H.D. Miller: Basque-American: The Authentic Cuisine of the Intermountain West.

Basque hotels are where the locals eat, and in the rural west the locals prefer meat, potatoes, beans and dozen old-fashioned, garlicky side dishes, not tapas. This is why the Basque places seem locked in the past, because the people who eat at them are conservative in every sense of the word, ranchers, farmers, miners and the people who make their living servicing those industries.  The Basque sheepherders, despite the barrier of language and religion, fit right in to the culture of the West. After 1876, the Basque most likely to come to America were the losers of the Carlist Wars, the most traditional and conservative elements of Basque society, those who believed in the Church and Basque nationalism, which is why those two institutions flourish in strange, Mormon-sotted places like Idaho.

Basque sheepherders continued to arrive in America right up until the 1960s, when Spain finally emerged from the economic funk brought on by the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s tepid support of the Axis during World War II. At that point, trailing sheep no longer seemed a good option, and the work was given over to newer immigrants from Peru and Boliva. By then, most of the Basquos, second and third generation, had moved up the immigrant ladder, and the Basque hotels closed their upstairs rooms. But downstairs, the dining rooms continued to serve their abundant meals, luxurious with meat and garlic, accompanied by bottomless tureens of soup and more beans then they could imagine in one meal back home.

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