Tinabeth Piña: Coming up next on Globe Scholars, we continue following gap year students on the Spain by Train program that's currently rolling through Basque Country.

Stay tuned.

By day, I'm a TV reporter.

But at night, I write a travel blog because I love to travel.

It brings people and cultures together.

And when a student travels abroad, not only do they become a global citizen, the subjects they learn in school come to life.

This is Globe Scholars.

Welcome to Globe Scholars.

I'm your host, Tinabeth Piña from TinaBethTravels.com.

And today I'm in Vitoria, Spain with gap year students who are spending 12 weeks traveling throughout Espania.

Let's get ready to continue our adventure with them in the capital of Basque country.

In our last episode, we met our gappers and some of their host families, and we learned about Vitoria’s medieval history.

And toured its Old Town, from its world renowned cathedral... to its murals and Card Museum.

We also learned how the Basque language and Spanish language plays an integral part within their society.

And of course, we saw the gappers experience it all while their host families encouraged them along the way.

Today in this episode, we're going to eat our way through Basque Country from Rioja to San Sebastián.

But first, let's have our gappers work up an appetite by playing some Basque handball.

Believe it or not, one of the most traditional sports in Basque country is Basque pelota, or a variety of court sports played with a ball and using one's hand, a racket, a wooden bat, or a basket against a wall.

It's played worldwide and its internationalization has a lot to do with Basque immigrants bringing their customs and traditions wherever they went.

Lucas Palacios: It is played just in the Basque country so Basque’s are really proud of their traditions and they really like and they really appreciate and they really take care of this sport because it was invented in the Basque country and it's pretty popular just in the Basque country.

Tinabeth Piña: Our gappers played three different types of Basque pelota on a trinquete, or handball court under the guidance of a professional coach.

[gappers cheering] Julian Gonzalez: Intentas que para ellos sea lo más divertido posible, que se lo pasen bien en principio y después más adelante que vayan tomándoselo más en serio y que quieran ganar y que quieran competir y sobre todo que sean compañeros y lo importante es que la gente no solamente piense en el deporte como una competición, sino que también es una fiesta y una diversión.

Alex Dee: I thought it was pretty interesting to learn about all the different ball sports.

I found it more fun to actually play.

Bradley Traeger: I had so much fun.

Like once he finally gave us the rackets, I was like, wha pow!

And it was super cool.

It's like, healthy competition, you know what I mean?

Like we've all been living together for almost three months.

And the fact that we get to have this little competition, like who is better at handball?

Who's like better with the rackets?

Who's better with the- and I feel like, especially with Alex, he plays tennis a lot too.

And when we both got the rackets, we were like, it's on.

♪ [upbeat music] ♪ Tinabeth Piña: After playing Basque pelota for a couple of hours, our gappers worked up quite an appetite.

And lucky for them when it comes to Basque food, they were in for a treat.

♪ [upbeat piano music] ♪ When it comes to food, Basque country is probably the most important tourist destination in Spain due to the mixture of sea and mountain cuisine.

And for the Basque people, gastronomy is a very integral part of their culture.

Why does food bring people together here?

Bea Azurmendi: Oh my God.

I think food is one of the central aspects of Basque culture.

Since we love spending time together, gathering, there are some, there's something that is called like, gastronomical societies in here.

Sociedades gastronomicas.

In which, as the weather is not always good here, mainly in the winter, like it's very rainy and windy and cold.

People need a place to gather and houses are not really big here.

Like, because they're like, mainly flats.

So people get together in these societies and they become like members of the society.

And then you can go there and everyone cooks food and we get together and it's just a beautiful way of merging with one another, even if the weather is not so good.

But when the weather is beautiful, like today, we love spending time outside.

And food is like the central aspect of these gatherings.

So we love just sharing experiences with other people.

With our families and friends.

Just around the food.

Tinabeth Piña: It's worth noting that these gastronomical societies, also known as txokos, are at the heart of Basque country and are the Basque version of a private dinner club.

They're usually hidden, by invite only, and have been taking place in Basque country for over 150 years.

Mario Luque: Las sociedades gastronómicas son un grupo de personas que se juntan en un local, o en una casa antiguamente se juntaba, para estar entre ellos y hacer algún tipo de celebraciones.

