular sherry in the world.  Don Mauricio Gonzalez-Gordon is a member of the present generation of the family, and in charge of the business.

DON MAURICIO:  This was my great-grandfather’s sample room.  He was the man who started this company.  And when he died, over a hundred years ago, in 1887, his son, my grandfather, decided that everything should be left as he left it; that is, not even dusted.  So these bottles have never been dusted since more than a hundred years ago.

BURT WOLF:   Wow. 

These days there are four basic sherries made in Spain.  There’s the fino, which is light and dry and delicate, and has the flavor of almond.  And it’s what most people think about when they talk about sherry.  Next is the amontillado, which has a hint of hazelnut, and then the oloroso, which tastes of walnut.  Finally there is the noe..

DON MAURICIO:   -- the man in the ark, who we used to always say was our first customer.  But that is a very, very sweet wine, made from a different grape.  It’s a beautiful dessert wine, something I many times will substitute for the dessert!  I just have my glass of noe.

People who like to keep track of things like this tell me that during the week of the Festival of Seville, more sherry is poured in this town than in North America during an entire year.  The only thing I can say to that is... cheers!

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  That’s a look at the two celebrations that make up the Spring Festivals of Seville.  Together they compliment and balance each other.  But they also mark a great passage -- from winter into spring, from darkness and sadness into light and joy.  And the foods that are served at the festivals help mark that change.  Please join us next time as we travel around the world looking at the gatherings and celebrations, rituals and recipes that mark the passages of our lives.  I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: The Basque Region, Spain - #1006

BURT WOLF: The Basque country straddles the border between southwest France and northeast Spain, but except for their passports the Basques are neither French nor Spanish -- they are Basque. They speak the oldest European language still spoken, so old that no one can tell where it came from. We don’t even know where the Basques came from. Scientific tests indicate that the Basques have a different bloodline than their neighbors in Spain and France. They also have a distinct and interesting culture and they do all they can to keep their traditions alive.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The Basques have lived on the Iberian Peninsula for thousands of years, but the two most important historic influences on Spain -- a three-hundred year colonization by the ancient Romans, and a seven-hundred year occupation by the Moors -- were hardly noticed by the Basques.

BURT WOLF: The Basques lived in small isolated villages and governed with a democracy in which the residents of a house voted as a unit rather than as individuals. That sense of family group has been central to their history. There are four Basque provinces in Spain and three just across the border in France. These days the two most interesting cities for a tourist are San Sebastian and Bilbao.  Since medieval times Bilbao has been an important trading port.

At first the city shipped wool from the sheep farms of northern Spain. During the 1800s iron mining became important, and the city evolved into an industrial center for steel mills, shipbuilding and chemical production.  It was a commercial city and clearly not a destination for tourists.

But that has completely changed. Today Bilbao is Spain’s fourth largest city and a major tourist attraction. For many travelers, the standard European tour, usually limited to London, Paris and Rome, now includes Bilbao.  The change was the result of imaginative urban planning and the belief that a single building could be the catalyst for the rebirth of an entire community.

Because of its size, the Guggenheim Museum in New York can only present five percent of its collection at any one time. Yet the traditional model for a museum calls for it to constantly make new acquisitions, which just leads to more art in the storerooms.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the late 1980s, the board of directors of the Guggenheim Museum decided to continue its acquisition activities, but at the same time look for new sites to present their collection. They already had one in Venice, and they opened two new ones in New York City, and one in Berlin. In 1991 they were negotiating with Salzburg Austria when the Basque government began making their pitch. And the Basques had a couple of good points. Salzburg already had a major international music festival and hundreds of thousands of tourists came there every year. A Guggenheim Museum in Salzburg would just add more whipped cream to their cake. A Guggenheim Museum here could rejuvenate an entire city.

The logic and the opportunity were too powerful for the Guggenheim to resist. The old shipyards became the site for the new museum, with its titanium shell undulating in the wind and changing color from blue, to red, to gold throughout the day and night. Jeff Koons’ flower-covered “Puppy” welcomes visitors to the building, inviting them to loosen up for what’s coming.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: About two hours before we got here they decided to change the flowers on the puppy so I had to show it to you in a post card, but you get the idea.

Fortunately everything on the inside is ready for viewing.  Our guide is Susana Garcia.

SUSANA GARCIA:  In my tours I usually like starting here -- Andy Warhol, because I think this is quite different.  This is not the Andy Warhol we are used to.  I mean, this is what he was doing in the Fifties.  He was a graphic designer, and he was designing those shoes you see.  But here, I personally -- I can see the evolution he is going to have.  Because I can see the glamour already, and he is going to be obsessed with glamour. I can see the bright colors.  I can imagine his assistants helping him to paint, to color, because he had what he called his coloring parties.  And, as he said, he wanted to be a sort of machine; he wanted to work in every medium -- cinema, photographs, painting, fashion, music, everything.  He thought that everything could be art, and art could become common.

