The final food stop in this episode is Sirviella, the home of Pépin, a retired shepherd turned cidreria, and his mother, Pilar Sanchez, who’s been cooking old school style in her built-to-scale kitchen for over seven decades, and still prefers to use a wood-burning stove
Pilar is dwarfed by both of the guys, who are two heads taller than she is. Her usual grocery store is the field that surrounds her house, and in which we see today’s planned dinner, a sort of “shepherd’s chicken,” still pecking grains of corn from the ground. After Pilar gets the food going on the stove, they all withdraw to a tiny cabaña de pastore, a shepherd’s hut, where they imbibe Pépin’s cider (which has a “nice kick”), and subdue their hunger with an “exquisite” homemade shepherd’s blue cheese called queso Gamonedo, and slabs from a loaf of bread from a wood-burning oven. For five months of the year, the pastores, the shepherds, tend their sheep and goats every day during the daylight hours. As dusk settles they return to their huts and begin the process of making cheese from the milk they’ve just drawn from their animals. By then the stewed chicken is ready, and they pronounce it perfect.
Vive Asturias!
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Article comments
1 - Victor
I'm afraid you're a bit confused about the Basque Country. It's not the hole region on the northern coast of Spain. It's just the eastern part of it. Asturias is another region (another "comunidad autonoma") and Cantabria is another one settled between Asturias and The Basque Country.
2 - Lou
I stand corrected! Thanks for the relearning experience - really. I used to know that at one time. Memory's the second thing to go!
3 - Christopher Rose
There's also Galicia, which is the west end of the north coast. Oh, and it is Oviedo, not Ovieda.
4 - ASTURIAN GUY
Just a clarification.............
PRINCIPALITY OF ASTURIAS IS NOT BASQUE COUNTRY, IT'S JUST ASTURIAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.D: Called AsturiEs in Asturian.......