For Easter it was less a chocolate
than a lamb celebration for us and Jean Lasalle provides the best at his farm
near Hasparren. It must have been 40 years ago when this sprightly and handsome
tarbais lad emigrated west to the Basque country and never went home. The Xasi
Ardia or basque “bramble sheep" for centuries wandered the hills and
mountains of our great pyrenean range and supplied delicious milk for cheese,
fine woollen cloth and eventually a bit of mutton for the farmers until
the race was replaced by the more productive, uglier and heavier "manech
tĂȘte rousse" or red-headed John! in the mid 19th century. Once upon a time
these red-headed Johns lived in Asia and were smuggled onto the european
continent by the saracen hordes who left their mark centuries back on this part
of the world and certainly today as these manechs litter the local hills,
supplying their millions of litres of sheeps’ milk so that Ossau-Iraty cheese
can be shipped to the far corners of the planet while the Xasi Ardia are
now a rare breed.
They were even harder to find when
Jean Lasalle moved west but he was a determined young lad and went over the
mountains where the southern basque, more industrialised than their northern
neighbours, worked in the factories during the week days and kept a Xasi Ardia
in the back yard for their own pleasure and table. Jean returned with a couple,
found some communal fields and forest to rent on the top of a mountain and
saved the race.
Of course, we go to visit Jean not
just to admire these lovely ladies with their thick coats of wool, woven into
ringlets and their delicate stick-thin legs, but because Jean makes them into great
food.
Any lush green field will never
satisfy the wild nature of the Xasi Ardia who need a rich thicket of fern
or brambles (hence their name) acorns and wild rose buds to feed on, which
accounts for the exquisite taste of their meat.
You couldn`t call his farm a
restaurant, yet we can reserve in advance, sit around a large farm table while
Jean cooks you up a plate of 22 fluffy egg mimosas between four of us and as
the chickens that laid them peck around our feet, they are devoured in no time.
Our easter eggs are followed by plates of sizzling, grilled-rare lamb cutlets
accompanied by duck fat-fried frites and a simple txakoli wine. Its wrong to
say lamb as these cutlets and any meat that Jean serves, come from a three-year
old sheep that has lived a decently long and very satisfying life but we
call it lamb because it doesn`t taste of mutton. The meat is fine,
delicate and perfumed so why have chocolate!
photos - Jean François
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