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Breckenridge, Colorado’s CM College hosted, last night, an open-to-the-public Basque cuisine class by Chef Ian Buchanan. Twelve students attended −the maximum number of participants allowed− and learnt how to prepare a menu based, mainly, on seafood. “I think the fact that Basque culture is unknown in this area sparked the interest of the people,” said the instructor, in conversation with EuskalKultura.com.

Breckenridge, CO, USA. Basque style seafood stew, sautéed shrimp in garlic sauce, grilled fresh fish with tomato and pepper, and buñuelos for desert –a sort of Basque fritter with seasonal gelato− might be the new menu at any house in the town of Breckenridge, Colorado, after last night’s Basque cuisine class, held at the Colorado Mountain College. “We have between 90 and 100 culinary classes all through the year,” says the chef and instructor Buchanan. “In some of them we teach daily life stuff like how to make pizzas, bread, or vegetarian recipes, for instance, and some others are more ethnic: Indian, Moroccan, Mexican…”

Buchanan has been a chef for 19 years, and has been trained not just in the US, but also in Asia, Africa, Central America, and Europe. “I lived in Cadiz (Spain) for some years and the administrator (of the college) wanted to offer Spanish cuisine classes, and we thought that the Basque region was a very different one, and that’s why we picked it.”

Hands-in classes for everybody

As Buchanan told this bulletin, he has students ranging 17-80, being females between forty and fifty-five the more dominant. They supply attendants with a professional but commercial and fully-equipped kitchen, to be able to prepare everything themselves. The fee for attending the Basque culinary class was $44.

Ian Buchanan’s personal website
Ian Buchanan featured at the Wall Street Journal