Normalmente suele ser una casa complementada con una cocina profesional no con una cocina homologada de casa.

Entonces eso lo que aporta es al final que se puedan hacer esas recetas tan tradicionales y que llevan tanto tiempo y que están tan ricas de cada zona.

Pues se complementa así y al final sirve para cocinar pues esos productos de temporada, cada localidad tiene sus costumbres, sus culturas y luego las llevan a ese terreno.

Tinabeth Piña: Although the gappers weren’t invited to a dinner at a gastronomical society, they did experience cooking classes together with Chef Luque.

Mario Luque: I think it's very important to them to know how to cook or how to survive in another level.

And it's important to start some ingredients, some recipes.

They can see another, another world.

Arantxa Martinez: Mario, he is very passionate about food and we try to work with teachers and leaders who are passionate about what they're teaching, because we think that that has a very big impact in the way that they teach and they transmit.

Tinabeth Piña: Over the course of several classes, Chef Luque taught the gappers how to prepare a variety of Basque dishes.

Alex Dee: It is an honor, I guess, to have, yeah.

Someone that's so good at what they do teaching, yeah.

Spending his time to teach you how to do, that’s something typical of this region.

So yeah, it was very fun.

I mean, I think it's useful to be able to cook for yourself.

Yeah.

I want to cook well for myself and be able to have friends around for dinner and be able to cook, cook well.

Keara Booth: It's amazing.

I've never cooked alongside a Michelin star chef, let alone such an accomplished chef in general.

My parents cook, but not their food's very good, but it's not Michelin star worthy.

And while I've been to very good restaurants, cooking alongside chefs like that, I mean, it's a, it's a whole different level.

It's really cool.

I have a catalog currently.

I'm putting them in my notes app.

I'm screen recording what we're making so I can hopefully bring all of these recipes home and try my best to replicate them.

But I feel like through the way that this class was taught, I'm gonna be able to replicate it fairly simply.

Tinabeth Piña: Chef Luque even dedicated one of his classes to teach the gappers how to make the region's traditional dessert, goxua, which means delicious or sweet in the Basque language.

And it's a mixture of pastry, cream, and sponge cake and the layer of caramelized custard.

Mario Luque: This dessert is a typical dessert from here, from Vitoria.

And it's because it's the most important dessert here in Vitoria, and also one of the most important in the Basque country, the goxua.

And now the restaurant where I am, was the first who sells the goxua here in Vitoria to all the world.

So that's why I picked this dessert.

Tabitha Vanderhorst: It was really special, especially because it's something that is only in a few restaurants and that he specializes in.

So it's really cool to see firsthand how to make something that we're probably not gonna like, experience somewhere else.

That was really cool.

Although like flavors and things are super different here, so it's fun to be able to experience that as part of the culture immersion year.

And I can't wait to go back home and like, cook some of the things for my friends that I've been learning since I've been here.

And I'm excited to take my skills home with me and just like, experience that even more, especially going into school next year.

Tinabeth Piña: The cooking classes also offered one extra added bonus.

Arantxa Martinez: When they are cooking, they are using that food vocab that they have learned at school, but they are perfecting it and improving it because they're learning new verbs related to food as well.

>> La crema?

>> Crema y bizcocho?

>> Si...Crema pastelera?

>> Si.

Irene Moreno: Yeah, I mean, they are following instructions in Spanish, which there is this theory of the comprehensible input is like when you get this input, when you are doing something without realizing it, it gets, you know, like to get more confidence to understand the language and to follow some steps.

So in a way, they are acquiring the language without even realizing it.

Keara Booth: It's really interesting.

Before coming here, I struggled to learn about the names for utensils and, and now I know them by heart.

Cuchara.

Cuchillo.

Tenedor.

And many others.

And it's also interesting because even in the kitchen as any other type of human interaction and communication, a lot of it is inherent.

And even if people haven't known much about cooking or they don't speak very much English, or Spanish, excuse me.

It's easy to pick up when you're on the go cooking in a group.

So it's cool.

Kate Grabowski: I've been able to practice more like, cooking and kitchen and food words, which is really good.

