Winner, 2019 IACP Award, Best Book of the Year, International Named one of the Best Cookbooks of the Year / Best Cookbooks to Gift by the New York Times, Food & Wine, Saveur, Rachael Ray Every Day, National Geographic, The Guardian and more “Truly insider access, an authentic look at the traditions of one of the most incredible culinary regions of the world.” —José Andrés Tucked away in the northwest corner of Spain, Basque Country not only boasts more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than any other region in the world, but its unique confluence of mountain and sea, values and tradition, informs every bite of its soulful cuisine, from pintxos to accompany a glass of wine to the elbows-on-the-table meals served in its legendary eating clubs. Yet Basque Country is more than a little inaccessible—shielded by a unique language and a distinct culture, it’s an enigma to most outsiders. Until now. Marti Buckley, an American chef, journalist, and passionate Basque transplant, unlocks the mysteries of this culinary world by bringing together its intensely ingredient-driven recipes with stories of Basque customs and the Basque kitchen, and vivid photographs of both food and place. And surprise: this is food we both want to eat and can easily make. It’s not about exotic ingredients or flashy techniques. It’s about mind-set—how to start with that just-right fish or cut of meat or peak-of-ripeness tomato and coax forth its inherent depth of flavor. It’s the marriage of simplicity and refinement, and the joy of cooking for family and friends.

In this guidebook to the Spanish and French Basque Country and Navarre, Murray Stewart covers the principal cities - rejuvenated Bilbao, beautiful San Sebastian, verdant Vitoria and lively Pamplona - and also delves deeper into the region's interior, capturing the quirkiness that make it so special

This title brings together walks and tours in the Basque region of Spain and France, which runs east from Bilbao to Biarritz and takes in famous places like Pamplona and stages on the Way of St James to Santiago de Compostela

Ask any Spaniard where you will find the best food in the country and the answer is invariably the Basque provinces. In this beautifully written book, Marìa José Sevilla describes the region through the eyes of men and women whose lives embrace every aspect of its cooking and culinary traditions, and records the recipes she has learned from them. The author takes us from market to caserìo, or farmstead, and shows how the strength of Basque cuisine comes from the quality and range of local produce: superb fish from the Cantabrian coast, cheeses and wild mushrooms from the mountains, and vegetables and fruit—including apples for cider-making—from the caserìos of the valleys. Through her portraits of a fisherman, a craftsman of wooden cheese-making utensils, a wine producer, and a young city housewife, the author shows the historical influences and fierce regional pride behind this distinctive culinary repertoire. Finally, three professional chefs take us into their kitchens, and show us how their superb cooking is based on rich popular traditions. More than eighty authentic recipes punctuate evocative descriptions of cultural and culinary traditions, making this an ideal book for the inquisitive traveler who enjoys good food.

The Basque Country is a land of fascinating paradoxes and enigmas. Home to one of Europe's oldest peoples and most mysterious languages, with a living folklore rich in archaic rituals and dances, it also boasts a dynamic post-modern energy, with the reinvention of Bilbao creating a model for the twenty-first-century city of cultural services and information technologies. Hugging the elbow of the Bay of Biscay on both the French and Spanish sides of the Pyrenees, this small territory abounds in big contrasts, ranging from moist green valleys to semi-desert badlands, from snowy sierras to sandy beaches, from harsh industrial landscapes to bucolic beech woods. This often idyllic scenery is the stage for fierce political passions. Almost every aspect of the Basque Country generates passionate disagreement, even its precise location. Spanish and French centralism, often authoritarian and sometimes brutal, has met with resistance for two centuries. Most recently and notoriously ETA, a terrorist group with deep popular support, has engaged in a bloody 45-year conflict. But many Basques consider themselves full French or Spanish citizens, and fear political and linguistic exclusion under Basque nationalist rule.

Chefs Alexandra Raij and Eder Montero share more than one hundred recipes from Txikito—all inspired by the home cooking traditions of the Basque Country—that will change the way you cook in this much-anticipated and deeply personal debut. Whether it’s a perfectly ripe summer tomato served with just a few slivers of onion and a drizzle of olive oil, salt cod slowly poached in oil and topped with an emulsion of its own juices, or a handful of braised leeks scattered with chopped egg, Basque cooking is about celebrating humble ingredients by cooking them to exquisite perfection. Chefs Alexandra Raij and Eder Montero are masters of this art form, and their New York City restaurant Txikito is renowned for its revelatory preparations of simple ingredients. Dishes like Salt Cod in Pil Pil sauce have fewer than five ingredients yet will astonish you with their deeply layered textures and elegant flavors. By following Raij’s careful but encouraging instructions, you can even master Squid in Its Own Ink—a rite of passage for Basque home cooks, and another dish that will amaze you with its richness and complexity. The Basque Book is a love letter: to the Basque Country, which inspired these recipes and continues to inspire top culinary minds from around the world; to ingredients high and low; and to the craft of cooking well. Read this book, make Basque food, learn to respect ingredients—and, quite simply, you will become a better cook. - Food & Wine Magazine, Editor’s picks for Best of 2016

The violent Basque separatist group ETA took shape in Franco's Spain, yet claimed the majority of its victims under democracy. For most Spaniards it became an aberration, a criminal and terrorist band whose persistence defied explanation. Others, mainly Basques (but only some Basques) understood ETA as the violent expression of a political conflict that remained the unfinished business of Spain's transition to democracy. Such differences hindered efforts to 'defeat' ETA's terrorism on the one hand and 'resolve the Basque conflict' on the other for more than three decades. Endgame for ETA offers a compelling account of the long path to ETA's declaration of a definitive end to its armed activity in October 2011. Its political surrogates remain as part of a resurgence of regional nationalism - in the Basque Country as in Catalonia - that is but one element of multiple crises confronting Spain. The Basque case has been cited as an ex- ample of the perils of 'talking to terrorists'. Drawing on extensive field research, Teresa Whitfield argues that while negotiations did not prosper, a form of 'virtual peacemaking' was an essential complement to robust police action and social condemnation. Together they helped to bring ETA's violence to an end and return its grievances to the channels of normal politics.