The Sheepherder's Ball: Hidden Basque Kitchens

Hidden Kitchens explores the world of Basque sheepherders in the American west and their outdoor, below-the-ground, Dutch oven cooking traditions.  Basques fleeing Franco's Spain and economic hardship there and in France came to America with the promise of work as shepherds, a lonely job few wanted in the US.  Within days of arriving in America these men, with little or no sheepherding background, found themselves alone, with two dogs and a thousand sheep, walking hundreds of miles across the mountains for months on end, in search of food and pasture. Provisions were delivered to the men once a week along the sheepherding trail. They dug a hole in the ground and buried Dutch ovens to bake bread and stew lamb. During winters they crowded into boarding houses in Boise, Bakersfield, Winnemucca, eating at family style tables full of music, leg of lamb and red wine. And once a year, feasted on chorizo and broad bean stew, dancing to the Jota, at the Sheepherder's Ball.