TALKINTRAVEL™

FEASTING ON TRADITION by Ruth & Rich Carlson







Laughing and flipping their luxurious dark hair in the universal 
flirting sign, a dozen young slim women dressed in v-neck blouses, 
bias cut skirts and stiletto heels saunter into the dining room 
at 10 p.m., dinner hour in Spain. After accepting a glass of cava, 
they sit down at long tables groaning with a variety of tapas. 
“The best way to eat the prawns is with your hands,” Ana said as 
she proceeded to bite off the shrimp head and suck out the insides. 

It’s a typical start to a meal at an exclusive eating club, 
dedicated to the appreciation and art of food, in the ancient 
Basque region of Spain. Created by fisherman in the 1800s, 
the traditional gastronomic societies are male-only, which 
means the men do the shopping, cooking, and serving. 
The women just eat—and eat very well.

To visit a gastronomy society, you must be a member. 
“ It’s very difficult to join, “ says Angel Quiroga. 
“You have to know someone and be invited to join.“  

In San Sebastian, the capital of the Spanish Basque region, 
every neighborhood has its own eating club. Americans can 
only see the insides of this ancient tradition by booking 
a visit through Tenedor Tours, a company founded by former 
New Yorker Gabriella Ranelli De Aguirre. “By the time most 
people have reached the Basque region, they’ve been to a 
lot of other places and they’re looking for something special. 
This is a little behind the scenes which is what we try to do. 
Our tours strip away the barriers between the tourist and the 
experience so foreigners can feel like they’re a part of 
the scene.” 

It helps that Gabriella is married to a local. She’s lived 
in San Sebastian since 1989, when she traveled to the region 
to teach English and fell in love with both the culture and 
one of her students, a Basque native. “Our tours of the 
gastronomic societies let you mingle with the locals and eat 
great cuisine at the same time. A lot of the members are older 
fellows who have been to the States and they love to practice 
their English. The members are likely to break into song and 
are terribly gallant with the female guests."

Despite the exclusivity, the members do all the work.  
The men visit the farmer's market to choose the best daily 
offerings. The choicest mussels, quail, squid, wild mushrooms, 
asparagus, venison, chorizo, and ham are snapped up by Angel 
and his friends. 

Members prepare their dishes side by side, sharing cooking 
tips and recipes. Each Gastronomic Society has an industrial 
kitchen stocked with dry goods and the local Rioja wine. 

Meanwhile, their women are bar-hopping, nibbling on pintxos 
(pronounced PINCH-ohs), tapas-like appetizers—wild mushroom 
tortilla, and squid in black ink sauce. "You start out with 
five friends at a bar,”  Angel says. They eat the 
hors d'oeuvres standing up, drink beer or txakoli—a young, 
white, slightly bubbly wine—then throw their napkins and 
toothpicks on the floor. 

“I always encourage people; to go to pintxos-- they can’t miss,” 
Gabriella says. The Michelin restaurants are incredible but 
it says a lot about the people that these tiny appetizers are 
so elaborate.”

When the women finally rejoin their men at the club, they spend 
hours sampling each dish and hoping their partner’s culinary 
contribution matches up to their peers. Despite our cultural 
differences, one thing remains stable; the male ego must be fed.  

When the traditional Basque cake, white with a raspberry 
jam center, is served with the anise-flavored liqueur Patxaran, 
the card games begin.

Now that you’ve had a taste of the real Spain, go horseback 
riding through the vineyards or skydiving. “Spain is a little 
bit of the unknown-people seem to think its flamenco dancing 
with a rose in the teeth. That’s still there, but there is 
fabulous luxury in Spain and a lot of it’s new and doesn’t 
get into guidebooks.” Says Gabriella.

RESOURCE BOX:

Spanish tourism board website: www.spain.info