BURT WOLF:   Tell me about this piece.

SUSANA GARCIA:  Okay, this piece is by Jenny Holzer, an American artist, and she’s working with language.  So what we’re going to see is text written in Spanish and in English, depending on the moment you arrive.  And -- well, she’s playing with language because the message we get is a personal message; it’s something intimate, but the media she’s using is public.  It’s LEDs.

BURT WOLF:   It’s what we use for signage in advertising.

SUSANA GARCIA:  That’s it. 

BURT WOLF:   The contrast of a personal message in a public media.

SUSANA GARCIA:  That’s it.  And something I like of this piece is that we can go through it and discover something else.  Well, here we get a different color and a different language.

BURT WOLF:   It’s in Basque.

SUSANA GARCIA:  That’s it -- that’s Basque language.  Jenny Holzer had to come to Bilbao to prepare this piece, and when she came she discovered Basque language.  She didn’t know anything about this.  So she thought, “Well, that’s perfect -- as I had to come to Bilbao to discover this language, I want people to enter into my piece to discover my message in Basque.”

BURT WOLF:   It’s also a nice symbol because here Basque is behind everything that we see up front.

The Guggenheim jump-started the new Bilbao.

SAN SEBASTIAN

BURT WOLF: The other great coastal city in Spain’s Basque country is San Sebastian, which is about fifty miles to the east of Bilbao. The coast road between the two cities is beautiful.  And the area has its own unique history.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the 1100s the Catholic Church had three Holy Cities: Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de Compostela on the northwest coast of Spain. If you visited any of these cities the church would reduce the impact of your sins during your afterlife. It was called an indulgence. Getting to Jerusalem was dangerous and difficult.  Getting to Rome was a lot easier but when you got there you weren’t sure the church would give you an indulgence.  Santiago de Compostela was your best bet, and thousands of people made the trip every year, aided by the first travel guide for the mass market. It was written by a monk, and published in 1130. It told you where the food was good or bad, where the neighborhoods were dangerous, and if there had been bathrooms it would have told you which ones were clean. It was the Mobil Guide of the moment.

BURT WOLF: The route passed through here -- the town of Getaria. And pilgrim or not, if you are traveling in the Basque country, Getaria is worth a stop. It’s the hometown of Juan Sebastian Elcano, who was the navigator on Magellan’s voyage around the world. Most popular literature describes Magellan as the first person to sail around the world, but he died in the Philippines and never finished the trip. It was Elcano who completed the voyage home and should be given credit for the trip. He got a nice statue but he needed a better agent.

Getaria is also the center for the production of a local wine called txakoli, which is made from grapes grown on the nearby hills. Young, sparkling and fruity, it is poured from a bottle held a few feet above the glass under the theory that the trip aerates the wine and increases its sparkle. 

Getaria has a number of good restaurants that specialize in the outdoor grilling of fish that come up from the town’s port. The grills are set up outside, near the entrance to the restaurants. My favorite is Iribar. The chef’s name is Pile and she is the third generation of her family to own the restaurant.  It’s a perfect place to take a break during your pilgrimage.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Following the Protestant Reformation the market for indulgences pretty much disappeared, along with the traffic of pilgrims through Getaria.  But recently there has been a resurgence.  During the Holy Year 1993 over a hundred thousand pilgrims walked the route along northern Spain, and new hotels and inns are being built to accommodate the new traffic.

BURT WOLF: To qualify as an authentic pilgrim you must walk a minimum of 62 miles, but you can also meet the requirements by biking for 124. Inline skaters have made petitions, but as yet there is no official ruling. And if you’re considering a skateboard, forget about it.  You must start with a letter from your parish priest and a record book that gets stamped along the way.

When you arrive in San Sebastian, you are entering a city that has been around since the 11th Century, and was one of the major resting points on the pilgrim route. But not much went on here until the middle of 1800s, when Queen Maria Cristina chose the beachfront waters of San Sebastian as the spot for her daughter’s saltwater cure. Bathing in the ocean was recommended for the princess’s skin ailment.

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  But she didn’t just walk into the water like you and I would today; because in 1845 decent people didn’t swim in the ocean.  You only went in the water if you fell in.  You were usually a fisherman.

BURT WOLF: Gabriella Ranelli is an American friend of mine who has lived here since 1989 and has a good sense of the town.

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  ... so what they had to do was build a special round building set on rails -- it was called “The Pearl of the Cantabria” -- and the queen was in it, and a pair of oxen would pull it down into the water.  She could very decorously lower herself into the water, swim around, nobody could see the Royal Body.

BURT WOLF:   She was swimming inside this little building?

