The Food of a Younger Land (39 page)

J
ust as the Swedes hold forth with their Smorgasbords and other banquets in north Idaho, so the annual Sheepherders Ball of the Basques in south Idaho has attracted much attention.

Classified as a linguistic and social, rather than a racial group, the Basques formerly occupied the western Pyrenees on both French and Spanish sides but in later years seem to be linked more with the Spanish alone.

The native tongue, the Euskara, has puzzled philologists to the extent that its origin seems safely lost in obscurity. In search of a land whose topographical and climate conditions closely resembled the native country, the Basques came to Idaho and Oregon in the 1880s, chiefly to follow their ancient occupation of sheepherding.

They took small bands into the hills and stayed with them for years, until they finally had many large flocks.

Following the First World War, many Basques came to this country. The usual practice was for a brother to send for his nearest male kin, until whole clans followed.

“Bosco,” a colloquial name for themselves and their tongue, is spoken universally. Yet most of them also speak Spanish and English fluently.

They play cards but rarely gamble, drink but do not become boisterous or vulgar.

At the annual Sheepherders Ball, where dress clothes are prohibited and denim overalls quite the thing, the feasting is attended with dancing their own folk numbers, as well as American and Spanish dances. The men wear bright sashes.

Lamb and turkey auctions are held in December usually, and are the occasion for additional feasting, dancing and singing.

Although the Basques have assimilated many of the Americanisms, and are intensely loyal to the country of their adoption, it seems safe to say they will retain and hand down many old traditions, among which are various ways of preparing foods.

Their famous “chorizos,” or sausages, are made from pork cut into small pieces seasoned with salt, red pepper, a touch of garlic, and preserved in shortening.

Another characteristic dish is the “garbanzos,” a yellow bean about the size of a middle-sized pea. When boiled and properly seasoned, it becomes larger than ordinary hominy and real tasty.

The Basques are fond of coffee, which they drink in huge cups. A half cup of boiled milk is poured in first and then the cup is filled with coffee.

Annual picnics held in summer have become decidedly American; principal items on the menu are hot dogs, beans and beer.

The holiday season starts December 24th and continues to January 6th. Shortly after this, the men must get back to their flocks, as there is much work to be done in preparing for the lambing season. However, during the two weeks they celebrate gloriously, going from home to home for parties which include both feasting and dancing. Christmas Eve is kept for family reunions.

January 6th is “Three Kings Day” with the Basques, to commemorate the arrival of the Three Wise Men at Bethlehem. In their home country, it is the day they give and receive gifts, but in America, they hold Christmas as we do.

Before breakfast—a liquor of their own, called Anisette

Compote de Peras con Vino (pears cooked in wine)
Colinets (rum cake or cake made with rum or Sherry wine)
Coffee Completo (Coffee Royal)

Chocolate con Churros (fritters)
Morcilas Frilos con Vino o Cervesa (Blood sausages with wine or beer)

Sopa de Chirlas (clam soup)
Mexcla de Ensalada (mixture of salad—tuna, eggs, lettuce, etc., with
vinegar and oil, never mayonnaise)
Angulas on Aceita (Brood of Eel, imported)
Eel eggs
Arroz con Pollo (Spanish rice with chicken)
Calemaros Rellenos on Su Tints (stuffed squid or ink fish—a special
Christmas dish)
Chuletas de Ternera con Pimentos Lorrenes (veal cutlets in pimento sauce)
Patas de Cerdero en Salada de Chili (pigs’ feet in chili sauce)
Caracoles (snails)
Pollo (chicken)

Salada de—Nueces (nut dessert)
Flan Casero (Basque custard)
Turron Nougat (almond paste cookies shaped like rabbits, or other animals, or even snakes)
Coffee Completo (Coffee Royal rest of the night, with dancing and singing)

The Basque dinner starts about 8 P.M. and lasts 4 hours, with an extra one thrown in for coffee drinking. They eat slowly because they believe in lots of loud joyous conversation. They are by nature a happy people.