So I can like, ask my host family, like, or I can talk about the food to my host family.

Tinabeth Piña: Although in the end, the gappers didn't experience a Basque gastronomical society per se, they did experience their own food culture through their cooking classes.

Keara Booth: I really love cooking and initially when I applied for this program, I didn't know that it was so inherent to what we would be doing here.

But in all of our home stays we've been cooking and I just really enjoy it.

Cooking, learning how people are in the kitchen together, and then having a sit down meal together is just, it's really nice.

It's a good bonding experience over good food.

And it does play into the nightlife here.

Into family life too.

So one of the ways that I've connected with my homestay families.

And as we've connected here altogether, so it's been great Tinabeth Piña: Since this episode is about food culture the Basque city of Donostia, also known as San Sebastián, is a gastronomic paradise and is recognized as the best food destination in the world with more Michelin starred restaurants per capita than anywhere else.

It's also the place where we met our gappers who were dining on pinchos, small bar snacks that are often skewered and served on bread.

San Sebastián is one of the best places known for pinchos in Basque country, and we were lucky enough to try them.

Kate Grabowski: Favorite was definitely the calamari.

It was delicious.

Some of the foods are interesting but they're all pretty good.

Bradley Traeger: I think it was very like, I don't know, very local.

Like, it seemed like everybody just didn't really care about their personal space and everyone was like right on top of each other, eating, drinking, and the food was like, insane.

That calamari with the white sauce on it was probably the best calamari I've ever had, I would say.

This is really new for me.

The place that we're at at the moment.

This is definitely a pretty high palate level of taste for me.

And like, trying the new combinations of like the duck and the peach and everything was really interesting.

Tinabeth Piña: So what exactly are pinchos?

Bea Azurmendi, the gappers guide through San Sebastián gave us the lowdown.

Bea Azurmendi: It's called pincho because of the- I don't know how to say it.

Like it's the little, the toothpick?

Yeah, the toothpick.

That you have inside the food.

That's the pincho.

It's like literally a pincho.

So that's why it's called like, that.

In the rest of Spain you have like tapas, which are also like, little like dishes of food, but it's not like, so, like, so representative of the culture.

In the Basque country it is really, really representative.

But we like the variety of having just a little bit of something and you can try so many different things in the same day or the same experience.

It's not like you just have a big dish of something.

It's like you have a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

And you can try different, different things.

And it's also easier to take out from restaurants because as you have the bread and the, like, the pincho itself.

You can take it out and you can be in the streets with people.

And I think it's part of that culture.

Like standing up and eating while you're standing up and having conversations with everyone.

It's not like this formal way of eating.

Like sitting down with a dish and you have to stay there.

It's like you merge with everyone.

You, yeah, we like that here.

Something that you should experience.

You come here, you eat your pincho with your wine or the drink that you prefer.

You merge with the people.

You just talk to the people, because they will be open to talking to you.

And yeah, just experience it because it's a really good experience, in my opinion.

Keara Booth: Part of Spain’s culture and nightlife is quintessentially tapas and pinchos are so unique to the Basque country in general.

So it's been really entertaining and delicious to figure out like, the different foods that are very typical to each region that we visit.

So I've really been enjoying it.

Tabitha Vanderhorst: I love the comparison in the north and the Basque of like pinchos to tapas and getting to experience both of them.

I think it just shows how like, diverse it is here and how like, culture just plays into everything.

And how, I think it's really cool that Spain in general just has so many different cultures in one country.

Alex Dee: It's something that's quite unique to Spain, having like little portions of food.

Like tapas and pinchos.

I mean there's definitely the social element to food and I think that's yeah, one of the main reasons why pincho are how they are.

Tinabeth Piña: But where does the food for these pinchos or any Basque meal come from?

It starts in farms who sell their meat and produce at local markets to pincho serving restaurateurs as well as the rest of the community.

Kevin Terry: What our mission is, is to provide ecological vegetables and fruits to the local area.

And the market is a pillar of that example.

All the farmers coming together of the region and sort of being a bastion for ecological farming.

And a lot of times the people in the city can't go out to the farm.

So the farm comes to them.