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  No, she would come out.  There was a hole in it, she could swim out, she would swim around.  You could see her head -- the Royal Head would be there, nobody would see the Royal Body -- so she was okay, and then she would go back up into her little bathing house, the oxen would pull it up on the beach, she could bathe with fresh water, come out dressed with all her dignity intact.  And that’s what people did in those days, even though they wore bathing costumes made of wool from their necks down to their ankles, as you can see in photographs of the time.  But because the queen was here, everybody else -- all the court, and all the aristocracy from Spain -- wanted to come up here and spend their summers in the same place where the queen came.

BURT WOLF:  That’s an interesting point over there.

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  That’s the fortified wall.  This was a walled city, of course, and that’s where the French defended, generally the French, defended themselves against the English.  Wellington and Napoleon were always fighting it out here because this was a very, very strategic city.  If you captured San Sebastian, you would generally have a gateway into the entire Iberian peninsula, and eventually Africa.  So everybody wanted this place.  So they were always fighting people off, and eventually in 1813 the English came in, the allied troops came in -- the French had the city under siege -- and burned the entire thing to the ground.  So they had to start over and rebuild.  So a lot of what you’re seeing is the new 19th Century city that they rebuilt after the fire and after the walls came down in 1865.  The building right behind us, which is the town hall now, used to be the casino.  It was built at the end of the 1800s, but then gambling was outlawed in 1923, so they turned it into the town hall eventually.

THE LOCAL CHEFS

BURT WOLF: The gastronomy of San Sebastian is based on the sea and the mountains. The local chefs are considered to be some of the best in Europe and seafood is one of their great strengths. Excellent fish soups. Sea Bream with Garlic Vinaigrette. Or whatever today’s catch is, fresh from the ocean and simply grilled.    

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: For hundreds of years, Basque fishermen followed whales across the Atlantic, eventually ending up off the coast of Newfoundland and discovering the huge schools of cod that live on the grand banks.  Many historians believe that the Basques knew a great deal about the new world long before Columbus showed up, but didn't tell anybody about it because they considered it a commercial advantage.  And it makes perfectly good sense.  If you found gold, why would you want to tell the competition where your mine is?

BURT WOLF: And cod turned out to be a gold mine for the Basques.  Dried cod was a way of preserving valuable nutrients and became a popular food throughout Europe.  The demand for cod increased when the Catholic church required meatless meals and the Basques were the major suppliers.  Today, codfish is an essential ingredient in the local flavors of the Basques.  But cod is not the only important fish in the Basque kitchen. 

Walk through the market in the city of San Sebastian and you will see the other local favorites…langoustine, which is a European species of lobster, monkfish, tuna, hake, sardines and anchovies.  Because Basque country is as much about mountains as it is about the sea, lamb has always been an important part of the local cuisine. 

The mountains behind San Sebastian are home to the sheepherders, whose traditional dishes include roast lamb with garlic and lemon served with roasted potatoes and hearts of lettuce.  But there are also some small ranches that supply great steaks. 

The sheep also supply milk, which is used to make a number of traditional Basque cheeses.  The cheeses take on the flavor of the mountain plants on which the sheep fed.  In the United States, you can find a number of Basque cheeses.  The Basques are also famous for their hams.  The mountain forests, filled with acorns and chestnuts, became a natural habitat for the pigs, and ham is an essential part of the Basque diet.  The little upside down umbrellas are there to catch any drippings.  The local flavors of the Basque kitchen reflect the history of the region.  Ancient Romans did a little trading with the Basque and introduced wheat, olive oil and wine making, which was rather important, since all three elements are essential to one of the great gastronomic traditions of the Basque, a tradition known as the pintxos bar.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: I've gone to this bar, which is the place that I've had breakfast in almost every day for the last ten years. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Okay, this is a pintxos bar where they have pintxos are little snacks.  They're called tapas in the rest of Spain.  But here this is the breakfast one.  This is a little bit different from the one people go to in the evening, which are heartier.  And normally you know, if you come here all the time, usually you come stumbling in, they'll hand you the newspaper first thing in the morning.  They know whatever you like to eat.  Everybody has their favorite pintxos usually. And they know their clients.

He’s pouring some txakoli which is a sparking, well it's a local wine.  It's a white wine but they pour from a great height so it gets a little effervescent, but it's not a sparkling wine.  It's made with grapes which are grown on the steep hills next to the sea, so they don't get a lot of sun.  They get a lot of rain.  It's quite tart but it's an aperitif.  It's an aperitif, yeah.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: These are great.  It's just an egg omelet on a little piece of bread.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: A little roll.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: ... little piece of bread. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Yeah, very simple but it's absolutely ideal. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I want one of those.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA:  That's a Hilda.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Hilda?  Why is it called a Hilda?

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Well it’s actually in English we would probably say Gilda.  It’s after the Rita Hayworth film.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Oh, okay. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Had a lot of impact here.

