My wife’s grandmother’s cookbook had this clipping from a newspaper, probably from Salmon, Idaho. Anyone know roughly when this would be? There was no date in the saved clipping.

Baking your own Sheepherder’s Bread

Many Basques still enjoy baking the dome-shaped loaves of sheepherder’s bread at home, like Anita Mitchell. She gave us her recipe that won the bread-baking championship at the National Basque Festival last year. Her updated method for baking in a conventional oven is more reliable than the old way of baking in a pit that you see at right (picture not included).

You’ll need a 10-inch cast iron or cast aluminum covered Dutch oven (5-quart size); for pit-baking, it should have a bale (wire handle) and be well seasoned.

Sheepherder’s Bread

• 3 cups very hot tap water
• 1/2 cup butter, margarine, or shortening
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 packages active dry yeast
• About 9 1/2 cups all purpose flour, unsifted
• Salad oil

In a bowl, combine the hot water, butter, sugar, and salt. Stir until butter melts; let cool to warm (110 to 115 degrees). Stir in yeast, cover, and set in a warm place until bubbly, about 15 minutes.

Add 5 cups of the flour and beat with a heavy-duty mixer or wooden spoon to form a thick batter. With a spoon, stir in enough of the remaining flour (about 3 1/2 cups) to form a stiff dough. Turn dough out onto a floured board and knead until smooth, about 10 minutes, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking. Turn dough over in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a a warm place until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch down dough and knead on a floured board to form a smooth ball. Cut a circle of foil to cover the bottom of the Dutch oven. Grease the inside of the Dutch oven and the underside of the lid with salad oil.

Place dough in the pot and cover with the lid. Let rise in a warm place until dough pushes up the lid by about 1/2 inch, about 1 hour (watch closely).

Bake, covered with lid, in a 375 degree oven for 12 minutes. Remove lid and bake for another 30 to 35 minutes, or until loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from oven and turn loaf out (you’ll need a helper) onto a rack to cool. Makes 1 very large loaf.

A poignant camp custom: Before serving, a herder would slash the sigh of the cross on top of the loaf, then serve the first piece to his invaluable dog.

I’m a little behind, as usual, but I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention two articles that recently appeared about the Basques in the American West.

The first, Herding Sheep in Basque Country (Idaho), appeared in the New York Times last month and describes the Basque sheepherding experience via a chat with Henry Etcheverry, a herder in the Minidoka desert near Rupert, Idaho. The author, John O’Connor, spends some time with Jauna Etcheverry in the desert, checking on the sheep herds. O’Connor describes a bit of the history of the Basque sheepherding experience as well as the Basque culture of Boise.

My dad and my mom’s grandparents all came to the American West — a little further west than Minidoka, to the Jordan Valley, Oregon area — precisely to herd sheep. My dad originally came on a 3-year contract and made enough money to buy an apartment in Gernika. He was asked to return to the US and, during this second stint, met the granddaughter of other Basque immigrants. The rest, as they say, is history.

The article makes a point of noting that the new generation of herders are from Peru. My dad has sort of taken under his wing, so to speak, some of the Peruvian herders where he lives. One Christmas, some of these guys came over for dinner. I was talking to them and one mentioned that he was trained as an engineer in Peru, with a Bachelor’s degree. He was in the US because he could make more money as a sheepherder in Idaho than as an engineer in Peru. This simply amazed me.

Jauna Etcheverry mourns the end of the Basque shepherd, but, as he points out, his kids and the kids of other Basques simply don’t want to do that work. And this, to me, embodies the American dream. His kids, my dad’s sons, and many of the other Basque kids I know were taught to value education and hard work. Those kids built upon the foundation their parents built, working long days and months in the hills herding sheep, driving truck or working the farm. They made a better life for themselves, a direct consequence of the drive their parents had to make a better life for themselves. To me, this is the essence of the American dream, to be able to make a better life. The opportunity to do that for me and others like me was provided by these Basque immigrants.

