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Strings of red peppers and onions. Akaitze Kamiruaga

Strings of red peppers and onions. Akaitze Kamiruaga. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.

As Miguel de Unamuno said, natives of Bilbao are genuinely referred to as bilbainos and bilbainas, rather than by their quadrisyllabic counterparts. Indeed, placing the accent marks on bilbaínos and bilbaínas requires an immense effort for a Bilbao born and bred, because it contradicts the way we pronounce them, the two consecutive vowels they contain remaining bound in the same syllable. The voice of local citizens is probably the best source of evidence for the correct spelling and pronunciation of words that identify them. So the absence of hiatus is therefore more than justified. (more…)

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Salt fish for sale. Joseba Erkoreka

Salt fish for sale. Joseba Erkoreka. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.

My mother was a good hand at cooking salt fish, makailaoa, in Bizkaia Basque. Or practice might make perfect. The fact is that we used to eat salt fish regularly, and it would be she who bought, desalted and cooked it.

The Vikings are said to be the first to preserve cod by drying and in their travels brought it with them. Over the centuries the harvest, processing and commercialization of cod became a lucrative business. The Basque fleet fished for cod twice a year in waters off Newfoundland, some reaching as far as Greenland and North America. Hundreds of tons of cod were caught, beheaded, gutted and salted onboard. Fish processing continued ashore, upon return, in the codfish-drying plants. (more…)