BURT WOLF ONCAMERA: It’s anchovies, little peppers and olives on a toothpick.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA:  Every bar has its own version of that. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Rita Hayworth.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Yes, like Rita Hayworth.  Right.

BURT WOLF ON CAAMERA: Rita Hayworth was considered spicy.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CCAMERA: That scene where she takes off her gloves, you know, that revolutionized the entire country.

BURT WOLF: I don't see the bagels, but I definitely see the smoked salmon and the cream cheese.

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  You take whatever you want and at the end, we just tell them what we've had and they'll tell us how much it is.  They're very good at math.  So it's the honor system, and people are very honest.  Nobody cheats on pintxos. 

BURT WOLF: At night, the pintxos bars take on a different menu and a different character.  Groups of friends come together, forming a loose assembly of like-minded pintxos-lovers.  They know what they like to eat and they know where they like to eat it.  They have a pre-planned route and they move along it.  One team that I traveled with always starts at eight o'clock on Thursday nights at a specific bar.  They go there because they like the mushrooms.  After about thirty minutes, they move on to the next place.  If you miss the eight o'clock opening, you know where to catch up at eight thirty and that would be true for the third or fourth spots as the night continues.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: You've got to pace yourself.  That's why the wines are so small also.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Ah, that's right. Big glasses with a little bit of wine.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: But you might have to go to twenty bars, and so if you were drinking an enormous tankard full of wine, you wouldn't make it passed four.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Also, one of the nice things about this is it gives a lot of room on the top for air, which means you get a better flavor from the wine.  Shall we?

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: Sure.

BURT WOLF: The streets of San Sebastian's old city are packed with pintxos groups moving from bar to bar.

GABRIELLA RENELLI: This is where we're going, okay?  Now you can always tell the best pintxos bars because they've got the most people in them.

BURT WOLF: This place is jumping.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Yeah.

BURT WOLF: Wow.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: You've got to elbow your way in here.  It's a time-honored tradition.  But this restaurant is very well known for its seafood.

BURT WOLF: What's this?

GABRIELLA RANELLI: It's baby eel.  It's come down from the mountains.  You have to eat them with a wooden fork.  And stir them around, give them a good stir.  The reason you use a wooden fork is also because if you used a metal fork, the eels would slip right through it.  They come from the Sargasso Sea.  Nobody knows where.   They travel here, they get here when they're about three years old.

BURT WOLF: It looks like pasta.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Well yeah.

BURT WOLF: If you didn't tell me they were baby eel…

GABRIELLA RANELLI: It doesn't taste like pasta, let me tell you.

BURT WOLF: How much is that?

GABRIELLA RENELLI: They cost about $500 a kilo.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: $500 for two and a quarter pounds?

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: That's the traditional food that they eat on the day of San Sebastian, the 20th of January.

BURT WOLF: I want to finish every eel in this bowl.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Right.

BURT WOLF: At $250 a pound, this is serious stuff.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: It's delicious.  One of the things they have here, one of the selections they have are goose barnacles.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Goose barnacles? Geese get barnacles?  I mean, they move around a lot but I didn’t know they got barnacles.  Goose barnacles.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: It’s a specialty here that most people enjoy.  They’re big barnacles.  And we must have some wine because…

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Wine is good.  Wine goes with goose barnacles.  Is there a particular wine that you drink with goose barnacles?

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Here are some goose barnacles.  They’re hot.  You’d better wait a minute.

BURT WOLF: I’m actually quite full.  I ... I just ... I don’t know if I have any room left for a goose barnacle.

GABRIELLA RENELLI ON CAMERA:  Have to wait on the goose barnacles. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Are you sure I have room for goose barnacles.  Yeah, I do.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: I think that the best way to eat the goose barnacles instead of well warm.  I wouldn’t eat them this hot because they have a special sort of flavor.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Yes.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: But I think ... why don't you finish your eels?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Oh, eels are fine.  The eels are okay. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI: We're gonna need these ... we're gonna need these actually because eating goose barnacles can be a little messy.

BURT WOLF: Oh yeah.

GABRIELLA RANELLI: So just keep one handy.  Okay.  I think that looks like a good one.

BURT WOLF: Oh, it looks like a wonderful goose barnacles.  Now what do I do?

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Okay, find a good spot like there, between the nail and the body and kind of pull it open.  No, you have to use your nail, get your nail in there and twist it open. 

BURT WOLF: I'm not gonna be able to do this.  I don't have to eat it.  No.  All right.          

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Obviously this is not one of my talents.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: That was a defective barnacle.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: A defective barnacle.  Okay, so you've opened one for me.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CMAERA: There you go.

BURT WOLF ON CMAERA: And I just kind of like, eat it?

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Just eat.  Don't eat the nail.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Is that sauce?

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: No no no.  They're cooked in sea water for one minute.  I guess I’ve got to get the barnacle juice off myself.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Like a snail.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: They're a great delicacy here. 