The second article, 5 Basque American spots in Western U.S., by Bob Cooper in a July issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, focuses on another legacy of Basque immigration, the Basque restaurants that dot the American West. That these often family-style restaurants are popular is evidenced by how many comments and queries I get about Charley Shaffer’s Basque Restaurant List.  Cooper picks 5 spots, scattered between Idaho, California, and Nevada, where you kind find a taste of the Basque-American sheepherder experience. The oldest on his list, the Noriega Hotel in Bakersfield, was, like many of these, a boarding house before it became a more traditional restaurant.

Not that these restaurants are traditional in an American sense. Often family-style, you sit at a large table, often next to strangers, and the food is brought out not as individual servings, but in big bowls and plates that are passed around. This is a great way to meet new people and sample foods you might be a little shy about, since you are committing your entire meal to a new dish. I’ve only had the luck to try a few such places, but every one has been a great experience.

At a recent conference, I met a student, Ane Lasa, from the Basque Country, who mentioned she had taken her Finnish colleagues on a pintxos tour through Donosti. The tour consisted of the best pintxos at the best bars, as determined by Ane’s ama. Ane graciously shared the list with me, and I’m sharing it with everyone else.

• Zabaleta taberna (Gros): Chipirón a la plancha (grilled squid)
• Vergara taberna (Gros): Txopito (squid)
• Cuchara de San Telmo (Parte Vieja): carrilleras, solomillo, bacalao, rissotto (carrilleras=the good meat; solomillo=an even better meat; bacalao=cod)
• Gandarias (Parte Vieja): perretxikok, onttok (mushrooms)
• Txepeleta (Parte Vieja) : antxoak (anchovy)
• Hika-Mika (City Center): morros, carrilleras, bacalao, pastel de pescado (morros=meat, pastel de pescado=fish cake)
• Martinez (Parte Vieja): Gambas a la gabardina (scampi, shrimp)
• La Cepa (Parte Vieja): bocadillo jamón serrano (sandwich of ham)
• La Cueva: champis a la plancha (grilled mushrooms)
• Munto: plato de diferentes hongos-setas (mixture of mushrooms) (this is Ane’s favorite)

Ane adds: But over any list, walk around, check where most of the local people is (the ones speaking that unintelligible language), be open to what each of the (listed) bars suggest and enjoy it!

If you’ve spent a night sampling the wonderful delights of the Parte Vieja, what other pintxos would you add? And what pintxos/bars would you recommend in other Basque towns?

The photos were found on the web, often from the website of that particular tavern.

TWO YOUNG COOKS WIN IV SAMMIC SCHOLARSHIP TO COOK WITH BASQUE CHEFS

Earlier, I posted about the previous BasqueStage contest for young cooks to work with world-renown chefs in the Basque Country.  Well, the 4th edition of the contest has just been decided and two new young men will be joining Chef Berasategui. The following press release gives more details.

May 9, 2012, (SAN SEBASTIÁN, SPAIN): Chef Martín Berasategui has announced the winners of the 2012 4th Sammic Scholarship with BasqueStage.  The winners are Brenden Darby and Luuk Hoffman, and they will join the kitchen of Restaurante Martín Berasategui, ranked in the San Pellegrino World’s Top 100, beginning in July 2012. They were chosen out of over 150 applicants in this, the fourth round of the continually growing BasqueStage program.

Brenden Darby is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University, where he graduated Dean’s List and Honors Society. He is also completing is WSET (Wine and Spirits Education Trust) Advanced Certificate. He recently spent six months traveling and volunteering in Southeast Asia, and also has varied restaurant experience under his belt.

Luuk Hoffman is a young Dutch cook, a graduate of the Hotel School in the Hague and a current student at Sterklas in Amsterdam for an advanced culinary degree. He has worked with an impressive roster of chefs.

BasqueStage is a program that gives cooks the opportunity to learn from some of the best chefs in the world, up close and personal. The Sammic Scholarship is sponsored by Sammic, with the collaboration of Martín Berasategui.