T
he old-timer’s revolving table typifies the lusty eating habits of Westerners. Although today it is but occasionally found in isolated ranch houses, the idea is carried out in copious platters and dishes of food placed close to diners who do their own “reaching” and whose hosts and hostesses make a fetish of huge appetites and measure a feast by the quantity of food involved.

The old time revolving table was usually a home-made, circular affair with a smaller table in the center, placed about eight inches above the main table. This smaller table revolved and was loaded with food. When spun by the diners it created a miniature cafeteria of succulent roasts, rich gravies, brightly colored jellies, fruits, vegetables, breads, and whatnot. It was the epitome of lavish hospitality.

SARA WRENN

The annual pioneer dinner! Well, I ought to know somethin’ about it. Haven’t I been going to those pioneer reunions and dinners for well nigh seventy years? They started way back in ’75. November it was. Later on they changed the time to June. Guess they thought there was more good things to eat in June, so now we’ve been having the reunion in June for years and years. My—my—how time flies: But, there, you want to know about the dinner. When a body gets to be ninety years old there’s so much to remember it’s hard to stick to one thing.

Yes, it was in 1875 when we had the first dinner. I mind me well the time, ’cause that was the first year of the Pioneer Reunion, that took place at Butteville. We had the reunion, with a program and speeches an’ everything, an’ after that was all over an’ everybody was good and hungry, then we had the dinner. Only them who crossed the plains could belong to the Pioneers’ Association, as they named it. They was the only ones who could wear the badges, so they wouldn’t be a lot of newcomers edgin’ in. Oh, of course the sons an’ daughters could come, but they wasn’t pioneers. All they could do was to take charge of the tables an’ wait on the rest of us—an’ nobody else could do that but the sons an’ daughters either, an’ we’ve always kept it that way, clear down to now.

In them early days the reunion took place sometimes at Oregon City and sometimes at the State Fair Grounds at Salem. Only about the last forty years they’ve had it all the time in Portland. ’Course them first dinners was cooked an’ brought by the wives an’ mothers, and while they was preparin’ it, all the men did was smoke an’ talk an’ make speeches. But maybe the men was tired, drivin’ from far an’ near—sometimes as much as a hundred miles or more. There was only one railroad in Oregon in ’75, and anyway railroad travel cost money for a whole family, so they drove mostly, some in hacks an’ some in wagons. Sometimes the roads, they was awful, what with chuckholes an’ dust. But they managed to get there. Lordy, what crowds we used to have. I mind me one year there was close to a thousand set down at the tables, with sixty to seventy to a table. That was in the Industrial Fair pavilion at Portland—the place where they hold the big industrial fair every year. It was a wooden building that must of covered more’n a block, and it sure made a big fire when it burned, back ’bout 1911, I think it was. After that we met in the City Armory till the World War came along an’ we couldn’t use the armory any more. ’Most ever since then we’ve had our gatherin’ in the city auditorium, where the Oregon Historical Society is, you know.

