Basque Country’s Male-Only Cooking Clubs | Floyd On Spain | TRACKS

Basque Country’s Male-Only Cooking Clubs | Floyd On Spain | TRACKS

Dear hector you know how the brit’s gone about the weather all the time the americans talk about health and the royals the australians are preoccupied with sport and sex well past conversation revolves around food the night air is alive with passionate thoughts on how to make the perfect fish omelette

And spicy stews where to find the freshest of tappers what fish are in season and so on you see there’s a very old saying in this country in the south they fry in the middle they bake and in the north they cook they was probably a basket Coin [Applause] the food here comes either from the rugged coast or the mountains and it’s natural for families to eat in the open air but bellying this happy gathering there is a serious streak that puts food of the region on par with its fierce streak of independence dishes like shangri-la spider crab it’s

White flesh mixed with peppers onion garlic and brandy oh and this you’d love this one hector freshly grilled tuna covered in a spicy tomato sauce and pimentos the colours of the basque flag tonight i’ve got to cook it enough for 10 or 12 people that i’ve never met before

I don’t know what sort of food they cook and here in san sebastian i don’t really know what the local styles are but the only way to find out is to go to the market and have a look around because i’ve cooked a lot of fish but

Maybe i should change it i should rabbit or pigeons or partridges or beef or tripe i don’t know the only way to find out is to look round it’s a bit like deciding to paint a picture first choose your colors so clyde if it’s okay with you and do

Mine the old ladies behind you because it is a public market we’ll go off and do a bit of shopping here’s a little thing that fascinates me i’m sure i’ve seen these flowers in the hedgerows of devon i don’t know what they’re called they’re pimped males pimpinels or something like that no they

Tell me that here they boil them up in an infusion you drink the infusion and it purifies your blood maybe if they’ve got a few hundred weight i should have sent around to my hotel anyway what i really need is some tomatoes this is real shopping now por favor dos kilos the tomatoes

I love shopping and incidentally it’s a great way to pick up the language but what i like about the market is the fact that people stay in touch with each other on a daily basis you’ve lost that at home i feel modern hyper markers aren’t conducive to idle

Friendly chitchat this market has all the attractions of an exciting exhibition but what to cook plump freshly shot pigeon attempting all these fabulous home cured sausages highly spiced with pimento and delicious hams that came from the black pig who spent its days snuffing acorns in the mountains underrated by many but celebrated in

Spain rabbit or as they say over here but you know hector they even take the nasty stringy bits off the beans for you consider it people these basques ah look clive close in here this is what i mean little chopped bits of fatty bacon bits of sausage

Bits of ham an absolutely perfect thing to saute my rabbit in or indeed chicken or any other meaty thing you want to make us chew from it really enriches the stew excellent stuff right on with some more shopping anyway i think that’s enough markets this is a cooking program not great

Markets of the world and this is a gastronomic society founded in 1870 by men who wanted to cook for their families and their workmates and chums because this is by and large a very matriarchal society where once upon a time there was no place for the husband over the kitchen stove

Just think of it men who would work in hot factories or fishing boats and in banks would rush home desperate to cook lunch or perhaps a light dinner only to be told that was not their place to do so so they formed their own societies a society where women were forbidden to

Cook in their kitchen and it’s not one of those weak macho excuses for an almighty binge it’s taken seriously and members learn from each other swapping ideas and recipes in a spirit of good-natured competition these societies should be worldwide you know much more fun than swilling lager in the pub night after night

Do you know in seven years of making these programs this is the most extraordinary kitchen i’ve ever been in my life it’s a private club but it’s not an elitist club it’s a club of men they may be road diggers they may be bus drivers maybe barristers who want to get

Together and cook and cook for fun and my god this is a kitchen full of love that i’ve never seen in my life before anyway we’ll be more of that as we go along because i’ve been made not remember i’ve got to cook them something i must do it