Not a first date kind of food.

BURT WOLF: You know, they're really very good. 

GABRIELLA RANELLI: Yeah.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: All right, I can hang up and ship out.

GABRIELLA RANELLI ON CAMERA: This is my treat.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Sorry I left ... I didn't finish all the goose barnacles.

Another traditional aspect of Basque gastronomy is the cider house.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The Basques have been growing apples for thousands of years and making cider since medieval times.  At some point, a farmer decided to sell his excess capacity and thought it would be a good idea to let everybody have a taste just after the fermentation.  They brought alone something to eat and before you knew it, the tradition of cider tasting was part of gastronomy in the Basque region.  And cider houses developed all over the area. 

BURT WOLF: The cider houses became centers of social life.  During the cider tasting season, which runs from late January through March, the traditional cider houses open up and people stand around tasting cider. During the rest of the year, they're closed.  But here in San Sebastian there's a restaurant called Sideria Donostiarra, which is open all year round and has an atmosphere that is very much in keeping with the old farmhouse tasting rooms.  One big space, long wooden tables without tablecloths, an open kitchen, grilled food, vats of cider along the walls and patrons filling their glasses with the traditional cider catching technique. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The process for making apple cider is basically the same process used for making wine, with apples sitting in for the grapes.  There's a natural yeast on the crushed apples that turns the sugar in the apples into carbon dioxide gas and alcohol.  The carbon dioxide gas makes the cider bubbly and the alcohol makes the cider. 

BURT WOLF: There was a standing menu in the cider house.  First, slices of cod omelet and a green salad.  The main course is grilled steak.  The dessert, slices of local cheese, strips of quince jelly, and walnuts.  And of course as much cider as you want.

For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: The Basque Country of Northern Spain - #201

The Basque country straddles the border between southwest France and northeast Spain, but except for their passports the Basques are neither French nor Spanish -- they are Basque. They speak the oldest European language still spoken, so old that no one can tell where it came from. We don’t even know where the Basques came from. Scientific tests indicate that the Basques have a different bloodline than their neighbors in Spain and France. They also have a distinct and interesting culture and they do all they can to keep their traditions alive.

So please join me, Burt Wolf, for TRAVELS & TRADITIONS in the Basque Country of Northern Spain.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): The Basques have lived on the Iberian Peninsula for thousands of years, but the two most important historic influences on Spain -- a three-hundred year colonization by the ancient Romans, and a seven-hundred year occupation by the Moors -- were hardly noticed by the Basques.

The Basques lived in small isolated villages and governed with a democracy in which the residents of a house voted as a unit rather than as individuals. That sense of family group has been central to their history. There are four Basque provinces in Spain and three just across the border in France. These days the two most interesting cities for a tourist are San Sebastian and Bilbao.  Since medieval times Bilbao has been an important trading port.

At first the city shipped wool from the sheep farms of northern Spain. During the 1800s iron mining became important, and the city evolved into an industrial center for steel mills, shipbuilding and chemical production.  It was a commercial city and clearly not a destination for tourists.

But that has completely changed. Today Bilbao is Spain’s fourth largest city and a major tourist attraction. For many travelers, the standard European tour, usually limited to London, Paris and Rome now includes Bilbao.  The change was the result of imaginative urban planning and the belief, that a single building could be the catalyst for the rebirth of an entire community.

Because of its size, the Guggenheim Museum in New York can only present five percent of its collection at any one time. Yet the traditional model for a museum calls for it to constantly make new acquisitions, which just leads to more art in the storerooms.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): During the late 1980s, the board of directors of the Guggenheim Museum decided to continue its acquisition activities, but at the same time look for new sites to present their collection. They already had one in Venice, and they opened two new ones in New York City, and one in Berlin. In 1991 they were negotiating with Salzburg, Austria when the Basque government began making their pitch. And the Basques had a couple of good points. Salzburg already had a major international music festival, and hundreds of thousands of tourists came there every year. A Guggenheim Museum in Salzburg would just add more whipped cream to their cake. A Guggenheim Museum here could rejuvenate an entire city.

The logic and the opportunity were too powerful for the Guggenheim to resist. The old shipyards became the site for the new museum, with its titanium shell undulating in the wind and changing color from blue, to red, to gold throughout the day and night. Jeff Koons’ flower-covered “Puppy” welcomes visitors to the building, inviting them to loosen up for what’s coming.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): About two hours before we got here they decided to change the flowers on the puppy so I had to show it to you in a post card, but you get the idea.

Fortunately everything on the inside is ready for viewing.  Our guide is Susana Garcia.

