41 - That's a spicy rubber ball! - Espelette and Hasparren

Saturday, 20 January 2024

Espelette

Brr it was cold this morning!  Despite the weather being clear and sunny, we started off below freezing and ended up below freezing once the sun set. 

A bit of breakfast: bread with apricot and hazelnut

Today’s agenda is for two towns in Basque country.  The first town is Espelette.  I’d been hearing about and eating stuff seasoned with piment d’Espelette (pepper from Espelette) so I’m not sure why I was surprised when a Google search revealed there was an actual town named Espelette.  While not all piment d’Espelette comes from the farms of this specific town, it is an appellation for a strand of capsicum cultivated in the specific region (I believe 11 towns) around Espelette. 

 

Looks like this platane tree got hungry

I arrived a little past noon and was surprised to find the town almost like a ghost town.  The Basque facades looked even better when decorated with cords of drying peppers!  After taking the measure of most of the town, I stopped for lunch.  The restaurant I ate at featured a “Basque menu” of pâté, axoa, cheese, and dessert; I was quite pleased with the food particularly since I hadn’t yet ordered an axoa for any of my meals.

Are those peppers on that building?

The peppers are used as decoration in town but also feature heavily in cuisine and food products.

Axoa: shredded veal cooked with pepper

During my dessert course, I had somebody checking to make sure it was all going to be eaten.

When it became clear my gateau basque was going to be finished, they took a rest from the puppy dog eyes 

After the meal, I stopped into a store to learn more about the local products.  The woman running the shop was very kind and very helpful in explaining the uses and history of piment d’Esplette as well as the honey and wines (Irouléguy and Jurançon) also in her store.  The pepper was introduced to the Basque region as trade with the Americas started to pick up, the climate suited the pepper and it was cultivated and sold in the area surrounding Esplette.  The Basque used it primarily as a spice (I suppose similar to how much of Europe also uses paprika) and their cuisine leaned on piment d’Esplette more than black pepper due to the difference in price.  She also explained that the Irouléguy and Jurançon appellations of wine are from the regions near St Jean Pied de Port (where many vineyards are terraced along the mountain slopes) and near Pau (where the vineyards are eclipsed by snowcapped Pyrénées). 

It was nice chatting with her.  Apparently her daughter did some study abroad in Montreal and was caught off-guard by the differences in winter weather haha.  Anyhow, with my souvenirs in hand / pocket (they call tote-bags pockets in the SW of France as opposed to sacks), I continued to tour the rest of town. 

 

A view of Larrun

I'm not sure why these trees have small clumps of growth happening.

An event about the pottoks happening in Espelette next week?  Hmm, maybe something to look into, next Sunday looks like a work horse race or show 

There actually wasn’t too much more to the town haha.  Near the town hall was the tourism office (closed on weekends), a piment d’Esplette museum (closed for the season), a small little park, and a peloté court.  The only other item in town was the church.  Overall, I was really pleased with my visit to the quiet town of Esplette, apparently it’s not so quiet from May – September so I suppose the peace and quiet I found is as rare as unseasoned food in the town.  It may not have been the usual menu today, but I feel I got a pretty good flavor of the town 😉

A full size pelote court

I'm not sure why the cat picked that seat, but it seemed pretty pleased with its selection.

A teeny tiny river crossed through the town

The church is surrounded by a cemetery, which I guess makes sense.

Plenty of the rounded Basque headstones here, also makes sense

Some older headstones here

The inside of the church was interesting.  Still highly decorated but featuring much more wood than the other churches/cathedrals/basilicas I've visited.

The top level is quite large but a sign said only 19 people were allowed; the creaking under my feet seconded that limit

Some elaborate painting on wood panels.

This goat really wanted to nibble on the bush just out of reach

Hasparren

The next town to visit was Hasparren.  I’d say this town didn’t have nearly the same charm as Esplette, but it had the authenticity of a lived in place.  There was actually life in the town and I think it wasn’t just tourists wandering about. 

 

Though this weird figure-eight roundabout (a round8bout?) had me questioning my sanity

The church in Hasparren also featured wood stairwells but looked much more modern than Espelette's

Some derelict stone building spotted on the hill in the distance.  An old man was hanging out back here and asked if I was afraid when I saw him.  I was confused by the question but answered "no", bade him a good day and then made a loop around.  When I got back to where I thought he would have exited to, there wasn't any sign of him.  Maybe I should have been afraid??

Last weekend I drank a beer (flavored with piment d’Esplette, wouldn’t recommend it) from Bobs Brewing, which is located in Hasparren.  Unfortunately, the brewery was closed so I didn’t get to do a tasting.  But that’s ok, the brewery wasn’t the reason I came to this town; no, I came here to watch some Basque Peloté! 

That’s right, after spending more time than I thought would be needing searching online, I found a professional peloté match being conducted in Hasparren.  Currently it is bare hand season (main nué), which I think is kind of a misnomer since the athletes all had a lot of tape on their hands.  The matches were held in a court that was attached to a hotel; I know, it sounds like a strange addition to the hotel but it looks like the fitness center is also there haha.  This particular court was a trinquet, which means the court is shaped differently from the outdoor court I saw in Espelette.

I didn’t know any of the rules beforehand and don’t really know any racket sport rules but I think I picked up most of it over two matches.  I believe a player scores a point when the opponent is unable to return the ball to the wall, the latest player to score a point serves, the serve must bounce a minimum distance from the wall, only floor bounces count but nets are out-of-bounds, first player to 40 wins.  What struck me was the asymmetry of the court – one length was a glass wall for the audience, the other has a …baseball dugout that the ball can bounce off of/into, the coaches watch from the back of the court (getting the ball into the coach’s windows counts as a point), and there’s a few angled bits to the right side of the main wall to give wonky ball trajectories. 

 

It was intriguing to watch but I don’t think I’ll be picking it up as my new favorite sport.  Still, it was definitely worth taking a couple hours to see this sport which is ingrained in Basque culture.  The player outfits were pretty snappy, including the use of a red or blue ribbon/scarf for the belt.  The ball makes a hearty “thunk!” with every bounce, I can imagine it’s not a particularly soft projectile to get hit with.

A funny tidbit was that at the start of each match, the starting serve is determined by coin toss.  One side of the coin is white and the other red, these correspond to the player’s tops.  In both matches, the coin landed on its side and rolled around the floor for 30 seconds haha

I'm glad that the old man I'd met earlier in the day wasn't waiting for me here as I walked to my car 😅; cause then my answer would've been different