Navelgas (Asturias), Manuel Barreiros, about 80 years old, with a reserved and hieratic character, perched on the roof of what was an authentic cowboy cabin, observes the picturesque landscape of the mountains of western Asturias. There are still reminiscences of what the fires were like the previous year, but which, miraculously, did not affect what was his ancestors' farm. “My grandmother was born in this cabin. Josefa” comments when getting off the roof. He proudly narrates that cattle lived in the same space as people. Just above where these cattle were located, in an attic, the different members of the family slept to take advantage of the heat given off by the animals on the lower floor.
On the other side, close to the wall, was the oven or oven, where they cooked and the backbone of vaqueira home life. The kitchens or tsariegas They were very similar in all the cabins. A well or small hole, where the fire was made or llar from which they hung from Gamayeras —chains anchored to a tripod or ceiling—, the pots in which the various dishes of Vaqueira gastronomy were cooked, such as figüelascousin sister of filloas of Galician blood; he cuetxo, creamy dessert made with milk, wheat flour, butter and sugar; the polished, subsistence brewing, where the water is fattened with corn flour and salt; or the groupa dish of pure use made with remains of the pot – stew made with cabbages, slaughtered meats, beans and potatoes – fattened with flour and topped with bacon.
Around this fire, the wealthiest had seats or benches, where the older ones sat, with the younger ones relegated to stools or the floor. Long before the birth of cultural anthropology, Jovellanos defined the cowboys elevation as follows: “They are called cowboys, because they commonly live by raising cattle; and elevation, because their seat is not fixed, but they raise their dwelling and residence, and migrate annually with their families and livestock to the high mountains.” Beyond any definition, the cowboys of elevation have been branded in different ways. It is said that they were defenestrated by the Franco regime, repudiated by the Church and envied by the xaldos —sedentary inhabitants of the valley. It is true that they enjoyed a semi-freedom and isolation, imposed by their endogamous and transhumant lifestyle, passed down from generation to generation.
They lived in brañas – a group of pastures and cabins in mountainous areas – located mainly in the western area of Asturias and the northern mountains of León. In winter, the cowboys of elevation they lived in areas closer to the coast of Luarca and with the arrival of spring, they moved with the cattle to the highest brañas, the most famous being Carlangas or Brañaseca.
“Tell me, vaqueirina new, what do you eat in your village? As polished with milk, good group with the curd.” This is one of the few verses that refer to food cowgirl, since most of them talk about customs. Paulino Lorences, cowboy and art collector, he is an expert in gastronomy cowgirl and is part of the organization of The Vaqueirada, celebrated on the last Sunday of July, in the Aristébano braña. For Lorences this was a subsistence gastronomy, but in which there was no room for hunger, since according to the verses of which he is aware, none of them refer to famines or fame as they say in Asturias.
Today, the recipe book cowboy It is almost extinct, but there are still a few restaurants that continue to claim this ancestral cuisine. Very humble gastronomy, with no more than five ingredients. A laconic but intense recipe book, with a very high caloric intake, logically, where its main pantry was milk, corn, cabbage, pork and potatoes.
!['Rapavaqueira' dish.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/XhrlwLiI3rnzjzwR1IZEFWp98mg=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/FDBSQQSZSFCDVADETN5QQB65RM.jpg)
At this time of year, the road that connects Cangas del Narcea with Leitariegos is an experience in itself. The colors of the green meadow merge with the dull colors of winter that give way, as we gain altitude, to the snowy landscape of the mountains. First thing in the morning, in El Puerto, Héctor Cosmen, chef and owner of the Leitariegos restaurant since 2019, serves the first customers who stop by his restaurant.
