Isolation in Austurias

I've just returned to civilisation following two weeks in the wilderness of western Austurias. I was staying on a remote finca, called Valle de Castaños, hidden at the bottom of a deep valley in the foothills of the mountains that span the province. My hosts were a small family pursuing an alternative lifestyle with a strong focus on environmental sustainability – their commitment to which was both admirable and inspirational.

It was an experience in which I went back to basics, in almost every imaginable way; forget the telephone and internet, no need for modern appliances, and nothing by way of 'home comforts' that most Western households are used to. Fourteen days with almost no indication of the outside world, let alone the opportunity to communicate with it. Water came from the mountain spring, electricity - enough for a 12 Watt bulb in the kitchen - from a solar panel, and dinner was cooked on an open fire in the corner of the kitchen.

By day, we tended to the animals, chipped away at the seemingly endless list of odd jobs around the farm, and worked the steep terraced fields, which stretched further than the eye could see on either side of the valley. By night we sat exhausted in the kitchen, huddled around the fire for warmth.

The following post includes edited extracts from the diary I kept during my time at Valle de Castaños, which I wrote each evening by candlelight, sat in my caravan 350 paces up the mountainside from the farmhouse itself. Out of respect for the privacy of my hosts, I've changed the names of all the people and places mentioned here.

9th February, 2010

We arrive at the Valle de Castaños after driving for one and half hours through some of the most incredibly rugged scenery I've ever come across. We twist and turn through a winding pass, 1000 metres above sea-level. Mountains rise to infinitum on one side and drop away to nothing on the other. We take a sharp left, and head what seems like straight up the mountain side... By now the asphalt has stopped, and the 'road' is made of loose gravel. After about three kilometres, we reach a summit with breath-taking views on either side of the valley below. We stop the car, and begin transferring our bags into the 4x4 truck that is parked at the side of the road. A dirt track will take us down to the farm, and whilst the battered old tin can we've driven from the coast may make it down the hill, it doesn't look as if it make it back up again. With my hosts, Andreas, Carmen and their baby, sat in the cab, I take my place on the flat bed trunk, and hold on tight. It's a long way down.

Just as twilight turns into darkness, we reach the farm, which is in fact a semi-ruined village, dating back at least five hundred years, although there has probably been a settlement on that site for far longer. There are a handful of buildings; an ancient water mill sat on a bend in the river, a tiny chapel sat a little way up the valley, and a small number of neat, grey stone cottages. Some of these are entirely in ruins, whilst the others are inhabited by Andreas, Carmen, their baby, and their guests.

The temperature has dropped dramatically with nightfall, and we head into what looks like the largest of the cottages, which makes up the kitchen-cum-parlor-cum-living space. It's built straight into the hillside, with the foundations made of bedrock, and the walls made from the same slate as the mountains. Save from the dim glow of a single electric light bulb, there has been no modernisation in the building whatsoever. What looks like the original hard wood doors hang in the doorways, bare slate and clay are the only insulation on the walls, and there's not even a chimney built above the fire - smoke simply rises into the rafters, helping to preserve the pieces of pork that are slowly curing there, and the wooden beams from which they are hanging. The furniture and fittings are all handmade from the chestnut trees in the valley, whilst the shelves are lined with a hotch-potch of jugs, jars and containers, as charming as they are old. I look upon this characterful little room, and imagine it having not changed for hundreds of years.

I sit facing the fire with Edith, another of Andreas' guests on the farm. We talk about Valle de Castaños, my first impressions, and her experiences so far. I've still not quite come to terms with what I have walked into... A completely different way of life.

10th February 2010

I awake with the morning, to the sound of swaying trees, tweeting birds, and the bubbling river. It dropped to freezing last night but my caravan gave me shelter at least, with warmth coming from a hot water bottle, a sleeping bag and four blankets.

After a day of trudging up and down the mountain sides, clearing wood and patching up the dry stone walls, dinner feels like a god-send. We sit around the fire, eating hot chickpea and potato soup, almost too tired to speak.

11th February 2010

It feels like we've walked a marathon today, up and down the mountain sides. We return from being snowed on in the fields to a late lunch in the courtyard. We eat a salad of wild herbs, followed by delicious chorizo spaghetti, all whilst basking in the soft February sunlight.