Basque chef Martín Berasategui has earned almost every international culinary award, including 3 Michelin stars for his restaurant in Lasarte. In fact, the high ratio of Michelin stars to population in the area is partially due to his nurturing of other young chefs.

Sammic is one of Europe’s leading designers and manufacturers of Foodservice Equipment, specializing in Food Preparation, Food Preservation, and Hot Temp Ware Washing. Longtime technological partner of chef Martín Berasategui and based only 30 kilometers away from his restaurant, this 50-year-old company has just started operations in the US.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

BasqueStage/DeliFunArt: Marti Kilpatrick  marti@basquestage.com +34 676 040 129

Sammic: Amaia Altuna aaltuna@sammic.com  +34 943 157 340

Anyone who has spent any time with anyone Basque knows how central the role food has in the culture. Just visit Donostia and wander la Parte Vieja, sampling pintxos to all hours of the night or partaking of any of the wonderful restaurants and you’ll see what I mean. Donostia is home to more Michelin stars per capita than any other city in the world. (Yes, even places like Paris.)

You know how important food is to the culture. So, it only makes sense that the Basque Country provide a center for learning about food, both of the Basque Country but also from all over the world. The Basque Culinary Center offers degrees in Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. There are also programs to become a Master in Innovation and Restaurant Management or the latest in Cooking Techniques.

BCC, as they call themselves on their website, is a project created by public institutions, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, AZTI-Tecnalia, Basque chefs and a group of companies from the food industry sector. The center, inaugurated on 26^th September 2011, comprises a Faculty of Gastronomic Sciences and a Center for Research and Innovation in Food and Gastronomy. BCC is situated in the southern outskirts of Donostia, so it also offers the chance to experience this wonderful city.

As I mentioned earlier, seemingly once I left home for school, my dad began making his own jamon and chorizo. Another tradition my dad has revived recently is making sheepherder’s bread.  Actually, the whole gang in Homedale has gotten back to their roots, so to speak, and they hold competitions for the best bread. It gets pretty intense, with guys speculating about whether this loaf will turn out or not. My dad is no exception. He treated us to the full experience over break.

Out in the hills, he would dig a pit in which to bake the bread.  At his home, however, he has a permanent pit, lined with a big concrete pipe. Most of the time, it’s covered with a board and it’s only rarely that the lid comes off and he makes a loaf, mostly because it does take some effort. He’s collected a large pile of sagebrush from the hills that he slowly is chipping away at.

I’ve had a recipe for sheepherder’s bread on my site for some time now, and from what I’ve been told and experienced from my wife’s own hand, it makes a very good loaf.  But dad’s (txitxi to my daughter) recipe is slightly different:

Txitxi Bread for a #10 Dutch Oven

1.5 packets active dry yeast
    (he uses Red Star)
1 quart + "a bit" lukewarm water
1 heaping Tbsp + 1/4 tsp sugar

Combine and let yeast proof.

Add 3/4 tsp salt and all
purpose flour until you reach
desired consistency.
Knead until smooth.

Let rise until doubled in bulk,
twice. Put in greased dutch oven
(preferably with bacon grease)
and let rise until lid is pushed up.

If baking in oven, 350 degrees
Fahrenheit for approximately 60 minutes.
Keep covered with lid or tented with foil.

However, if you want to be authentic, you’ve got to cook it in the pit.

First, we burned quite a bit of the sagebrush, just to get some ashes to use later.  These we dug out and let cool. We then burned another batch. These were for the hot ashes, the ones to cook the bread. Once the sagebrush had burned down such that we had maybe 5 inches of hot coals, we lowered the Dutch oven into the pit. This is where the cool ashes come in.  We covered the Dutch oven with cool ashes to act as an insulating blanket and to keep the heat in.  We further covered it with a little dirt. This seems to be the trickiest part: you want enough insulation to keep the heat in but not so much that you smother the fire. Dad said that you should be able to just barely feel the heat coming off when putting your hand near the top.

A critical step is to make sure the handle of the Dutch oven is up when you start burying it, as otherwise you won’t have anything to grab when you pull it out.