There—there, if I ain’t getting off on something else again. Well, if I do say so, them pioneer dinners is just about the best dinners in the world. First they had mostly boiled ham an’ roast chicken, but lots of the folks they come from inland an’ they liked salmon. By salmon I don’t mean just any old salmon. I mean our Columbia River salmon, nice an’ firm an’ red-meated. There ain’t any better fish anywhere—maybe I’d better say there ain’t as good fish anywhere as our Columbia River Chinook. Whenever us Oregonians want to do something specially nice for anybody, like the President of the United States, or some other bigwig, we give him one of them grand fish. Of course we still have some ham an’ chicken, but, as I was sayin’, the salmon’s the big thing—bigger’n more ways than one. Baked whole, with nice strips of bacon laid across it so it won’t stick to the roastin’ pan—’course I mean after it’s cleaned and the scales scraped good with a sharp knife—them baked salmon sure is a pretty sight. The waiters—sons and daughters, mind you—carry them in a procession ’round the tables for everybody to see. Used to be there was a long procession of ’em, all of ’em with a salmon maybe three feet long, crisp and shinin’ an’ decorated with parsley. Then, after everybody had a look, they’d take the salmon to one of the booths, where it was dished out in portions, with the best hot cream-and-egg sauce you ever tasted. Then there’s the potato salad. That’s the kind of salad we’ve stuck to year in an’ year out. It’s good too. As to how they make it, it’s the same receipt I use I guess. Leastwise it tastes the same. I take nice, firm potatoes, an’ I boil an’ skin ’em an’ cut ’em up in little squares. After that I add just the right amount of onion cut up in little pieces too—but not too much, so the breath gets smelly. After that, if I have any, I put in some shredded parsley, an’ then I mix it all with a boiled dressing. It’s the dressing that really makes the salad after all, an’ here’s the receipt for that, if you want it. For a little bit, like for a family, I take half a cup o’ vinegar, a cup o’ water, a teaspoon each of dry mustard and sugar, a half teaspoon of salt, two tablespoons flour or cornstarch, an’ butter the size of a walnut. Mix everything, ’xcept the butter, an’ let it boil ’bout five minutes, stirring all the time, an’ just at the last drop the butter in an’ stir good till it melts. When you get through you’ve got a thick paste that ought to be thinned with cream. When that’s mixed well with the potatoes an’ onions, an’ then hard-boiled eggs sliced and laid over the top—well, you got something then that it ain’t no wonder all the pioneers come back for a second helpin’ of.

Of course we have all kinds of pickles and jams with bread an’ butter. Used to be we always had hot biscuit. For years an’ years just one lady made them biscuits—hundreds an’ hundreds of ’em she made, but she isn’t so young now herself, so we don’t have ’em any more. That’s one thing—baker’s bread—that’s a big savin’ of time and maybe just as good as our homemade bread too, with no worry over the batter sourin’ like in old times.

Yes, of course, there’s coffee and tea—plenty, with all the cream an’ sugar anybody wants. But, next to the salmon, the big part of the dinner is ice-cream an’ cake. Used to be ice-cream wasn’t so easy to get as nowadays, an’ even today there’s plenty of pioneers that don’t have it so often it ain’t a big treat. Anyway if they do have it at home it ain’t the same as at the reunion, where they’re thinkin’ an’ talkin’ about old times. There’s always lots of ice-cream an’ everybody can have all they want. ’Most everybody takes two dishes. I recollect once when a man sent his dish back four times. That means five dishes o’ ice-cream that he ate. An’ he didn’t care a mite when we laughed at him. Said if he had room he’d eat some more, but his belly was plum ready to bust—that’s just what he said.

Maybe I forgot to tell you that we’ve always had the dinner followin’ the speeches and singin’ an’ everything, today just like in the beginning. The tables always look so pretty, all decorated in flowers, and the young folks—daughters an’ granddaughters doin’ everything to make it nice for us, with some of the young menfolks to do the heavy work. There ain’t so many tables nowadays o’ course, but a good many of what are left still have the family name that they started with. That’s nice, don’t you think, carryin’ on the name? Several of the old families have been decoratin’ their tables with the same flowers every year. One, I mind me, uses calla lillies, an’ another always has sweetpeas. Of course a lot of ’em have roses, for roses is the flower that most of us love best here in Oregon. Once we all get set down at the tables we sure do keep them young folks busy carryin’ the food from the booths all around. Every booth and every table has its lady in charge, an’ she has her helpers, an’ just as I was tellin’ you they all got to be of pioneer families. No outsiders ain’t allowed at our pioneer dinner. When everybody gets up from the tables, and afore they get started on their yarn-spinning at what they call their campfire, the flowers are given all ’round to anybody that wants ’em—the pioneers, I mean.