12th February 2010

We trek to a plato, high up on the other side of the valley to tend to the chestnut trees. Andreas comes across a dazzingly bright red fungi on the way...and eventually decides it looks too good to eat! There's a brisk north-easterly wind, which brings millions of tiny frozen rain drops - Mother Nature's way of telling us that what ever we do, she is in complete control. I realise that living here means a different way of life entirely. We exist not by living off the land. To survive in the long term, we have to live with it.

13th February 2010

My back aches, my legs are like jelly, my shoulders are sore, my feet are wet, my lips are dry, and my hands are covered in cuts and grazes. We use each day to the full, spending every possible hour trying our best to make an indent on the seemingly never-ending list of half finished - or half started, to be more accurate - jobs around the farm. Just living here is a full time job - demanding physical labour. Yet the connection that I feel to this new way of life means that to opt out of work is not even something I consider.

We all carry out our tasks tirelessly around the farm. Whilst Andreas and I prepare a new enclosure for the donkeys and horse to graze, Carmen tends to the gardens, re-cultivating the land as it has been for generations before. She has also found time to make lunch for the weary workers - a bright and vibrant salad of pomegranate, carrot and apple, dressed with vinegar and sesame seeds. It's followed by a nourishing vegetable stew. After that, it's straight back to work... Stay still for too long, and you begin to feel the cold right through to your bones.

14th February 2010

Sunday. The day of rest. Or not, as the case may be. I'm working before breakfast, shifting chestnut rafters from one side of the valley to the other. Meal times come as a welcome break. We always eat very well here, but food can seem as much a necessity as it is a pleasure, taken either to refuel, or keep warm, or both. When the evening comes, we all finally relax. First, we eat salad, which includes stems of a curious-looking plant who's name translates to "Venus' belly button". After that, we tuck into a comforting chorizo and lentil stew, and finally dutch pancakes, filled with sliced banana and melted dark chocolate.

With the stove having heated sufficient water in the over-head tank, I finish the day with a shower. It's my first in six days. With that, and a good feed inside me, I have everything I could have hoped for this Sunday.

15th February 2010

A day spent shovelling cart-loads of donkey shit from the stable on one side of the valley, to the gardens on the other. A conversation with Carmen about life in Hackney. A discussion with Andreas about the rights of volunteer workers. A single text message sent to the outside world (there wasn't enough reception to call). My turn to make dinner - nettle risotto, and a salad picked from the hedgerows. Another unfathomably starry sky. Another sub-zero night in the caravan, which by now is beginning to feel just like home. Perhaps I'm getting into the swing of life in the Valle de Castaños.

16th February

I've decided to stay a few more days... To be here is both physically and mentally rewarding, and I'm enjoying the slower rhythm of life.

For lunch I use the left over risotto to make arancini de riso, or cheesy balls, as we call them. After lunch, the conversation once again turns to food, and I get the impression that both Andreas and Carmen are slightly puzzled by my obsession.

17th February 2010

My designated day off. Andreas and Carmen have gone to the coast to see friends and have instructed me to take it easy. I get going at my leisure, having the same breakfast as usual, boiled oats with fruit, but taking my time with two cups of coffee today, instead of one. I spend the day pottering in the gardens, and make a frugal soup for dinner from any of the veg I come across that looks to be on it's last legs. But when my hosts return, Andreas has other ideas... He has with him a whole chicken, which we cut into pieces and cook over the open fire. To accompany it, we fry potatoes in lots of pig fat, and eat the whole lot slathered in mayonnaise. I take it as a rather touching gesture of thanks for my hard work thus far, and dutifully chomp my way through second helpings, and then the remaining potatoes that are left in the frying pan.

18th February 2010

An afternoon carrying chestnut floorboards from the workshop, high on one side of the valley, to one of the houses on the other. When the job is complete, we relax in the courtyard, our exhaustion balanced by the sense of accomplishment that only a day of truly hard work can bring. Andreas and I toast each other's health with a well earned beer, working our way down the bottles as the sun dips below the mountain.

At dinner there is much talk of the following day's events. Tomorrow we are going to kill a pig...

In the wilderness

My home from home for the moment... The Valle de Castaños, a remote farm in the mountains of northern Spain. 

Going the whole hog

I've now been away for thirteen days. And on every single one of those days I've eaten jamon in some form or another.

