Christmas affords me sometime to be able to read, eat and drink. Cookery books allow all three, albeit two of them in the abstract unless augmented. Rick Stein is a favourite and I loved this quote from his latest book ‘Spain’. It conveys a sense of home and belonging that most of us seek.
Towards the end of the lunch, one of the aunts recited a poem by the Basque poet Gabriel Aresti:
I shall defend the house of my father
Against wolves
Against drought
Against usury
Against the lawThe significance of this, they told me, was that in the Basque country it is the people who belong to the house, not the house that belongs to the people.
Leave a Reply