We left our bread in the pit for something on the order of 1 and a half hours. It was getting late and we needed to eat dinner, so we pulled it out, maybe a little early. The center wasn’t quite cooked.  Dad threw it in the conventional oven for a while longer to eat the next day. He claimed we had smothered the fire, put too much ash on top. In any case, the bread looked great and, the next day, the bread tasted great too.

While we were burning all of that sagebrush and the wind picked up some embers and blew them around, I asked dad if he ever had a fire get away from him in the hills. He said once, a fire started to get away, but he was able to put it out, so nothing really happened.  But he had a tale of another sheepherder who did have one get completely out of control. It burned quite a few acres, getting big enough that a fire crew had to be called in to put it out.  I don’t know how much it ended up burning or exactly where this was, but dad said that this sheepherder somehow became part of the fire crew, helped put it out, and got paid to do it!

This is a very simple recipe, with only 5 ingredients. I imagine it was important for a young sheepherder, cooking in a strange environment with limited ingredients while also trying to herd sheep, to keep things as simple as possible. I’m not sure how much these guys would have cooked back in the old country, but I imagine it was very little. I also imagine that the bread isn’t too sensitive to how it’s cooked as things aren’t precisely controlled in this process.  But, it sure does produce some very tasty bread!

Over the last maybe 10 years, my dad has really taken to making some traditional Basque foods.  When I was a kid, he didn’t cook at all — typical dinners prepared by dad involved stove fires. But, now that he has a bit more time, he’s found his specialties, especially tortilla española. Along with mom’s flan and arroz con leche, the holidays are filled with some wonderful food.

Dad has become well known locally for his prepared meats, his chorizo and jamon. Over Christmas break, I got the chance to help dad with the hams he was working on.

In the end, making jamon is not too hard.  Dad starts with the raw meat, skinned.  Each ham at that stage weighs something on the order of 25 pounds, depending on the pig. Depending on the size of the ham leg, he’ll make anywhere between 4 and 12 hams at once.

The hams are packed into a box with salt and left there for about one day per pound, plus a couple of days.

After they’ve sat in the salt, dad takes them out, spraying them down to wash off rocks of salt.  He then places them into tubs, fills those with water, and lets them sit for 24 hours. He empties each tub, and fills them again to soak another 24 hours.

After the second soaking, dad will rub the hams with juice from red txoritxero peppers and maybe some small amount of spice, like garlic salt or something.  Not too much.  Then, the hams are hung in a dry place for maybe 6 months to finish the curing process.

Dad is pretty serious about his hams.  It’s the main thing he takes to parties and events at the Basque center where he lives.  He bought an industrial meat slicer since he makes so much ham.

Jamon is probably one of my favorite foods, certainly one of the foods I most enjoyed when I lived in Spain. Dad’s hams compare with the best that I tasted in Spain. Likely to the detriment of my health, I can eat the ham almost as fast as dad can slice it with his industrial slicer.

It is interesting to note the cost of making these hams. The raw meat from the butcher costs about $1.85 per pound. I guess I don’t know how much the salt costs, but it really isn’t that much — there isn’t anything overly special about the salt. Dad grows his own peppers, so there is no cost there. However, if you go to a specialty store that sells jamon serrano imported from Spain, you are easily paying $20 per pound. Considering that dad’s hams are often on the order of 25 pounds, that ham would cost about $500. Not counting his labor, dad is spending maybe $50 per ham. Granted, there is no shipping costs for him and he doesn’t have the label “made in Spain,” but it tastes every bit as good to me!

“No mus.” “Envido.” “Hordago!” Words fly as they gathered around tables, four men huddled around each one, cards changing hands as fast as chips changing sides.

