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By Root 866 0

gradually evolved in which once separate tribal chieftains became generals, the generals became a ruling class, and, in 818, Iñigo Iñiguez became king and ruled for thirty-three years. The Kingdom of Navarra, the only kingdom in all of Basque history, had begun. It would last until 1512, its dynasties becoming defenders of Christianity, a great regional power of the Middle Ages, and a critical force in the Reconquista. These Basques of Navarra helped create the country that Basques would one day see as their greatest problem—Spain.

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3: The Basque Whale

Many say that the first to take on this harrowing adventure must have been fanatic—eccentrics and dare-devils. It would not have begun, they say, with reasonable Nordics, but only with the Basques, those giddy adventurers.

—Jules Michelet, on whaling, LA MER, 1856

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IN 1969 a cave with drawings of fish dating back to the Paleolithic Age was discovered in Vizcaya. The fish appear to be sea bream. A sea bream drawing was also found in a cave in Guipúzcoa, and drawings of a number of other fish species have been discovered as well. These drawings are remarkable because Paleolithic man, living in natural caves 12,000 years ago, usually chose to depict mammals, such as deer and horses, and not fish. He had not yet gone to sea. But these same caves are also significant because the remains of fish bones and shells reveal an unusual prehistoric diet.

A reverence for sea bream, bixigu, has been conserved through millennia on the coast of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa. It is a traditional Christmas dish, and in Guipúzcoa, a pastry shaped in the form of a sea bream is served on Christmas Eve. On that night, the people of San Sebastián gather by their perfectly curved, elegantly lamp-lit bay, and climb Mount Igueldo, the steep little mountain at the harbor entrance, carrying a large effigy of a sea bream. This is because the fish is associated with Olentzaro, a pre-Christian evil sort of Santa Claus who slides down chimneys on Christmas Eve to harm people in their sleep. Fireplaces are lit for the holiday to keep him away.

In the early twentieth century, when Basques who had migrated to Madrid formed a gastronomic society, they named it Besuguin-a Lagunak, Friends of the Sea Bream. In San Sebastián such gastronomic societies make a near ritual of fishing sea bream on Saturday nights in January.

The following recipe from the gastronomic society Donosti Gain, which means “in San Sebastián,” was collected by the well-known Guipúzcoan chef José Castillo.

SEA BREAM

(for two)

1 beautiful sea bream

6 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons vinegar

2 slices guindilla pepper (a dried red, slightly hot, local pepper)

4 cloves garlic

Put the sea bream in a casserole.

Roast it well in an oven.

Put the vinegar in a skillet and turn up the heat. When the vinegar is reduced to half, add the juice from the fish that is left in the casserole and let it simmer a little.

In another skillet put the olive oil and the garlic cloves cut in slices. Heat the skillet with the oil and garlic. When the garlic begins to turn golden, add the guindilla and turn off the heat. Add the reduction of vinegar and fish juice.

Bring to a boil for 1 minute.

Uncover the sea bream and add the liquid.

This leaves the question: What is meant by a “beautiful sea bream”? The answer was suggested in a 1933 book about fish written by the pseudonymous Ymanol Beleak, a native of Bilbao who lived many years in San Sebastián and whose real name was Manuel Carves-Mons. Beleak, an entrepreneur who, among other projects, manufactured chocolate boxes and created his own label of sparkling wine, wrote, “A sea bream of quality has a small head and thick back. It does not need to be large to be good.”

ORIGINALLY,THE BASQUE idea of the sea, itsaso, was the Bay of Biscay, that part of the Atlantic between France and Spain that on some medieval maps is marked El Mar de los Vascos, the Basque Sea. This, by Atlantic standards, is a relatively unfertile corner of the ocean, because while fish tend to cluster