CULINARY DIGRESSION #2

By Fir0002 (Own work) [GFDL 1.2], via Wikimedia Commons

POMEGRANATES are gorgeous. When you open one, the faceted seeds with their transparent flesh spill out like so many rubies and garnets. Bite one and a tiny explosion of flavour, tart and sweet at the same time, surprises your tastebuds. I have loved them since I was six, especially because they're a rarity, and expensive, as if they really are little caskets of jewels.
But they're messy to eat. The bloody juice spurts everywhere! A child is banished outside to the back step to enjoy one. This is not all bad, because it gives free rein to the desire to spit out the bitter pips. But in November and December when they are most common in the supermarkets of the Great White North, its also quite cold.
I was thrilled today to open a cookbook and discover a method for juicing pomegranates which is mess-free. Not to mention dead-easy!

It goes like this. Roll the intact pomegranate on the counter until it is flaccid. That's what they said! Then, once it has achieved full sogginess, pierce it with a sharp knife, gently, and suspend it over the mouth of a glass. A gentle squeeze is enough to let out the juice, in surprising amounts. No fuss, no mess, no pressing, no straining. And,like any freshly squeezed juice, it tastes SO good!

GERNIKA = GUERNICA

Guernica seems like a funny place to head for some R and R, given its tragic history. But it also seemed like a place one ought to visit because of the same tragic happenings. It seemed important to stand where such an outrage happened, to bear witness, more than seventy years after the fact.

Gernika (I'm using the Basque spelling, since it's a Basque town), was an important place to the people of Biskaia (Viscaya) as a market town and the equivalent of a county town where legislators assembled and justice was meted out. In the olden days, justice courts and assemblies throughout the Basque country met outside under imposing trees. The tree of Gernika was one of the most famous. When the Basques became part of Spain, at least two Spanish monarchs had to come to Gernika to stand under the tree and swear to preserve various liberties of the Basque people. Most days Gernika was a market town with access to the sea, and beginning in the nineteenth century, had a couple of factories. Bilbao was close by, only thirty kilometres away.

Other than that, it wasn't much to write home about. But things changed in the nineteen thirties when General Franco and his rebels seized control of the Spanish government. In 1937, Gernika became important strategically, in a most temporary fashion, due to its proximity to the area of Markina to the east, where a group of Republicans, the enemies of Franco, were hiding out in the folded, green, and remote hills. Suddenly Gernika was a potential refuge and supply line. General Franco allowed Italian and Nazi air strikes on the town. Instead of destroying strategic targets, during the course of a couple hours,they held carpet bombing raids, destroyed the entire town in a fiery maelstrom, and killing somewhere between two and sixteen hundred people, depending on who you believe. The handful of buildings to survive included the Andra Mari Church and the Hall of Justice,with the Tree of Gernika on its grounds. One of the raid's stated targets, The Renteria bridge over the Oka River was undamaged too. There was, and remains, the feeling that the raid was punitive; an attempt to break the spirit of the Basque people, and bring them into line.

I've been reading the stories of some of the survivors, and even though I've seen the photographs of the destruction, and seen the maps of how little survived, it wasn't until I walked through the streets that I could even begin to imagine the horror of it. Even then, its difficult to believe that this sunny, well-kept little town was nearly obliterated in the course of a market day afternoon. But, if you look closely you can begin to notice the lack of older buildings. If you go to the marketplace, you'll see a large round modern building, strange in itself. Go inside and sit on one of the benches. The glass walls surrounding you are imprinted with photographs of the devastation. You look out through these ghostly images onto the busy rebuilt streets. Then you really get the picture.

I didn't go to the Peace Museum. I didn't need to, and I certainly didn't want any more information on just how horrible it had been. Instead, I chose to go to the Museum of the Basque Culture up near the church. Wars come and go, but the people endure. That is what is important.

YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

The next morning was grey. I felt a bit grey too, as I left my compatriots. They went to find some breakfast, while I went to find a bus to Gernika, the next town of any size. I negotiated that with little trouble, though the amount of nervous energy that surges through me while I strive to ascertain for absolute certain that I’m on the RIGHT bus is quite ridiculous. On a holiday like this, it wouldn’t even matter if I were going on the RIGHT bus, because everything is an adventure! It turned out to be a journey of mythical proportions, and very nearly proved the old adage that “you can’t get there from here”. In fact I could, but I had to ride into the outskirts of Bilbao, wait for an hour and a half, and then backtrack to Gernika, which despite its size, was not on any direct bus routes. This in a country which is very well served by its buses!

The journey went in stages. The first stage ended in the fishing town of Ondarroa, a mere 8k from Deba. The bus followed the path of the cyclist's Camino through Mutriku. The walkers would be taking a very steep and somewhat remote track through the mountains to Markina. From Ondarroa, I took a different bus which passed through Markina on its way to Bilbao. In less than an hour, I had covered the territory that the other peregrinos would spend a whole day slogging through. I didn’t envy them the mud that the rain was surely creating, but I did envy them the gorgeous countryside that we passed through, and I cursed my swollen knees.

The bus trip itself was an interesting cultural immersion. Basque people seem to sing aloud on buses just to pass the time. I was enchanted to hear a grandmother soothing a cranky baby with lullabies in Euskara. For a language so full of k’s and t's and x's, it has a lovely sing-song cadence. On the second bus, I met a very fine elderly lady named Garmendia, which means “fire on the mountain”. What a name to conjure with! She was headed into Bilbao for the day, very smartly if conservatively dressed in a tweed suit. We communicated in English and Spanish, tried French, but gave it up; my fault, not hers. Garmendia was equally comfortable in them all, and then some. For years she had lived in New York where she taught French. Like most Basque people I met she had been to Canada. The Basques, like the Galicians and Newfoundlanders, had itchy feet, it seemed. They’d been everywhere, man! The next day I met a guy who'd been to the Sault and had lived in Smooth Rock Falls!

I felt very lucky to be sitting with this tiny cosmopolitan, learning the local lore as we passed various villages. I got a pang of remorse when she pointed out the way to the very beautiful monastery of Cenarruza, which I’d had my heart set on seeing. I’ve since seen the video diaries of other pilgrims showing just the kind of hiking I like, rough and rural. The pang returns.

When we got to the transfer point at the big hospital in Bilbao, Garmendia (I just like saying that name!) entrusted me to a young woman who ensured that I was standing at the right stop. I stood there for forty five minutes, having just missed a connection, but it felt good to sit in what I knew was the right place. Bus number three took me halfway back the way we’d come, and then took a left up the road to Gernika.