There will be corn

The Basque country is not amenable to large-scale farming; it's too hilly. So, the Basques fished. Once you have a decent boat (the Basques were good at building boats), the limiting reagent in fishing is good food preservation -- you can only fish as long/as far as your food supply doesn't rot. The Vikings preserved fish by drying it -- it works, but Viking-style dried fish is pretty terrible. The Basques figured out that if you salt it first, you can save your fish and eat it, too. Bacalao (salt cod) is on basically every menu here. I don't love fish, but the Basques have learned to do good things with it.

On their long cod-fueled fishing trips, the Basques may or may not have made it to the New World before Christopher Columbus did. ("Oh, everyone knows we were there first," a Basque told me. "We just don't make a big deal about it. Columbus can have the holiday.") They had the boats to get there, and they fished in that general direction, and if they had discovered a whole new world they probably wouldn't have told anyone because apparently fishermen don't talk about stuff like that. Anyway, pre-1492 or not, the Basques did make it to America, and they brought back food. Like hot peppers -- except that when you grow hot peppers in this part of the world they don't turn out hot. Still, the little tiny bit of spice that they do have is spicier than anything you're likely to find in Spain. And while canned corn can be found in ensaladas mixtas (ew) all over Spain, only the Basques do anything good with corn. They make these things called talos that are basically fried corn cakes filled with things like cheese or chorizo. They're good. The first time I tried one I made the mistake of asking whether talos are Basque or Mexican, and I got something like a Basque look of death in response. Oops.

And, in case you're somehow still not sold on my claims of Basque greatness, the Basques were largely responsible for bringing chocolate to Europe.

PS. Can we replace Columbus Day with Basque Day, pleeeeaaaasssse?? We could wear scarves and berets and drink in the streets and it would be so much fun and I bet it would make the Native Americans a little happier. Plus, watching TV coverage of the Bilbao fiestas reminded me that sometimes during Basque parades people carry sticks with sponge-y things attached and use them to hit little kids. God, I love it here.