Arantxa Martinez: We want to show them where local people shop.

Each neighborhood has mercado and it's, you know, common to go with your small trolley or your own bags to the different stalls.

So the fish mongers, the fruit shop, the butchers, all the different stalls to buy your groceries, and that's weekly.

That is something that we think is very valuable to learn for our young adults as well.

So they go to the baserritarras and they see the ecological market.

[people talking over one another] Keara Booth: Today when we visited the ecological market, as I've been to other markets in the past, I hadn't looked at the products and been, oh, this is how they made this.

Oh, this is where it came from.

But today I was like, oh, they actually like, picked this from a tree.

Or they actually like reaped the honey from the honeycomb, because they keep bees.

It's just really cool to be able to learn about that.

And then when I see things that I've seen before, now I kind of have something in my memory about, oh, that's that.

[people talking over one another] Tinabeth Piña: Of course you need a drink to wash down all that delicious food.

And the gappers found some right here in La Riojo region, the capital of wine country and Espania.

Arantxa Martinez: It is important for them to see how much wine affects the region in terms of import and export, and employability, because the region is full of wineries; big, medium, small, and many, many families have wine of their own.

So they'll be part of a cooperative or indeed make their own wine at home as well.

Tinabeth Piña: La Rioja, Spain has over 500 wineries and is internationally famous for the quality of its wines and is on par with other great wine producing regions of the world like Bordeaux or Burgundy in France, or Barolo in Northern Italy.

The region produces more than 300 million bottles annually and exports to over 120 countries.

The gappers had a chance to visit the Solabal Winery and learn how they make their wine.

Ricardo Bengoa: Bienvenidos a Solabal.

Solabal es una bodega que se fundó en el 1988.

Es importante para nosotros dar a conocer este proceso porque no es muy normal que se haga este tipo de elaboración.

Entonces claro nuestro vino joven está basado en este tipo de elaboración.

Por eso, para nosotros es importante que cuanta más gente lo conozca mejor.

Pero bueno, cuando hay visitas tampoco nos podemos meter en explicar muy técnicamente las cosas porque supongo que para ellos no sería agradable.

Entonces nos centramos pues en lo más común, lo más importante.

Pero sí que sería bueno el dedicarle más tiempo y dar más información.

Tinabeth Piña: The gappers absorbed quite a bit of information from Ricardo and his team when it comes to wine making, and were not only interested in what they had to say, but also enjoyed walking around the vineyards and seeing where the grapes that create the wine are grown.

The entire experience was one that not only left the gappers with a great deal of knowledge about the cultivation of wine in Rioja, but also gave Ricardo and his team at Solabal, the satisfaction of knowing that what they said and showed the gappers made an impression upon them.

Ricardo Bengoa: Hombre cuando hay gente interesada en el vino, para mí vamos es una gran satisfacción.

Hay gente de todo - gente que está interesada y gente que no - pero cada uno de nosotros tenemos a todo el mundo que dar información y que procurar que la gente joven sepa de vino porque claro el vino para nosotros es importantísimo y forma parte de nuestra cultura - y cuanto más se extienda mejor.

Kate Grabowski: I thought it was really interesting.

It's cool that a lot, a lot of chemistry and how they make the wine, it's a really interesting process.

I thought it was nice and like how they like, used to step on it and they still do step on it, which was cool.

Keara Booth: I thought it was really awesome.

I've done wine tours before, but I've never gone really in depth about the process or seen the barrels.

It's just amazing to be here, to be able to learn about the process, especially since wine is so integral to this region, but Spain in general.

Bradley Traeger: The winery itself, especially with all the barrels, was so cool.

I've never seen that much wine in my entire life, and I probably won't ever again, because I was, I mean, it was like, totally endlessly expansive.

Every hallway I looked down, it was just barrel, barrel, barrel, barrel, barrel.

It's really cool.

Tinabeth Piña: Did you walk away with any piece of knowledge that you didn't have before?

Bradley Traeger: Yeah.

The process of how they extract the four different kinds of wine from the same grape.

They have like the, I forgot the terminology for it, but it was that long phrase that involved like the first layer that comes out without any stomping, the yolk, and then like so on and so forth.