Real i must do it properly because i’m just a english guy in in their sacred environments so clive a quick spin around the ingredients please we have some wild rabbit the dish focuses on red peppers and also a load of tomatoes i’ve got cooking elsewhere over to here little bit some finely

Chopped pieces of mountain ham and sausage garlic back this way a little bit and onions and that roughly speaking is the dish because here in san sebastian they don’t over spice or over herb their foods things are actually very simple they look good but they’re very straightforward so

On to the pot here and the first thing i have to do is brine this rabbit in fact i’m cooking for about nine or ten people here although 45 have turned up and they’re all around us at the moment he’s he’s cooking the pork which is absolutely excuse [ __ ]

Yeah i mean i’m up for some really stiff competition here one when other so i have to do it properly clive didn’t take 15 minutes or so to brown this lot no one wants to spend 15 minutes watching rabbits brown so take a spin run and see what the

Other guys have been doing wonderful dishes like cake and prawns in olive oil saffron wine oh and these live hamekas sweet little things lie a few inches under the sand and send out this long tube and suck in their nourishment until they’re unceremoniously scooped up and eaten that is they’re wonderful

Cooked in the wine and parsley sauce lightly seasoned with garlic the atmosphere is truly great but i can’t imagine a covenant with barristers or a gang of trap players doing this in britain can you right so that’s round beautifully what i did rather earlier because the other important part of this dish is

Onions and tomatoes over here clive you can come right in big fat close up please finely chopped onions and tomatoes stewing away in olive oil okay it’ll all be revealed as we go along just put some pepper in i don’t need to follow the cover they know what pepper looks like

Right pepper into that next thing is some garlic so down here now we’ve cut this quite crudely with the bits of skin on and all just to give it the extra flavor it’s all quite good that goes into the pot we have our garlic and then to really enhance the flavor

I’ve got this lovely 200 grams or so of chopped fatty mountain ham and sausage and things of that kind in all that goes and i have a quick slurp because as i as i have said i’ve just been so touched by the atmosphere in this place you know they really do care

And love what they’re doing and they’re not scrubbing that’s my knife those are my ingredients i mean this could be an alternative form of christianity this could be a way to actually live a life sharing cooking eating and smiling and really going for it in a very happy way anyway i’m with

Some more can give me a slurp Excellent singing but they’re singing about the joys of food of crabs and cheeses and potatoes and wine but getting back to the kitchen my onions and tomatoes well reduced down a lovely thick rich sauce so i pop in the rabbit which has been fried in olive oil and garlic

Really nicely browned pop back into the tomatoes get all the juices out if you can and of course all the little pieces of ham then i put the red peppers back into the rabbit juice sear them for a little bit and mix them with the rabbit and the tomatoes put that on

Let it simmer for a bit there’s the rabbit stay there clive here are the peppers now i’m going to put these peppers on the top of the whole thing to make sure that they will be lightly steamed in the juices from the rabbit and now for the moment of truth and

Although i’m sure they’re very kind my reputation is on the line i must admit i couldn’t cook this better had i been in my own kitchen i was really pleased with it it smelled delicious the sauce was the right consistency and color it was to my mind done to perfection right Aren’t they welsh aren’t they russian aren’t they celtic what are they isn’t that music outstanding anyway i’ve done all i can do i’m going out on the town in san sebastian it’s usual after siesta to don your best clothes and take the air observing as much as you can of your

Fellow man or woman this is a ritual that’s been played with grace and dignity since time immemorial and it’s a wonderful way invigorated by the fresh sierra to work up an appetite dinner in spain doesn’t usually happen until half past nine or even ten o’clock but it really starts around seven with a

Glass or two and then what i like is the children with their parents and grandpas they can all share in the fun too this is a brilliant tapas bar run by my latest chum oseiba a fierce fast cook right where i’ve gone down great then these little anchovies the ceramic jarvison uh

