Basque ethnography at a glance

Erromeria painting. José Arrue.

In all societies and times, food has been a basic need for daily life, regarding both work and festive days. In the latter case, its diversity or patterns were limited to specific periods of food production or fruiting. For this reason, throughout people’s life cycles, certain foods are designated for specific commemorative moments (birth and baptism, youth and marriage, adulthood or death). At the same time, annual activities and celebrations, both professional and festive, have been traditionally linked to specific gastronomic products of the moment. Thus, in autumn, nuts (chestnuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, etc.) and mushrooms were popular; in winter, stews and soups; during Christmas (chicken, bream, snails, rice pudding, intxaur-saltsa (traditional Basque dessert consisting on walnuts, milk and sugar)); Carnival (pork and French toast, etc.); Lent and Easter with their fasts, meat or fish, and the abundance of garden products or harvest for patron saint celebrations.

If we focus on the festive and leisure period, it seems that the traditions created in the festive celebrations of the Ancien Régime and the dances of the courts, palaces and aristocracy were imitated by the working classes, who observed the easy and glamorous life of these enviable reference classes, and for whom they worked or were subordinate. They did not hesitate to imitate their lifestyles and customs, fashions or ways of entertaining, dressing or eating.

Dances were organized, programmed and formalized by these social strata, and included moments of consumption of elaborate or exotic food and drink, which served as refreshment for the physical exercise and leisure that accompanied the choreographic performance. During the Enlightenment, dances held in salons or hotels continued this combination of dance movement and the occasional consumption of delicacies or elixirs. In these historical contexts, the common people suffered from severe hunger and food shortages, taking revenge during times of prosperity or during popular celebrations and festivals, where they strictly applied the proverb “Dance comes from the belly!”. Or, in other words, they sought to reflect and imitate aristocratic and bourgeois tastes and customs in their evenings and choreographic entertainments.

Carnival Saturday in Eibar. Fundraising: Koko-eskea. Author: Antxon Agirre.

Therefore, it is not surprising that there is a direct relationship between food and festive and choreographic events. It was customary in traditional communities to offer food as a reward for women’s participation in certain social dances (Aurresku, Regregelak, Zortzikoak, Esku dantzak, etc.). For this purpose, elaborate cakes or offerings of oblatak were thrown to the dantzaris (dancers) when they danced the Txotxongilo (a Basque dance) during the Dantzari dantza. It was also customary to offer the classic piperopilak (traditional Basque desert) to young men in exchange for an invitation, in the social choreographies of Sakana. In many of our geographical areas, after these formal extended choir dances led by one gender or the other, there was a tendency to offer people cod, cheese, bread or wine from the festive treasury. A snack made with hot chocolate, biscuits or liqueurs was also common with the local leaders.

Youth leaders of both sexes and different age groups were organized in a similar relationship of commensality. This can be seen in the communal meals or snacks that culminated in traditional fundraising events, in collective feasts, in reciprocal invitations by gender or neighbourhood, and in refreshments intended to be tasted during ritual dances or fun dances. All of this revolved around the concept of eating all kinds of food as a gift or social correspondence.

Josu Larrinaga Zugadi — Sociologist