Yerington Monday: The Basque (Part Three): Basque Cuisine & Festivals of Northern Nevada

Yerington Monday:  The Basque (Part Three): Basque Cuisine & Festivals of Northern Nevada

The Basques descend from people who inhabited southern Europe after the last ice age, particularly in the French and Spanish borderlands of the Pyrenees Mountains. Basque traditions carry on in America. In Nevada, their cultural importance is a focus of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Center of Basque Studies. Wherever Basques live, they are apt to gather socially. These congregations led to established Basque clubs, many with their own clubhouses.

Picon Punch

Picon Punch is a tasty but powerful concoction that has been a perennial favorite at Basque festivals and restaurants across the West, including a number of popular Nevada establishments.

The drink’s origins are not entirely clear, but the cocktail appears to have first been mixed by Basque immigrants who came to West, the vast majority of whom roamed the Great Basin with their flocks of sheep.

Picon Drinkers of the American West, a Facebook group, is about more than just drinking picons.  It's about the American West and particularly the Great Basin. What it was and what it is now.

Picon Punch Cocktail Recipe

Ingredients:

2 oz Amer Picon (Torani Amer)
Soda Water
1/2 oz Grenadine
1/2 oz brandy
Lemon peel (1/2 oz Lemon juice)

Directions.  Shake the amer picon, lemon juice and grenadine well with ice and strain into a highball glass filled with ice. Top with soda, garnish with fruit, and serve in a highball glass.

Basque Shepherd Bread

A wonderful, fine textured bread baked in a iron Dutch oven. this is an old Basque sheepherder's recipe. originally it was baked over an open fire, out on the range using hot coals on top and bottom of Dutch oven. it is enormous, but well worth the time and labor of love to make it. Out in the hills, a shepherd would dig a pit in which to bake the bread using a collected pile of sagebrush from the hills.  Most of the time, it’s covered with a board and it’s only rarely that the lid comes off.

Course #1:  Cabbage Vegetable Soup, Bread, Butter, & Red Wine

Course #2:  Simple Lettuce Salad with Oil & Vinegar

Course #3:  Oxtail Stew & Beans

Course #4:  Garlic Sautéed Lamb Chops & Fries

Other entree choices:

• Top Sirloin Steak
• Lamb Shoulder Steak
• Basque Chicken
• Sweetbreads
• Pigs Feet with Tripe
• Lamb Chops
• Shrimp Scampi Fri. & Sat. Night Special
• Roasted Rabbit Fri. & Sat. Night Special

BASQUE CULTURE & FESTIVALS

Part of Nevada’s history since before it became a state in 1864, Basque culture is a distinctive and colorful presence in the Silver State. Nevada Basques annually honor their heritage during two summer festivals. The two-day Winnemucca Basque Festival gets underway Saturday at the convention center. The 52nd annual National Basque Festival was July 3 to 5 at various locations in Elko. During these two events, the two rural towns fill up with people of Basque descent and onlookers attracted by the pageantry of costumed dancers, traditional contests, ethnic music and flavorful Basque food.

Anita Izoco and Jeannette Fernandez founded the Mendiko Euskaldun Cluba, Minden-Gardnerville, Nevada in 1981, with ninety members. Because the hour drive north to Reno was too far for many to travel for social functions with other Basques, the original goals of this Basque association were to provide social gatherings such as a summer picnic and an autumn Sheepherders' Dance along with monthly meetings. Basque community leaders also wanted to teach their children the folk dances and traditional songs. Today the Basque families of these two small towns next to each other meet every month at a different Basque restaurant to enjoy Euskera, Basque food and cuisine, and each other's company. The 2002 membership is 450 adult paying members. The scenic Carson Valley at 4750 feet elevation faces the Sierra Nevada Mountains which rise to 11,000 feet on the California-Nevada border, and for many Basques reminds them of their homelands in Euskal Herria.

Gardnerville Basque Festival

The Gardnerville Basque Festival features traditional costumed dancers, music, singing, contests and food, followed by parties continued at popular Carson Valley Basque restaurants.

National Basque Festival

The Elko Basque organization, the Elko Euzkaldunak Club, was founded in 1959. Members organized summer Basque picnics and various dances with Basque music for singing and dancing. The State of Nevada celebrated its centennial in 1964, and the Elko Basque Club decided to organize another grand scale Basque festival to commemorate the event. They invited all of the existing Basque clubs to participate and to send musicians, dancers, and athletes to Elko for the event. Because of the success of the activities, and the geographical centrality of Elko to other Basque communities, Elko assumed the position of the site of the annual National Basque Festival.   http://www.elkobasqueclub.com/ , Facebook page: Elko Euzkaldunak Club

Dancers perform at the 2013 National Basque Festival in Elko

Reno Basque Festival

The Basque culture is a big part of Reno's history and tradition.  The Reno Basque Festival, sponsored by the Zazpiak Bat Reno Basque Club, celebrates Basque culture with folkloric dance and traditional exhibitions and contests including improvisational poetry, weight carrying competition, wood chopping competition, weightlifting exhibition, irrintzi (war cry competition) and children’s bota bag drinking contest. The festival typically occurs at Wingfield Park in downtown Reno in July.  Facebook Page:  Zazpiak Bat Basque Reno

Winnemucca Basque Festival

The Winnemucca Basque Festival is sponsored by the Winnemucca Basque Club and features a parade, Basque luncheon, dancing, and traditional contests. The festival is held in June at Winnemucca Events Complex.

Home Means Nevada - Bernardo Yanci Basque Accordion

https://youtu.be/dSzLlGzYYlA