Recently I found myself in Reno, Nevada on a solo travel trip.
I have always found solo travel to be incredibly refreshing. A sort of reset, if you will. I had some business to conduct in Reno during the day, and had the evening reserved to enjoy myself. I had high hopes of discovering something special; the sort of culinary experience one stumbles upon without any preconceived notions or plans.
I would not be disappointed.
During the 1800s, immigrants from the Basque region of Spain flocked to the New World and settled in, primarily, the Sierra Nevada mountain range in search of gold, affordable land, and a new beginning. Basque immigration peaked following the Spanish Carlist Wars, and as recently as 2000, the US Census recorded some 60,000 Americans of full or partial Basque descent — people who emigrated from the region in Spain that borders France.
Similar to the Swiss-inspired Turner Halls of the American Midwest, Basque Boarding Houses popped up to accommodate the culture of people looking for a home-away-from-home in an unfamiliar and unforgiving land. This is the context I found myself in as I walked into an historic restaurant called Louis’ Basque Corner one evening in downtown Reno, Nevada.
Louis’ Basque Corner was comfortably lit, with several family-style dining areas available for groups. The walls were finished in dark wood, and adorned with frames that showcased cultural crests to historic photographs, maps, and media clippings. It had the feel of an authentic Irish pub, but with a French-Spanish twist.
Since I was alone, I elected to sit at the bar. A few seats were occupied by solitary patrons, and the dining area was abuzz with a large group celebrating someone’s birthday. On that evening I realized that I had the privilege of stumbling across something authentic, welcoming, and completely wholesome. The high-rise casino/hotels with multi-story banners advertising all ranges of carefully engineered Mc-restaurants will never have anything on places like this.
I ordered the Basque Burger, which is a charbroiled lamb patty served with sautéed onions and garlic paste on a toasted bun, and washed it down with a local lager. I am a sucker for lamb, and I fully subscribe to the broad notion that the cuter the animal, the better it tastes.
The burger was delicious in a way that deserves its own paragraph. The lamb was perfectly juicy and had that gamey zing that was complimented by savory caramelized onions and a smooth garlic paste. I ate the entire thing and actually wanted more. A burger can make you feel bloated and lethargic, but the Basque Burger was satisfying and had no such effect.
By this time I was on beer number two, and had developed something of a rapport with the bartender. I asked if I could infringe upon the kitchen staff to compliment them directly on their craft, and assured my new friend that I had spent just enough time working in food service to at least be able to speak the language. He enthusiastically obliged, and led me to the back of house, where several cooks were laboring on the family-style dishes for the birthday group.
The Head Chef was a bright-eyed young woman who smiled knowingly when I described, in detail much more colorful than I can convey here, that the Basque Burger was the best thing I have ever experienced. And how, on God’s green earth, did they prepare that coma-inducing garlic paste that I could very happily embalm myself in and call it an eternity?
She reciprocated the compliment by proudly showing me the technique for their house-made garlic paste, and even dished me a sample of their braised oxtail — a house specialty. The oxtail was served in a shallow dish with vegetables and broth with a fresh slice of bread so that you can sop up the juices after picking the meat from the bone. It was comforting in the same way that grandma’s pot roast makes the house smell like home.
For dessert I was treated to the house specialty “Picon Punch”, originally invented by a Frenchman in the 1830s as an aperitif, and evolved into punch-form in the Basque boarding houses and Basque-American restaurants. Infused with orange spirit and bitters, Picon Punch was the perfect dessert; not heavy, and not overly sweet. I left Louis’ and walked the short distance to my hotel in the cool desert air, relishing an identical sense of comfort and familiarity one gets when leaving a traditional family holiday dinner.
Admittedly, I knew very little of Basque migration before stumbling upon Louis’, but the story is similar to the migration and relocation of my own ancestors from central Europe to the New World.
Truly, food is a universal language. The more we celebrate the differences in one another, the more we realize how similar we really are.
— Dan Wegmueller is the owner of Wegmueller Farms and his column appears regularly in the Times. His website is https://www.
farmforthought.org.