Marinated in salt and vinegar and then with the nucleophilic garlic i mean enjoy good very good yes yes this is a dry curd omelette salted chocolate that’s uh fish road which fish is that from this is uh hey cake pig why is hate well i mean for us it’s the queen of the

Fish the queen the fish that’s interesting and they’re making it all from our shores as well by the way i didn’t say that i’m sorry spain this is octopus the other octopus i mean just to catch you before you go without pain right right i mean i’m

Going to get it i get it so this one’s in there with vinaigrette with a hot paprika and an olive oil i keep referring to many of these tasty plates of food as spanish in fact i should have said basque but i’m not terribly well-versed in the differences

So i asked haseeba to explain nothing to do with it i mean we’re basque that is we are in the same state i mean but well here we are so we are enjoying food and drink and all these things for thousands of years and we are going to continue for

Millions of years and nobody is going to change it brilliant i’ll drink to that [Applause] [Applause] now when i meet anyone with a white face who pretends to climb up an invisible wall i usually cross the street but now i had an appetite to explore other varieties of tapas which there are hundreds involving meat fish shellfish and vegetables in fact the whole nine yards

As a matter of quarrel couldn’t have followed the clues better than i am this is peppa’s bar three and i’m really getting the feel of this place i know where the body is going to be come on great you can be a pauper in this place and

Yet live like a king because these small snacklets only cost a few percenters each by having one judiciously here and then again there and perhaps back here again a little later you can have a whole wide selection of really succulent tasty things pigs tongues fish octopus squid spicy sausages little vegetable things

Deep fried peppers it truly is magnificent they make life back on that because that was a long piece of camera Some of these tapas look like elegant cream cakes but in fact they consist of freshly made mayonnaise salmon smoked trout atlantic frogs and squid loaded on fresh rolls baked that afternoon honestly this gastronomic detective voyage is going terribly well this must be now i think um the uh

Cesium or the sixth or something like that anyway let’s see what they have to offer here because you see the spanish are nightmares they buzz they chatter they walk up and down they flash their eyes at one another they parade past each other and all the while

They’re eating and drinking come on in if you can nicely actually clyde we’re getting a bit more into the bread eggs and vegetables in this particular tap as well and i have one of those too gracias see this is quite nice isn’t it pimento red and green pimento and a bit of egg

And some bread now that should after a few tintos and lots of meat and lots of pig stuff and lots of fish this is quite fortifying and comforting and very very tasty now if you’re going to open a tapas bar remember these snacks are only so tasty because they’re made

Not at nine o’clock in the morning and serve until they run out but every few minutes so they’re always fresh the kitchens here never stop and bar owners know they’d soon go out of business if they served something that didn’t have a recent association with the sea After the hurley burley in san sebastian when you hit tapas bar after tapper’s bar it’s nice to walk along the port to walk along the boulevards and start to reflect a bit about things maybe take a coffee maybe take a little cognac something like that just to wind down

What has been a really good day i always like to include a real fishing trip in these little programs but today is sunday and they’re having the day off eating tapas with that so i bought some fish and hired a pleasure boat instead around about 11 o’clock in the morning

The hard-working basque man or woman stops for a little break but they don’t have a cup of tea like we do they have a glass of very young fruity white wine called chocolate and they do pour it from this great height even though they might split a drop to

Get some air into it because it tastes better that way although between you and i that’s a matter of opinion it’s a bit sharp for me anyway we’re going to cook today is a typical basquez dish much loved by the fishermen here they cook it on board when they’re

Coming back from the trawling grounds or going out to the trawling grounds and the most favored version of it is contains tuna fish you can use cod or hake or any other firm flesh fish but the best of all is tuna so clive before i fall off the prague

Very high proud of this typical spanish boat could i have a quick spin around the ingredients please which are down here first of all a lovely chunk of fresh tuna over to your right and we have i know the boat’s a bit wobbly sorry about that clive we’ve got potatoes that’ll be sweet

