[Sca-cooks] Basque Food

[Terry Decker]

The whaling station is 16th Century.  There is evidence that the Basque 
whalers may have reached Iceland by 1412 and possibly were in Labardor 
before Columbus arrived in the New World.  There is speculation that 
Europeans have been fishing the Grand Banks since the late Neolithic, but 
the evidence is a little stronger for the Bretons and some other European 
fishermen fishing the Banks beginning about the 12th Century.  To my 
knowledge, none has been proven.

The speculation is the Basque began moving out into the Atlantic between the 
12th and 15th Centuries due to intensified whaling and over harvesting in 
the Bay of Biscay.

Bear

> Hmmm... while they are now associated with sheepherding it is my
> understanding that the Basques in period were also intrepid fishermen and
> whalers.  I seem to recall reading in national Geographic about a
> per-Columbus(?) Basque whaling station being discovered on the Canadian
> coast.  That and that they fished the Grand Banks for cod first before 
> being
> chased off by other people with navies.
>
> Perhaps some information regards food can be gleaned from a study of Henry
> of Navarre who was the last king of that "basque" kingdom.  He united it
> with France or even his grandmother Margarette and her Heptameron as there
> might be pertinent asides in it as well.  I have read that modern Spanish
> has a substantial number of 'basque" borrow words perhaps there are some
> basques cooking roots that can be explored?
>
> Daniel