A Cook's Tour_ In Search of the Perfect Meal - Anthony Bourdain [35]
The food almost ready, Luis showed me to a table, set down some glasses and high-poured me a big drink of patxaran, the deadly local brandy made from berries and anise. With the bottle held about two feet over the glass, he did the same for himself, winked, and gave me the Basque toast of ‘Osassuna!’ before draining his glass in one go. I was beginning to understand what went on here. Soon, we were well into the patxaran and happily tearing at our food. The cheeks were terrific, the pilpil, served at blood-warm temperature, surprisingly sweet and subtly flavored, the piperade/oil emulsion a nice counterpoint to the salt cod and much more delicate than I’d expected. The langoustines were great, and a surprise addition of wild mushroom salpicon in a sort of rice-paper vol-au-vent – another cook’s contribution, I think – was wonderful.
All the other cooks’ food seemed to be coming up at the same time, and the tables were soon crowded with burly, barrel-chested men animatedly devouring their creations in food-spattered aprons, the clatter and roar of conversation punctuated by exclamations of ‘Osassuna!’
We were having a jolly time at my table, and visitors from other tables frequently swung by to say hello to me, Luis, and his former student. Conversation ranged from the exact frontiers of Basque territory (Luis’s friend claimed everything from Bordeaux to Madrid – wherever there was good stuff to eat) to the incomprehensible aversion to mushrooms shared by most non-Basque Spaniards. Luis was quick to point out that the Basques, not Columbus, had discovered America. When I mentioned that some Portuguese friends had just made the same claim, Luis waved a hand and explained everything. ‘The Basque are fishermen. We were always fishermen. But we were also always a small country. When we found cod, we didn’t tell people about it. And we found a lot of cod off America. Who should we have told? The Portuguese? They’d have stolen it all. Then we’d have had nothing.’ Things seemed normal in the large room, a big crowd of happy eaters, speaking in a mixture of Spanish and Basque, glasses clinking, more toasts.
Then things got weird.
An old, old man, referred to as ‘el Niño’ (‘the Baby’), on account of his advanced age, sat down at an old upright piano and began pounding out what was clearly the introduction to the evening’s entertainment. I broke out in a cold sweat. My most terrifying nightmare scenario is that I might someday be trapped on a desert island with only a troupe of cabaret performers for diversion – and menthol cigarettes to smoke – doomed to an eternity of Andrew Lloyd Webber and medleys from South Pacific. A guy in a dirty apron stood up and launched into song, his tenor voice impressive. Okay, I thought, opera, I can handle this. I had to hear this at home when I was a kid. I should be able to handle it now.
What I was not prepared for was the chorus. Suddenly, everyone in the room began pounding their fists on their tables, rising, then sitting down in unison to provide alternating verses of chorus. This was the wackiest thing I’d seen in quite awhile. It was a little frightening. Then, one after the other, every man in the room – tenors, baritones – got up to sing, belting out arias and other solos in heartfelt, heart-wringing renditions. Then came a really creepy – but funny – duet between two lumberjack-sized fellows, one doing what was clearly the male part, the other doing the female in a scary but good falsetto, accompanied by appropriate gestures and expressions. You have never seen such sincere, evocative grimacing, agonizing, chest pounding and garment