In tortillas and croquettes, whilst sipping a beer before it's gets to ciner (dinner) time. In pintxo, alongside everything from anchovie to asparagus, mushrooms to morcilla, and almost every other ingredient imaginable in the bars of San Sebastian. Stuffed into chunks of fresh baguette from the markets for a cheap mid-morning breakfast or late evening supper. In bocadillos when I haven't fancied a sit down meal. In a refrito with steamed broccoli one long lunchtime. Whole raciones (portions) when I really need a ham hit, or media-raciones if I'm feeling slightly less indulgent. As an appetiser in what was one of the best meals of my life to date. On a pizza, although I'm not sure that really counts... I've even found myself wandering into fancy-looking charcuterías now and again, and ordering a couple of slices of the best on the racks, just to see what a 90-euro per kilogram ham tastes like. It does, of course, taste very, very good, although at that price, a couple of slices is all you need to find out. And if ever there's been a day when I haven't eaten any ham, then I've more than made up for it in chorizo, lomo, morcilla, and many other piggy dishes.  

But it's time to get a bit of perspective. Whilst jamon is a ludicrously tasty, subtly varied, hand crafted, and fairly sustainable product, it also appears on my plate only as a result of an animal being killed. I'm definitely not considering becoming a vegetarian any time soon - it would be difficult in Northern Spain - but I do occasionally feel pangs of guilt-fueled gluttony as I tuck into yet another piece of pig. 

So today I'm setting myself a challenge. If I must insist on having jamon at every given opportunity, then I feel like I need to get a bit closer to the animal which I'm eating. Over the course of the next year, I'm making it my mission to take part in each stage of the process of making jamon: From birthing the piglet, to carving a slice off the bone, and everything in between. And, yes, that means the slaughter too...

[Thanks to Su-Lin for the excellent photo - so much better than any of mine] 

Asador Etxebarri part two - El Sentido

I'm in the back of a cab – which I had to trek across half the city in the rain to catch - heading North by North East of Vitoria, deep into the Basque province of Durangeldea. It's miserable. It's wet. It's literally the middle of nowhere. And I'm running late. I feel like there's only so many times I can say 'tengo prisa' before the otherwise tranquil driver stops the car and threatens to make me walk.

I'm headed to the tiny hamlet of Axpe Marzana. There's not really much there... A dozen or so houses, a couple of ramshackle old barns, a charming enough little square, and today, it would seem, bucket loads of rain. But despite it's remote location, and sleepy disposition, gastro-pilgrims such as myself have been flocking to Axpe in their droves for the last few years. Why? A humble, middle aged chef, who has absolutely no formal training, a home-made grill, and some seriously high-end ingredients. I can't believe I'm going to be late for my reservation at Asador Etxebarri – the greatest grill restaurant in the entire world!

Thirteen courses, one beer, three glasses of wine and two coffees later, and I'm feeling just a little more relaxed. Almost everything I've eaten today has induced a near orgasmic state of ecstacy, with some of the purest, most unadulterated, intense flavours I've ever laid upon my taste buds. I'm in a kind of zen-like plato of fullness, where both body and mind have surpassed all foreseen expectations of stimulation. I'll let you draw your own comparisons...

But as well as coming to eat, I've also come to speak to sous chef Lennox Hastie, about his and head chef Bittor Arguinzoniz's approach to cooking at Asador Etxebarri; namely their complete and un-compromised commitment to la brasa – the grill. Never have I come across a restaurant that pays such attention not only to the ingredients they use, but the means by which they heat them.

To say the menu at Asador Etxebarri is simplistic would be an under statement of epic proportions, like saying El Bulli is a touch extravagant, or Bittor does a decent barbeque. In fact up until recently, there wasn't even a menu at all; just a list of ingredients, or 'products', as Lennox terms them. You could either have them grilled, or not have them at all. As a concept, it's paired down to it's absolute bare bones, but that doesn't mean it's in any way austere. Quite the opposite, in fact. On my menu today was jamon iberico, oysters (which I had to pass up because I'm allergic – I got cockles instead), black truffle, beluga caviar, and some of the finest beef I've ever tasted. I reckon that's about as decadent a selection as you can get.