SUSANA GARCIA:  In my tours I usually like starting here -- Andy Warhol, because I think this is quite different.  This is not the Andy Warhol we are used to.  I mean, this is what he was doing in the Fifties.  He was a graphic designer, and he was designing those shoes you see.  But here, I personally -- I can see the evolution he is going to have.  Because I can see the glamour already, and he is going to be obsessed with glamour... I can see the bright colors.  I can imagine his assistants helping him to paint, to color, because he had what he called his “coloring parties.”  And, as he said, he wanted to be a sort of machine; he wanted to work in every medium -- cinema, photographs, painting, fashion, music, everything.  He thought that everything could be art, and art could become common.

BURT WOLF:   Tell me about this piece.

SUSANA GARCIA:  Okay, this piece is by Jenny Holzer, an American artist, and she’s working with language.  So what we’re going to see is text written in Spanish and in English, depending on the moment you arrive.  And -- well, she’s playing with language because the message we get is a personal message; it’s something intimate, but the media she’s using is public.  It’s LEDs.

BURT WOLF:   It’s what we use for signage in advertising.

SUSANA GARCIA:  That’s it. 

BURT WOLF:   The contrast of a personal message in a public media.

SUSANA GARCIA:  That’s it.  And something I like of this piece is that we can go through it and discover something else.  Well, here we get a different color and a different language.

BURT WOLF:   It’s in Basque.

SUSANA GARCIA:  That’s it -- that’s Basque language.  Jenny Holzer had to come to Bilbao to prepare this piece, and when she came she discovered Basque language.  She didn’t know anything about this.  So she thought, “Well, that’s perfect -- as I had to come to Bilbao to discover this language, I want people to enter into my piece to discover my message in Basque.”

BURT WOLF:   It’s also a nice symbol because here Basque is behind everything we see up front.

The Guggenheim jump-started the new Bilbao.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): In 1985 Bilbao was a rusting industrial hulk with a huge abandoned shipyard. The government knew that if they were ever going to turn the city around, they would have to build a new transportation system, improve communications, find an educated workforce, and bring in big business.  The Guggenheim Museum got things started by attracting tourists who were also international industrialists.

Once they saw what Bilbao had to offer, they became involved in the commercial aspects of the area. Frank Gehry’s design is a unique blend of art and technology that has inspired an industrial renaissance. The rusting city has disappeared. Today Basque metallurgy is some of the most sophisticated in the world. The titanium skin on Bilbao’s Guggenheim was fabricated in a local high-tech facility.

JOSU JON IMAZ [under]:  We have a particular style of life...

Josu Jon Imaz, the Minister of Industry, Trade And Tourism, pointed out that in the first two years after the Guggenheim opened, Spain’s Basque Country saw a thirty percent increase in tourism, an infusion of 160 million dollars into the economy, and more than four thousand new jobs.

One of the companies that represents the new industry here is ACB, which has one of the world’s most modern facilities for the manufacture of steel. And CAF has become one of the world’s most sophisticated manufacturer of rail cars.  The city itself has become a case study on how an area can revive both its cultural traditions and its economic base.

Josu feels that the Basques, the oldest culture alive in Europe, are developing a model for the future -- a model that takes advantage of a global economy and, at the same time, preserves its ancient skills.  An example of just that -- the preservation of ancient skills while addressing the needs of a global market -- is the BOJ fabricating plant where knives are made. The first ironworks in the Basque country date back to the ancient Romans, who burned charcoal with local iron ore and cast tools and weapons.

Basque appreciation for the new alongside respect for the old is also part of their appreciation for fine art. Down the street from the Guggenheim is the Bilbao Museum of Fine Art. The building may not be as dramatic as the Guggenheim, but the old masters and modern works that are part of the collection are well worth a visit. The museum presents a broad overview of the leading schools of European Art, from the Middle Ages to the present, with special emphasis on works created in Spain... from Gothic to Goya.

Basic to the success of Bilbao’s renaissance is the decision by the city’s leaders to continually commission leading international architects. You might expect a world-class architect for the Guggenheim, but their desire to have innovative and functional designs for all their projects led to the selection of England’s Lord Foster for the subway system. The entrances are called Fosteritos, after Norman Foster, the architect.

Escalators take you up and down. The tickets are priced according to the distance you intend to travel.  From the ticket area you can walk to the platform or use the glass enclosed elevators. The stations are bright, clean and safe. The trains are comfortable and run on time. 

A couple of days in Bilbao and it’s time to hit the road.

The other great coastal city in Spain’s Basque country is San Sebastian, which is about fifty miles to the east of Bilbao. The coast road between the two cities is beautiful.  And the area has its own unique history.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): During the 1100s the Catholic Church had three Holy Cities: Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de Compostela on the northwest coast of Spain. If you visited any of these cities the church would reduce the impact of your sins during your afterlife. It was called an indulgence. Getting to Jerusalem was dangerous and difficult.  Getting to Rome was a lot easier but when you got there you weren’t sure the church would give you an indulgence.  Santiago de Compostela was your best bet, and thousands of people made the trip every year, aided by the first travel guide for the mass market. It was written by a monk, and published in 1130. It told you where the food was good or bad, where the neighborhoods were dangerous, and if there had been bathrooms it would have told you which ones were clean. It was the Mobil Guide of the moment.