Spanish onions garlic tomatoes and green peppers you can use red peppers if you like and some olive oil down there somewhere now this is a traditional basque dish the sort of thing on those cold nights when they’re hauling nets or maybe fat full nets maybe empty nets this is what they look

Forward to to build themselves up after a grueling time at sea as they charge up and down this coast which by the way is quite a lot like the cornish coast I made several phone calls to some of my academic chums to find out where the basque came from well they all had a joint on think and no one seems to know we know that they call their land uscadi and many seem to think they came from the caucasus in russia thousands of

Years ago they’re a silent determined knot that remind me of the bretons they also reminded the people of the isles of silly they’re fiercely independent and don’t suffer fools gladly i might have a problem there so what we need is a pot of sliced potatoes and sliced onions

In some water the last ones are just going in now swing over there clive you’ll see i’ve got the water in there loads of onions loads of potatoes sliced like that one more onion to go and we are on a fishing road so we are rocking and rolling on this sea here

So there’s going to be a few slips and a few errors and the guys are here just driving the boat having a glass like good fishermen do right onions then and potatoes in the pot simmering gently away next thing as far as i’m concerned is a quick slurp

Oh gosh that’s much nicer than the white wine they like so much around here then drive a load of chopped tomatoes into there as well like that stirred rind really well potatoes onions and tomatoes then because of course it is the best country a load of chopped peppers three in this instance

I’ve taken the um the piss out of the peppers clive i’ve taken the piss and the pips out of the peppers and i pop them in there clyde you see right so that’s the base of our fisherman’s pot then a load in here i’ve got a load of crushed garlic

Parsley salt and pepper it’s all in this pot because on a boat you can’t have these things flying around the place so they all go in season it now that’s simmering gently away there can i just make a point here we’re going to be using the luxury

Of tuna fish on this so we’re going to put the tuna fish in straight away because it’s cut quite thickly and it takes a long time to cook but if we were using cod or hake less strong fish we’d let this cook away for about 10 minutes before we added the fish

Otherwise the vegetables will be raw and the fish will be overcooked we’re aiming to get the vegetables supple and tender and unctuous and the fish flaky all at the same time so as i say because it’s tuna that goes in more or less straight away but first slice your tuna

One tuna two tunas this is enough for a lot of people really i’ll just trim it up a little bit so we don’t get too many nasty bits on the edge get the edges off there right now stay there clyde because i’ve forgotten the salt i need a bit more

Salt there’s any over here it’s a good idea to rub a little salt into the steaks okay tuna steaks onto the top then one two three and then to complete the authenticity of this very typical bass dish this is the one they use to eat when they’re out

Fishing it’s potatoes it’s onions it’s peppers it’s water it’s tuna fish it’s garlic it’s parsley it’s salt in its pepper and of course some olive oil and that’s going to simmer away now for about 45 minutes until the potatoes and the onions absorb the juice and the fish is cooked in the meantime

I didn’t join the chaps and little glass of wine with them so okay i don’t speak any basket or spanish come to that but i do believe that if diplomats swap their grey suits for a cook’s apron from time to time the world would be a happier place

Anyway this stew simmered away for another 20 minutes or so or three glasses of wine depending on how you measure time and then it’s ready to serve i think as a piece of cooking it stands up what they think remains to be seen they liked it they really liked it of

Course it’s criticism i should have cooked the onions a bit longer and while we’re at it the potatoes weren’t exactly what they’re liking but i think for the first time out it’s been a hit a palpable hit or indeed a palatable hit Clive loves these bits he gets up really early in the morning to capture the soft mist that swells the grape on the vine and kisses the corn and also it gives you the viewer a break from me anyway to the east of the basque region is the northern part of the ryokan

Alavesa vineyards where the countryside changes dramatically the moors were driven out of spain and the romanesque style began first from the north here as in laguardia where it was pure but further south it was often grafted onto moorish foundations oh that’s a fish shot by the way

