Basque Country, a pintxo at a time

A conversation with chef and author Marti Buckley

Friends, I hope everyone is doing well this Monday and finally getting some relief from the heat! My hometown of Washington, DC just had a stretch of 100℉-plus days…even hotter than the South of Spain in the summer, and you don’t even get to be in Spain (I love you DC, but if it’s going to be this hot, I think I will choose Andalucía, maybe sitting at one of my favorite places on the ocean, eating tuna and sipping a cold glass of Albariño!).

Speaking of Spain, today I want to talk about a Spanish region all the way up on the Northern Atlantic coast, close to the French border. I’m talking about País Vasco, the Basque Country, people! You might have heard of it, maybe you have even been there, but even though it has more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than any other region in the world, the food of the Basque region of Spain is not widely known throughout the U.S. And yet, there is such an amazing story to tell.

The Basque country has its own language, Euskara, an incredible landscape, and some of the best ingredients on the planet, both from the sea and the land. Culturally, the Basque people live around the table—there, food is everything—fresh seafood, flavorful meat and game, amazing produce, and more cheeses and wine than you could even eat and drink in your dreams. The Basque take their food so seriously that many of them belong to txokos, or private supper clubs, where members will cook, try new techniques, share food wisdom with each other…and of course, eat!

But I am talking too much when what I really want to do is introduce you to my friend Marti Buckley, an amazing cook and cookbook author who adopted the heart of Basque country—San Sebastián, called Donostia in Euskara—as her home. Marti and I have similar missions…to bring the flavors and joy of Spain to an American audience. Her first cookbook, Basque Country, introduced American home cooks to the world of Basque cooking, and her most recent cookbook, The Book of Pintxos, dives into the wonderful world of pintxos (in Spanish we write “pincho,” which means “spike,” which makes sense because so many of these amazing little bites (but not all of them!) are served on toothpicks!). 

Marti signing books! Image courtesy of @martibuckley (Instagram)

So let’s hear what Marti has to say about her new book!

The new book is amazing. How was the book tour?

It was great. People are so passionate about the subject—they’re really excited. When you’re writing a book, it can be a lonely experience, and you don’t know how it will be received, so a tour is your chance to see it out in the wild. 

When you were writing this, how did you decide which pintxos to include?

I had to go back to being a visitor to Basque Country again. That’s the first thing you can crack when you move here—the pintxos scene. You’re out and eating them all the time, but I had to actually look at it methodically. I had to stop and evaluate pintxos and think about how I choose them in my daily life, and what is going to work for someone who might be new to pintxos entirely, and also for people who have been to Basque country and want to recreate that experience at home. Which pintxos have been around for a long time? Which are the ones that everyone thinks you have to try? Which ones are too touristy, and which ones do you actually want people to experience, which they might not try if they didn’t read about it in this book?

How do you explain the difference between pintxos and tapas to Americans?

Tapas are generally larger portions than a pintxo, meant to be shared. A pintxo has always been and is always more of a creation…you’re putting a few things together that should work together in two or three bites, so it has to be a work of art. But is it a pintxo if you eat it outside of Basque country? I don’t know if it is, but the line is a lot more fluid here in Spain. When you eat them, historically pintxos have always been the precursor to a meal, whereas I think tapas a lot more often are just eaten as the meal. You can eat them standing up, at a bar. If you’re a home cook and you’re making pintxos, or you’re trying to figure out if what you’re making is a pintxo or a tapa, I guess the difference is composition and size—you’re making tapas to be shared, you’re making pintxos to be eaten in a few small bites.  

Doesn’t it look delicious?

You and I, we both want to spread the beauty of Spanish food to new American audiences. From your perspective, what are the big successes of that mission and the challenges that still need to be overcome?

It's funny because things really do feel a little different now than they did a few years ago. Most people that come to my events know what they're doing. So they know of the existence of Basque Country in Spain, but it does feel like there has been an increased literacy around the subject. 15 years ago, there were really only Spanish restaurants, with the emphasis being on sangria and patatas bravas, and now you see these Basque restaurants crop up, which is cool—they’re really trying to represent Basque food in the States. You see Basque restaurants like Ernesto’s in New York, and you can tell that Chef Ryan Bartlow is really making food just like you would in Basque Country, and achieving top level results without adapting to American taste buds. 

That’s what Spaniards have been trying to do for years, right?

Yes, but I think it has taken Americans actually traveling to Spain to see what it’s all about. In the States, you’ve got your neighborhood Italian or Mexican restaurant, or a French bistro, so you have an idea of what those food traditions might entail, but because lots of Spanish restaurants in the States have been limited to what appeals to American palates, I think that has been limiting. And then they go to Spain and they really experience it, and they realize there are a lot of products that they tried there that are really good. So now, I think there's sort of a burgeoning idea in the mind of the American consumer about Spanish food associated with quality raw product. Which is really good for me to hear because it’s the foundation of Spanish cooking. So it's an important point to get across…for example, people are understanding anchovies, and knowing about them coming from Spain rather than balking at them is just so important in that battle.

Speaking of quality ingredients, you talk a lot about the ingredients in Basque country. How does that translate to the home cook back in the US? Are people asking questions about where I can find this? What should I substitute?

I do provide as many substitutions as I can, but still, when people look at a recipe and see something they can’t find easily or see two things that are different from what they might think they can get, they get nervous. But I would encourage people to just lean into what they can get their hands on, whatever they have around them. The spirit of pintxos isn’t seasonal. It’s whatever we have laying around. That’s the spirit of cooking here in Basque country, but that can absolutely translate to the American home cook. There are regional things that are really strong in the States, and you can lean into that.  

If you could create your own pintxo de Marti, what would it be? 

I know what I would answer if I was 10 years old…I used to always make a white bread thing with yellow deli mustard, orange American cheese and then cover it in really thin slices of dill pickles. Today, as an adult…what hasn’t been invented? There are different motivations…do I create the pintxo I could eat every day, or do I create a “fusion” pintxo and blow everyone’s minds? I’d probably do a gigantic fried corn tortilla with a layer of toppings, basically a giant nacho or tostada. And with that, I would have a vermouth margarita. A white vermouth with a little bit of tequila and a lot of lime? I could see that being really good. 

People, if you want to earn more about pintxos and the foods of Basque Country, check out Marti’s book! Have you been to Basque Country?