The route passed through here -- the town of Getaria. And pilgrim or not, if you are traveling in the Basque country, Getaria is worth a stop. It’s the hometown of Juan Sebastian Elcano, who was the navigator on Magellan’s voyage around the world. Most popular literature describes Magellan as the first person to sail around the world, but he died in the Philippines and never finished the trip. It was Elcano who completed the voyage home and should be given credit for the trip. He got a nice statue but he needed a better agent.

Getaria is also the center for the production of a local wine called txakoli, which is made from grapes grown on the nearby hills. Young, sparkling and fruity, it is poured from a bottle held a few feet above the glass... under the theory that the trip aerates the wine and increases its sparkle. 

Getaria has a number of good restaurants that specialize in the outdoor grilling of fish that come up from the town’s port. The grills are set up outside, near the entrance to the restaurants. My favorite is Iribar. The chef’s name is Pile and she is the third generation of her family to own the restaurant.  It’s a perfect place to take a break during your pilgrimage.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): Following the Protestant Reformation the market for indulgences pretty much disappeared, along with the traffic of pilgrims through Getaria.  But recently there has been a resurgence.  During the Holy Year 1993 over a hundred thousand pilgrims walked the old route along northern Spain, and new hotels and inns are being built to accommodate the new traffic.

To qualify as an authentic pilgrim you must walk a minimum of 62 miles, but you can also meet the requirements by biking for 124. Inline skaters have made petitions, but as yet there is no official ruling. And if you’re considering a skateboard, forget about it.  You must start with a letter from your parish priest and a record book that gets stamped along the way.

When you arrive in San Sebastian, you are entering a city that has been around since the 11th Century, and was one of the major resting points on the pilgrim route. But not much went on here until the middle of 1800s, when Queen Maria Cristina chose the beachfront waters of San Sebastian as the spot for her daughter’s saltwater cure. Bathing in the ocean was recommended for the princess’s skin ailment.

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  But she didn’t just walk into the water like you and I would today; because in 1845 decent people didn’t swim in the ocean.  You only went in the water if you fell in.  You were usually a fisherman.

Gabriella Ranelli is an American friend of mine who has lived here since 1989 and has a good sense of the town.

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  ... so what they had to do was build a special round building set on rails -- it was called “The Pearl of the Cantabria” -- and the queen was in it, and a pair of oxen would pull it down into the water.  She could very decorously lower herself into the water, swim around, nobody could see the Royal Body --

BURT WOLF:   She was swimming inside this little building?

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  No, she would come out.  There was a hole in it, she could swim out, she would swim around.  You could see her head -- the Royal Head would be there, nobody would see the Royal Body -- so she was okay, and then she would go back up into her little bathing house, the oxen would pull it up on the beach, she could bathe with fresh water, come out dressed with all her dignity intact.  And that’s what people did in those days, even though they wore bathing costumes made of wool from their necks down to their ankles, as you can see in photographs of the time.  But because the queen was here, everybody else -- all the court, and all the aristocracy from Spain -- wanted to come up here and spend their summers in the same place where the queen came.

BURT WOLF:   That’s an interesting point over there...

GABRIELLA RANELLI:  That’s the fortified wall.  This was a walled city, of course, and that’s where the French defended -- generally the French -- defended themselves against the English.  Wellington and Napoleon were always fighting it out here because this was a very, very strategic city.  If you captured San Sebastian, you would generally have a gateway into the entire Iberian peninsula, and eventually Africa.  So everybody wanted this place.  So they were always fighting people off, and eventually in 1813 the English came in, the allied troops came in -- the French had the city under siege -- and burned the entire thing to the ground.  So they had to start over and rebuild.  So a lot of what you’re seeing is the new 19th Century city that they rebuilt after the fire, and after the walls came down in 1865.  The building right behind us, which is the town hall now, used to be the casino.  It was built at the end of the 1800s, but then gambling was outlawed in 1923, so they turned it into the town hall eventually.

One of the most beautiful buildings in San Sebastian is the Hotel Maria Cristina.  It was built on the Urumea River and looks out on the sea.  When it opened in 1912 the first person to enter the building was her Majesty The Queen Maria Cristina herself... accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting... who could have been waiting in The Gritti Bar, which maintains an elegant atmosphere... and a portrait of Andrea Gritti, who was the Duke of Venice and never came to San Sebastian but certainly would have had he been invited.  The ladies-in-waiting could also have waited in the elegant entrance area, in front of the impressive grand staircase where brides and grooms wait for their pictures to be taken before their wedding. Or they could have waited in the hotel’s restaurant, which specializes in classic Basque cuisine, but they wouldn’tve had to wait long because the service is excellent. And of course if they played their cards right they could have waited in my suite, which is named after Maria Cristina, and has an excellent view of the promenade.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): But they needn’t have waited long to see the rest of the city.  It’s one block to the elegant shopping areas, two to the Convention Center, three to the beach, and four to my favorite pincho bar -- which brings us to the subject of what to eat in San Sebastian.

