A Day in the Life of a Gastronomic Society

The gastronomic society Basque Gastronomic Brotherhood (Cofradía Vasca de Gastronomía) opens its doors to us, showing us not only their appreciation of good food and good company, but also two culinary memory stewardship projects.

We arrange to meet Luis Mokoroa and his daughter, Onintza Mokoroa, at 11:00 a.m. at the entrance to San Sebastian's Mercado de la Bretxa. They are president and spokesperson, respectively, of the Cofradía Vasca de Gastronomía.

They are hosting today's lunch, and it is thanks to them that we have been allowed this sneak peek at a group that admits very few visitors.

The Cofradía is based in a gastronomic society: one of many scattered across the Basque Country and, in particular, in the city of San Sebastian. They are private meeting places that have played a significant role in the region's culinary history.

Today's menu is a tribute to local products and traditions: tomato salad with piparras (small Basque Country peppers), txipis (cuttlefish in its own ink), and tuna cooked with onions. And before that, some San Sebastian pickles, fried piparras, local patés and cheeses: specifically, the ones made by Elkano 1 - Gaztagune at its cheese factory in Aia, around 18 miles from San Sebastian.

Luis and Onintza walk around the stalls, seeing which types of fish have been delivered fresh to the fishmonger's stall that morning, and choosing fresh tomatoes from nearby baserris, or farmhouses. While carefully considering the quantities they need for the number of guests, they think about how to organize the cooking times. They keep the receipts, as costs are divided up at the end of the society's gatherings.

With the shopping done, we head for the Gastronómica, as the society is known. It is located in a prime spot above the Plaza de La Trinidad, at the foot of Monte Urgull.

As devotees of Basque cuisine, they wanted to set up an association to champion the local gastronomy. They organized conferences and competitions, and after two years realized that "one of the most important things associated with gastronomy in cities were the societies, and that they didn't have one," Onintza tells us. The city council let them have the property, which at the time was in ruins. Using their own money, and with the help of an engineer and an architect who were members of the group, they were able to restore the building.

The venue—the society itself—is an important part of their gatherings. It is a shared space that must be cared for and treated with respect. The energy of the celebrations that are held there is palpable in the building, which is managed democratically. There are no owners; the members all feel the same sense of ownership and it works because it is run on the basis of mutual trust.

Luis and Onintza put on their aprons, ready to light the stove. In the kitchen of a society, you work alongside other chefs. While someone painstakingly prepares cod with pil-pil (garlic) sauce, someone else could be taking some txuletas (steaks) off the grill, with three perfect textures; cleaning a fish; or slicing some farmhouse tomatoes. Today it's their turn; another time it will be someone else's. What you can't do is turn up in the kitchen of one of these societies as a horde: it's a matter of respect.

It is 1:30 p.m. and the guests begin to arrive. While the chefs of the day work on the fish stew, Rosana Rodríguez (also a member and spokesperson) prepares the starters. It's a glorious day in San Sebastian, and they decide to serve the previa (aperitif) on the terrace. A bottle of cider is opened, along with some txacolí (slightly sparkling, dry white wine) from Getaria. The conversations are animated at the gathering: there are no social or generational barriers.

The members only have to bring the food, because anything else they might need is provided, including the drinks. A society is organized around the division of tasks. These include deciding which wines to store in the wine cellar, as well as soft drinks, beers, and spirits. They are always cheaper than they would be in a restaurant or bar.

There are no waiting staff: the guests organize the serving of the food and the clearing away afterward among themselves. Everything they use is put away in a specific place for the cleaning service to leave just as it was.

After the delicious tuna with onions, the finishing touch is some peppered strawberries served with cream and ice cream, followed by some sparkling wine. Cheers! All that remains to do is to settle what is owed for the food shop and the drinks from the wine cellar, plus a fee per person to cover the society's running costs.

Spending a day in a gastronomic society is about so much more than eating, and no-one understands this as well as they do in the Basque Country. It's about sharing and spending time together. They share lunch, but also anecdotes and news: both good and bad. It's a place to build partnerships and organize activities, such as the yearly Tamborrada, a drum festival that thunders around the city for 24 hours, every January 20.

Onintza, Rosana, Maitane, and Carolina all shared the same concern: "We noticed that the Basque haute cuisine scene was full of men and we were intrigued to know where the women were in this arena. If cooking is essentially done by women, where are they all?” That was how GastroAndere started, in September 2018. It was "a project to find out exactly where we come from, with the aim of preserving that over time."

In 2019, they organized a tribute to all the women who were at the root of Gipuzkoan cuisine; the ladies were incredulous at all the attention, but "have found their voice, and now there's no stopping them.” These were the women who had lived through the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and knew how to get things done. Some of them began with pintxos (little snacks from northern Spain), while others used the local produce in a different way, and some were the driving force behind their villages becoming attractive destinations for visitors.

“We've got to be able to tell the story, pass it on, and make sure it reaches future generations, because GastroAndere has to be a flexible project that can change as society does," they tell us. Whether in a little bistro or a restaurant boasting several stars, the themes they want to explore in their work include the way produce is prepared, the recovery of recipes from the days before avant-garde cookery, the way that nothing went to waste in their grandmothers' generation's kitchens, and work-life balance.

The Cofradía was founded to preserve the traditions that those same food-lovers believed in, long before avant-garde cookery appeared, or famous Spanish chefs such as Pedro Subijana and Martín Berasategui became household names. A key element of that work has been to develop a priceless culinary library, donated by former members and their families, and which is now in their hands.

“The first donation was from Federico Zappino, who was the driving force behind the project. Sadly, he died soon after. Once we had our building, his family donated his book collection," Luis tells us. After that, their collection started to grow. They have now catalogued over 1,000 volumes, with another 5,000 still waiting to be looked at. “Twenty years ago, it was all in boxes," they tell us, but since then they have had several different librarians who have carried out the painstaking work of archiving it all.

It was named the Alexandre Dumas International Library of Gastronomy in recognition of the man who "we believe was one of the pioneers of gastronomy in Europe," they explain. “His dream was to write a culinary dictionary, but he couldn't find anyone willing to finance it, which is why he decided to fund it himself through other work.”

Uxue González is in charge of the library at the moment. The library, she tells us, houses books from the mid-1800s right through to today. "It's a private collection which, in keeping with the spirit of these societies, was designed to be shared. The aim is to digitize it all and make it available to the public, so that anyone can make an appointment and come and look things up in the books."