In the kitchen, Carmen Martínez, Héctor Cosmen's mother, prepares some cowboy frixuelos. “It's all about practice, back in the day we bought a churrera to make them, but nothing like when they are made by hand” With marvelous skill, Carmen Martínez uses a small saucepan to take the dough made of flour, eggs, milk and a pinch of salt and Pour it in circles on a frying pan with hot oil. She lets it fry until it takes color and turns it over, making a pile on a plate of about ten or twelve. frixuelos. Although in the original recipe it was fried with lard, today for convenience it is made with olive oil. Hector Cosmen defends its commitment to local products and its pot won the award for best Asturian Pot in 2022, its secret: the falmega —salted beef ribs—, and Fabes pint or cinnamon bean.
!['Frixuelo' from the Leitariegos restaurant, in Asturias.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/d5T3eOI5_tzz7R2h5ekUjcLNrqM=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/ROBIO2YGKVAOJNDFDSPSBW2WMQ.jpg)
50 minutes from Leitariegos, in Pola de Allande, is La Allandesa, a traditional establishment with more than 60 years of history. Its entrance, full of dedications from illustrious figures such as Severo Ochoa, leads to a dining room with high ceilings and opulent moldings. Geli Laceda, Allandesa's stew maker, prepares some Natas—dessert from the cowboy recipe book. The cream is brought to them in five-liter jugs from the Tineo butter churn, which is whipped with sugar until it has an almost butter consistency. The original recipe, completely extinct due to Health regulations, consisted of curdled milk, in which the cream was separated from the rest by decanting and lightly beaten with a little sugar. The pot is another of the mainstays of La Allandesa cuisine. “I only trust Josefina to make the pot,” Geli Laceda says with a laugh, commenting that the trick is in the chosco, the cabbage, the slow heat and the faba pinta.
On the Allandesa menu, there is also room for Tineo chosco, currently with PGI, and composed of 80% loin head and 20% tongue, without a doubt one of the most interesting and unknown sausages from the north of Spain. On the way between the torto and a mass of borona, there is the rapa cowgirl. Tierra Astur, beyond being a macro restaurant with two million annual customers and a gastronomy of more is more, has the design of recovering and bringing to a larger audience mainstreamless known elaborations like this rapa cowgirl. Jonathan Lombraña, chef at Tierra Astur, prepares it quickly: a corn and wheat dough, previously cooked in the oven, and finished with minced meat, chorizo and bacon, which, in turn, is baked with the cabbage, since traditionally It was wrapped with this vegetable, leaving its mark on the dough.
In Ca Suso, in Oviedo, Rosa Feito Castro, cowgirl and mother of Iván and Vicente Feito, cooks and owners, sings a verse that goes like this: “I am from the Town of Brañayvente, I live like a president, like potatoes and polished“I like it divinely.” In Ca Suso, the group It becomes an appetizer, where the remains of the pot are crushed, strained and put in a siphon to give it a more modern touch, accompanied by chestnuts. Also, in homage to this culture cowgirlIván Feito cooks a version of the hunterswhere perfectly turned potatoes accompany a reduced broth of trotters and bacon, topped with chorizo.
![Pot from the La Allandesa restaurant, in Pola de Allande (Asturias).](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/p0o_n8bYP-SQ_5HzshH705SAK5I=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/Y4DFKPCSGFBK3CA53YCSRIAKEA.jpg)
Rosa Feito, great connoisseur of the recipe book cowboycomments that the group It comes from the word group, since it was customary to eat among many family members. Despite the efforts of many restaurants, many of the preparations cowboys They are no longer found in the recipe books of homes or restaurants in the Principality. Trends in the field of gastronomy are completely inscrutable paths. What was defenestrated yesterday is exalted today. Among the many trends that are coming to us for 2024, is that of gastronomic devolution or the search for local exoticism, a trend that circumscribes the need to cling to and take root in authentic gastronomy, a subsistence gastronomy that fed many. generations and that he did not understand discourses on sustainability or kilometer zero, but he did understand an empirical pragmatism supported by trial and error of hundreds of years.
Although it may sound antagonistic, chefs are no longer going to be inspired by Southeast Asia and are looking for that spark of inspiration in the most ancient recipe book, at the door of their restaurant. The unexplored gastronomy cowgirlWithout a doubt, it is the great unknown of Asturian gastronomy.
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