These men, most of them immigrants from the Basque Country who started their lives in the United States as sheepherders, were now celebrating one of the youngster’s birthdays. After years of hard work in the fields — some them still working the lands into their seventies — they use any opportunity to get together, share stories and food, and play Mus. The afternoon starts off with appetizers of cheese, chorizo Pamplona, and some of my dad’s home made jamon. The men chat over glasses of wine as the main dishes of lamb stew, cod and potato soup, and blood sausage are receiving final touches. Once lunch is served, the hall is quiet — everyone is too hungry. Lunch ends with a big bowl of arroz con leche, sweetened just enough to have the perfect flavor.

Once the dishes are cleared and the tables broken up into four-man units, the cards come out. Partners and opponents are chosen, and six games begin. Shouts of laughter, a few cuss words, and lots of excitement quickly follow. My dad’s eyes twinkle as he bluffs his way to a win. I sit down to one of the few old timers who doesn’t play Mus so well and I listen to a number of stories about life in the Homedale area as a farmer and a previous life as a smoke jumper — a history rich in experience and appreciation for what he has.

As I watch and listen, I am very grateful for what these men represent. They embody the American spirit, the drive to better themselves, to work hard to make a better life for their kids. In their way, these men from a foreign land are more American than many born on this soil; they persevered under hard conditions to create for themselves and their families the American Dream.

Press Release:

November 14, 2011, (ALICANTE, SPAIN): Chef Martín Berasategui has announced the winners of the 2012 3rd Sammic Scholarship with BasqueStage at Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía in Alicante Spain. The winners are Ruth Selby and Elisha Ben-Haim, and they will join the kitchen of Restaurante Martín Berasategui, ranked in the San Pellegrino World’s Top 30, beginning in January 2012. They were chosen out of over 70 applicants in this, the third round of BasqueStage by a star-studded jury consisting of Chefs Berasategui, Pedro Subijana, Eneko Atxa, Hilario Arbelaitz, TV star David de Jorge and Sammic’s Managing and Marketing directors Jon Markina and Amaia Altuna.

Ruth Selby is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Greystone, California. She is a promising young chef who has experienced nearly every facet of the food industry. Not only has she worked in kitchens, she has toiled on the farm, growing and selling produce for other chefs to use. She has also seen the editorial side, writing and working in the test kitchens of Saveur Magazine. She has previous experience cooking in Spain, and we are excited to welcome her to the kitchen of Berasategui.

Elisha Ben-Haim is from Israel and is a graduate of the CIA in New York City. He boasts an impressive resume of jobs and stages, everywhere from New York institutions like the Russian Tea Room to the lauded Del Posto. He brings a dedication sharpened by work in the kitchen as well as combat service and hiking the Appalachian Trail.

BasqueStage is a program that gives cooks the opportunity to learn from some of the best chefs in the world, up close and personal. It is an initiative sponsored by Sammic, with the collaboration of Martín Berasategui, and coordinated by DeliFunArt, a marketing company based in San Sebastián.

Basque chef Martín Berasategui has earned almost every international culinary award, including 3 Michelin stars for his restaurant in Lasarte. In fact, the high ratio of Michelin stars to population in the area is partially due to his nurturing of other young chefs.

Sammic is one of Europe’s leading designers and manufacturers of Foodservice Equipment, specializing in Food Preparation, Food Preservation, and Hot Temp Ware Washing. Longtime technological partner of chef Martín Berasategui and based only 30 kilometers away from his restaurant, this 50-year-old company has just started operations in the US.

If you’ve never been to the Basque Country and are considering your first visit, you might have no idea of where to start your tour.  Or if you’ve been several times to see family, you might want to break out of the routine of visiting the family baserria and find something new.  Rick Steves, “America’s leading authority on European travel,” has a segment on the Basque Country which gives the standard overview of the Basque Country, but also gives a few glimpses into areas off the beaten path, even if he doesn’t stray from the main attractions of the Basque Countries. And, of course, he samples the local cuisine, giving some new things to try.  In particular, he delves into the pintxo bar-hopping scene, which any visitor to the Basque Country absolutely must experience. He also delves into some odd tangents, such as growing marijuana.  His tour takes him from Donostia to Gernika to Bilbao to Bainoa and finally to St-Jean-de-Luz.

The segment is available for free here on Hulu.