And it becomes like, more heavy and rich and acidic as you take more layers out, which is really cool.

Alex Dee: Yeah, I really liked it.

I'm not massively into wine, but it was, it was good to see around how it was made, I thought.

I found it really interesting, kind of like the kind of chemistry behind how wine is made.

And then it was also, it was also nice to try the two different types of wine.

Tinabeth Piña: So what did you take from the wine tour?

You had a lot of questions and good ones.

Tabitha Vanderhorst: Yeah.

Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot.

I have experience with some wineries at home and just like throughout my childhood with my parents being winemakers, so it was really interesting to see it from a different process and a different perspective and a different winery and being able to compare and contrast the two and understand the differences of like carbonic maceration and how they make it here and the different types, because it's not something we did back home.

So it was really interesting for me to see.

♪ [melodic guitar music] ♪ [glasses clinking] Tinabeth Piña: Something else that was interesting for the gappers to see and taste was all sorts of Basque food at the San Prudencio Festival, Vitoria’s annual celebration of the Patron Saint of Alava.

It's a day filled with food and tradition.

[bells ringing] ♪ [flute music playing] ♪ Arantxa Martinez: San Prudencio is a very big day here.

He's our patron saint in Vitoria and it's a bank holiday.

It's a local holiday where we don't go to work and we go celebrate in Armentia.

All the locals head to the campus of Armentia, which is a big green area beside the, beside the little church, and those who have Catholic faith do their offerings and go to mass.

Those who don't, and those who do enjoy the festivities, which involve a lot of Basque culture again.

So there are stalls all over with talos, which is corn tortillas, which is txorizo, which is type of chorizo.

And there's sweets for the kids.

There's shaped balloons for the kids.

Basque dances.

And we love Basque sports, because you can see a competition of tree trunk log chopping and jasotzaileak, which are the very strong people who lift very heavy stones and it's something very different for those who are not local, for sure.

Tinabeth Piña: And what's interesting is, again, the theme of food, very important.

Arantxa Martinez: Yes.

Tinabeth Piña: The theme of culture, very important.

It all seems to be tied into that festival.

Arantxa Martinez: Yes.

San Prudencio is all about perretxikos, which is a local type of wild mushroom and caracoles, which are snails.

Not for everybody, but the sauce is really, really nice.

[laughing] Keara Booth: It's so interesting.

This is my first time at an international festival, especially one that's so integral to their culture.

It's really cool to identify the differences and similarities to the festivals back home and also interact with the vendors too.

Tabitha Vanderhorst: I think it's awesome.

It's so cool how this whole like, town and culture comes together to have a day to celebrate together and enjoy traditional sports and dance and food, and it's really special.

Bradley Traeger: And I live in a big city, you know?

But our gatherings aren't like this.

This is just so everyone has their little blankets, their picnics, their cider.

It's awesome.

We just ate talo.

Incredible.

I ate it with the tortilla and sauce.

It's so good.

The pastries are so beautiful.

I've never seen such intricate croissant rolls in my entire life.

Kids: We love San Prucencio!

Man: Hola!

Man: Viva San Prucencio!

Tinabeth Piña: Now that was deliso, wasn't it?

And I can't believe how varied and mouth watering the cuisine is here.

And if you like this episode, stick around for the next one where the gappers learn about how serious those Basquers are about sustainability and why Vitoria is a leading global Green City.

Until then, agur.

And I heard you saying before, what's the most important ingredient in all of your recipes?

Chef Luque: The most important ingredient always is the love.

Bradley Traeger: We all get to have this new experience of like this kind of interesting food.

And it might seem a little daunting, but if everyone else is eating it, I'm gonna try it.

Kate Grabowski: I don't usually like asparagus, but it was really good.

And then it tasted really good.

Tinabeth Piña: Why is it that you like this one today compared to the one you don't like back home?

Kate Grabowski: Oh, I don't know.

It's just cooked a certain way.

Tinabeth Piña: For more information about studying abroad in Spain or any part of the world, check out GlobeScholarsTV.com for useful information, web only education abroad videos, scholarship information, travel reviews, and helpful travel minute videos, specifically about Spain.

Make sure you check it out.