Bittor is a native Basque countryman who grew up in this very village. An ex-electrician who turned to cooking 20 years ago because he never found his passion in the series of odd jobs he was doing before then. Lennox is an Anglo-Australian who learned his trade in the top-tier French places like Le Manoir and Le Gavrouche, before coming to Spain about four years ago in search of new inspiration. Sitting in a San Sebastian bar one quiet afternoon, he heard about “some guy out in the hills with a home made grill” and has since never looked back.

On paper, the two of them couldn't be more different. But get them together and there seems to be an almost telepathic mutual understanding between them; the kind that could only be the result of a genuine respect for one another, and having spent the last 1300 days or so alone together in a very cramped kitchen. And as well as a respect for one another, they also share a deeply-rooted respect for their ingredients. In Lennox's own words, they spend their working lives “enhancing the food by doing a little as possible”.

We discuss the food of the region and the globally acclaimed, so called new-Basque movement that has put San Sebastian so firmly on the culinary map. Un-surprisingly, both of the chefs in front of me would choose comider casera - simple, home made food prepared with love, over the experimental, avante garde, multi-sensory experiences created by some of their contemporaries. “You don't need to do anything spectacular in the cooking if your ingredients are spectacular already”, says Lennox. My meal today has proved him right.

The only flavour that was added to any of the thirteen dishes I have eaten today have come from the burning wood on top of which they were cooked. Apart from salt, the only seasoning at Asador Etxebarri is smoke.

For two decades, Bittor has been honing and refining his methodology, trying different fuels and temperatures, and has now developed the art of grilling into a science all of his own. The range - which he conceived, designed and built with his own bare hands – along with a whole set of custom-made pots and pans, allow him to both manipulate the heat and regulate the cooking of each and every ingredient.

All the wood is first heated in the stoves to temperatures well beyond 400 degrees C, before being transferred to the grill using a shovel during service. Wood from local acorn-bearing oak trees is used as the base fuel, which burns consistently at a high heat, and gives off only a subtly perfumed smoke. Orange wood from the groves up the side of the hill are used to give citrus background to fish and seafood, whilst applewood is used for dishes like the caviar, where only the lightest of smokey notes is needed. Meat is cooked using aromatic olive and grape vines, to enhance their already strong flavours.

But this isn't about changing the flavours. You're not supposed to sit at the dinner table thinking “mmm, tastes like tempranillo branches”, jokes Lennox... It's about bringing out the flavours that are already there. The two chefs exchange a few words in Spanish, before Lennox turns to me to interpret. “He says it's about the taste of the animal, the earth, the sea.” Bittor curls his bottom lip and shrugs, as if to say what else could you possibly need?

Lennox and I lean at the bar, looking out onto the restaurant. “Bittor has grown up with this”, he says. “It's nothing new to him, just an evolution of the cooking he has known since he was a kid”. For twenty years, whilst the big names in the region have spent their culinary careers making dishes ever more complex, Bittor has been quietly experimenting with simplicity.

“This place isn't about nouvelle creations... It's about refinement of everything that's always been great about Basque cooking.” Pulling a clenched fist towards his chest, he breaks into Spanish: “La comida y el sentido!” The food and the feeling... At Asador Etxebarri, they have found the best of both.

[This is the second part of a previously published post about Asador Etxebarri – sorry for the delay]

Heaven is a grill house in Gijon

I've just arrived in Gijon, my next port of call along the northern Iberian coast. Although slightly ramshackle around the edges, it's a sturdy looking sort of place; squat and sprawling. The old town and harbour are placed strategically on a rocky outcrop in the middle of the bay, with a long, sweeping playa to one side, and very industrial port stretching for what must be miles to the other.

The city is renowned for it's sidrerias, but as well as the cider, the city's other specialities are the slightly scary-looking ericios (sea urchins) and zamburiñas (little scallops), which are often served with a spicy tomato sauce. I dump my bags and head off in search of a seafood dinner.

By now it's getting late on Sunday... Nothing around the harbour is open, and the fancier places in the main square are a bit beyond my budget. Considering my options, I turn on my heel and head back the way I came, feeling slightly dejected. Until my nose pricks up, that is - there's nothing quite like the smell of sizzling animal flesh to lift the spirits.