In the 13th century the most popular style was gothic but then finally the whole thing was affected by the renaissance and now you know just as much as i do about architecture because it all came from the boys bumper book of architecture but you know how keen my

Director is on those sketches but as for me cherries are the things hmm they’re quite the nicest i’ve had this season you know what they say life is just a bowl of cherries as long as you’ve got most of them what a magnificent spot you know this is

Exactly the place to do one of those thinking sketches you know where you just gaze out over the vineyards while clive looks at the view you hear my voice revealing philosophical things about rioca wine growers from rioja alta might disagree but the trempanillo grape thrives on the

Pale yellow clay soil of the alavesa and the mediterranean climate with cool winters helps produce soft fruity red wines from what is undoubtedly finest grape and i drank bottles of this soft red wine with its lovely blackberry flavour with no hangovers by the way clive want to strike the fire

Up there excuse me perfect perfect perfect bike do you know i think i must be one of the luckiest chaps in the whole world i travel it i eat it i drink it i smell it and i touch it but despite the fact that i sometimes get chaffed in limousines

Live on the penthouse floors of luxury hotels that can be sometimes a little boring it’s really good to get out into the country into this magnificent countryside of the northern rioja where they grow wonderful wine where they shoot wonderful game where they make brilliant sausages where they go superb tomatoes where they make

Wonderful things for us to enjoy and me to show you so what i thought i’d do get away from all the hurly burly of hotel life have a simple barbecue and a simple salad which brings me onto the first little bit i just finished off my salad

That’s more of this is only simply coming clive it’s only very simply sweet spanish onions crunch lettuce tomatoes slightly green because i find them with a wonderful flavor and crumpled into that some local two day old cheese now i know i’m using my fingers but i’m eating it so don’t worry about

It bit of vinegar a good dollop of olive oil and there you have it okay right back to me cliff please i’ve been asking people around the place what do they eat well here they don’t eat octopus and gambas and paella they’re more meaty people they make wonderful now down here very closely

Because they make wonderful spicy red sausages they make superb black puddings that people in blackpool be proud of they get quail from the mountainside and grill it and they get wonderful legs of goat but and i kid you not that’s a good pun isn’t it i didn’t mean

To say that but the thing that really excels here is the lamb several times i’ve eaten lamb it has been the most succulent the most delicious i’ve ever tasted so i’ve got these wonderful hot coals and i’ve got these wonderful thin slivers of young young lamb oh by the way

Just before i carry on a tip here lots of your barbecue never barbecue until the coals look like these look okay never put things on while the flames are still there so very important because this after all is a little cookery program and the odd tip is useful anyway

Those go on to the thing sizzle sizzle sizzle away they’ll because they’re so small they’ll probably take two or three minutes this is a good feast for me isn’t it i was gonna have some chums with me but um they couldn’t make it no it’s only the

Spade falling over don’t worry about it what else does rioja have to offer what has rioja done for us i hear you cry what it’s done for us and i’m a wine drinker little old wine drinker i’ve tasted wine from california look at this but one of the finest wines i’ve tasted

Is this real cup you can have it young you can have it old but it’s here it’s made to be enjoyed as you wish close up on the barbie which is after all my portrait of northern rioja or on the countryside which is their portrait of rocco

You remember i asked my chums where the basque people came from and they didn’t know well i’ve just found a book that says the basques are a remnant of a pre-indo-germanic race that the greeks and the romans found in spain and called iberians so there You

In this series loveable chef Keith Floyd goes in search of the true flavour of Spain. Floyd celebrates the food and drink of regional Spain in restaurants and bars, mountain tops, and the length and breadth of this rich and diverse country.

Subscribe to see more full documentaries every week:
https://bit.ly/2lneXNy

TRACKS publishes unique, unexpected and untold stories from across the world every week.

From “Floyd On Spain”
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TRACKSTravelChannel/

Content licensed from TVF International to Little Dot Studios.

Any queries, please contact us at:
owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com