The gastronomy of San Sebastian is based on the sea and the mountains. The local chefs are considered to be some of the best in Europe and seafood is one of their great strengths. Excellent fish soups. Sea Bream with Garlic Vinaigrette. Or whatever today’s catch is, fresh from the ocean and simply grilled. The mountains behind San Sebastian are home to the sheepherders, whose traditional dishes include Roast Lamb with Garlic and Lemon served with roasted potatoes and hearts of lettuce.  But there are also some small ranches that supply great steaks.  And the Basque hams are world famous.

When it comes to dessert, you owe yourself a visit to the Otaegui Pastry Shop. Try the Saints’ Bones, almond pastry on the outside, an egg yolk cream on the inside. Panchaneta, puff pastry with cream in the middle, usually served warm. Gateau Basque, lemon cream in a cooked cream crust.  Many pastry shops have scales to weigh what they sell.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): But this is the only pastry shop I’ve ever seen that has a scale for the customers.  And the staff tells me that people come in and use it everyday, but only after they have purchased their pastries.

But whatever you eat you must stop into the Pincho Bars. Every morning and evening hundreds of these establishments cover their bars with the ultimate selection of open sandwiches and snacks. You walk in off the street, eat whatever you want, have a drink, pay up and move on. You go from one pincho bar to the next, eating what looks good until you’re full. As much as you want, as fast as you want it and inexpensive. A very enjoyable way to eat.

And if you enjoy spectator sports, you’ve come to the right place. The Basques are great sportsmen and the sports they love the most are ancient tests of strength and skill that relate to the ways men once earned their living or defended their land. Stone lifting always draws a crowd... as does wood chopping.

The Basques also play what is thought to be the fastest ball game in the world. It’s called Remonte. The Basque love of sports is partially based on their love of competition but also on their passion for betting. The guys in the short-sleeved shirts standing between the spectators and the players are the bookies. They call out the odds as the game progresses and match up two bettors from the stands. They don’t cover the bets themselves; they act only as middlemen taking a percentage for their services. And they only take bets from people they know. Bets are in multiples of thirty dollars. After the latest odds are announced, you signal the amount of your bet, the bookie finds someone to take it, writes a receipt for each bettor and throws the receipt to each of them inside a tennis ball.  If you think the ball on the court moves around, you should see what happens with the bettor’s ball at a big match.

I was fascinated with the sport and convinced Txikuri, one of the great stars of the game, to give me a lesson.

AITOR AGUIRRE (“TXIKURI”):  The first thing you must learn is just to feel the ball in the basket.  So it’s doing this movement... you see?   It’s like doing this, but... well, it’s easy to say but difficult to do it.

BURT WOLF:   Sorry...

TXIKURI:   Are you ready?

BURT WOLF:   I’m ready. ...

TXIKURI:   Well -- try it again...?

BURT WOLF:   It’s a pop fly to center field and DiMaggio’s got it!

TXIKURI:   Oops...

BURT WOLF:   Wait, wait, I’m not giving up... this may be a longer show than any of us planned on...

TXIKURI:   It’s easier for you if you just leave the ball here and then --

BURT WOLF:   Closer to the basket.

TXIKURI:   Yeah, like this.  You see?

BURT WOLF:   Oh... it’s so easy when you do it...

TXIKURI:   That’s better!  You see?  Wow!  ... Oh, good...

BURT WOLF:   We’re getting very close to a volley, sports fans...

TXIKURI:   That’s good, and -- it’s a difficult shot... wow!  (Laughing)  You made a point!

BURT WOLF:   Okay, this is where I quit!

TXIKURI: I can’t believe that!

BURT WOLF:   That was a volley!  You saw it here first!  A complete volley!  The ball went up and back a number of times, touching the ball and my extraordinary... what is this?

Clearly I should concentrate on sports where the skill is not in the wrist... maybe checkers.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA): The oldest culture in Europe, still reinventing itself and in ways that might affect the entire world.  Which reminds me:  during the 1800s large numbers of Basque sheepherders settled in the American west. And there are still people in Nevada and Idaho who speak the Basque language. And next time you see John Wayne riding into Durango, bear in mind that Durango is the name of an ancient Basque village.  So there you go, Pilgrim. I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief visit to the Basque country, and I hope you will join me next time on TRAVELS & TRADITIONS. I’m Burt Wolf.