Las Brasas - The Grills - is a no frills kind of joint, the equivalent of a greasy spoon back home. The menu is scribbled on plain white paper, one dish per sheet, and Blue-tacked to the wall as you walk in. The sports pages of the Sunday papers are strewn across the high benches near the bar. The table cloths are made of tissue paper. And there's plastic fruit in the fruit bowl. But none of that matters. What matters is the massive grill, filling a whole corner of the room, and the huge array of meat that's taking pride of place upon it.

Behind the counter, the big guy takes the orders and flips the meat, while his wife runs the plates and sets fire to her frying pans at the back with alarming regularity. Still, she's busy back there... Dishes at Las Brasas are either served with fried eggs, patatas fritas, patatas (also fried, just left in potato shape, as opposed to be being cut into chip shape), or, slightly bizarrely, all three... Do you really need chips and fried potatoes?

So far, so greasy, I hear you say - and you would be right - but the meat is definitely a cut above your average car park caff. Huge racks of ribs, plump lomo sausages, juicy looking chuleta, and some of the biggest morcilla I've seen. But aside from the meat, it's the array of people that really sets Las Brasas apart from similar places at home. A group of five pensioners who look as though they've been there for hours chat over the remains of their meal. A family with teenage kids share anecdotes, laughter and desserts by the window. Three men sit at the bar, their attention split equally between the football match on the TV, and the eye-poppingly large mixed grill in front of them. Two well-turned out young children tuck into platefuls of chops as their (very) yummy mummy looks on, adoringly. Two men as wide as they are tall get their protein fix in the corner, tearing the flesh off chicken legs with their teeth. Suddenly, with my huevos con chorizo, I begin to feel slightly inadequate.

By the time I'm done, it's passed half eleven, and whilst the two little kids may still have bags of energy, I'm spent. Just as I'm getting up to leave, the yummy mummy gives a kind of nod-wink-wave gesture in my direction, and what could only be described as a pouting smile. Perhaps my luck really has changed, I think. The pension I'm booked into is pretty shoddy anyway, and hey, I don't have a problem with Spanish kids.

I draw breath and cue up my best sophisticated-Englishman-speaking-Spanish accent. Her eyes widen... Ok, here goes... And then the big guy steps out from right behind me with a huge block of blue cheese, and plonks it on the table in front of them. She grins a Penelope-Cruz-at-the-Oscars kind of grin, and thanks him, as the kids immediately dive in.

A lamb chop and a cheese plate... Now that's my kind of mamma. Ah well... I reckon it's time for me to go home.

So long, San Sebastian

Mañana, I head west along the coast, past Bilbao, through Cantabria and on to Austurias. Come nightfall, I'll be in Gijon, a city famed for it's surfing, and sawdust-floored sidrerias. 

Goodbye, Basque Country, or "Agur", as they say around here. 

The little hand

For the past three nights I've found myself heading up the same dark, secluded side street, on the hunt for something to satisfy my cravings. I tried it once, and immediately I was addicted. Now I can't get enough.  

I've poked my nose around Calle Agosto, and headed to the dimly lit bar on the corner for what I think might be the best pintxo I've had yet in San Sebastian. The place is called La Cuchara de San Telmo, and despite being in it's tenth year of business, locals still describe it as leading the next generation of pintxo bars in the region. It's slightly more contemporary than a lot of the bars in town, with the kind of almost-grungy style that they seem to do so well in Spain. It's a tiny little place, around the side of the church of Santa Maria in the Parte Viejo, barely big enough for the bar, let alone a kitchen and a room full of diners.

Since Wednesday, I've eaten an amazingly tender braised ox cheek, served in a rich red wine gravy; light and crispy tempura de bacalao; a 'cannelloni' filled with pig, lamb and beef offal stew; grilled rabbit's leg, served with a thin salsa verde, similar to the one I had in Vitoria; pulpo 'Roca' - the Basque way, cooked a la planxa, and served with pickled cabbage; and my personal favourite - for the name if nothing more - Manita de Ministro, or the 'little hand' of a pig. A fried trotter, to you and I.

There's none of your standard pintxo sitting out to dry on the bar top. Instead of drawing punters in with a huge spread consisting mainly of ham plus X on toast, they concentrate on giving the most traditional of Basque recipes a modern twist, and serving them fresh from the kitchen, but in miniature. An absolute must visit for anyone in San Sebastian...