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<\/p>\nThis article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is food for the soul, not the body\u201d says Pili Ramos, owner of Los Pomares, a neighbourhood restaurant and cider house in the coastal city of Gij\u00f3n. We\u2019re sitting among crowded pavement tables, the scent of cider misting the air as her brother Jorge lifts a bottle at arm\u2019s length above his head to pour sweet-sharp amber fluid into a glass. \u201cHe\u2019s a cider-pouring champion,\u201d says Pili. Cider is somewhat of a religion here; Asturias produces 40 million bottles a year.<\/p>\n
The northwesterly province on Spain\u2019s lush green Costa Verde is a rural region revered for its slow-food practices and hearty cuisine. And its culinary excellence is led by a special group of women. Pili, wearing a white chef\u2019s jacket emblazoned with the logo Club de Guisanderas, is one of these gastronomic guardians.<\/p>\n
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Seafood and cider go hand in hand at Los Pomares, the restaurant run by guisandera and chef Pili Ramos.<\/p>\n
Photographs by Anna Huix<\/p>\n
Set up nearly 30 years ago, the club comprises 40 female cooks who promote and preserve local cuisine, its name derived from the word guiso (stew). Originally, every village would have had a guisandera, likely an older woman who knew how to make the dishes key to Asturian food tradition, and would be called upon for celebrations or to soothe the sick. Their once-dwindling numbers have been revived by the club. \u201cI get excited by guisos,\u201d says Pili. \u201cI grew up surrounded by women and the recipes come from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone seems to know Pili. The neighbour across the street who\u2019s opened her window from two floors up converses with her. Pili\u2019s unflappable, eyes on the kitchen \u2014 who are working flat out \u2014\u00a0while chatting amiably.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want more cider?\u201d she asks me, as dishes start to arrive at my table. This being a port city, plates include plenty of fish: a large tuna salad and fresh grilled sardines with glimmering charred skin, followed by generous pieces of hake drizzled with olive oil. \u201cYou haven\u2019t eaten anything,\u201d exclaims Pili as I look, wide-eyed, to my near-empty plates. \u201cI\u2019ll just give you one more small thing.\u201d And so arrives tender, slow-cooked ox cheeks in gravy accompanied by creamed potato. Small and light it\u2019s not, but it\u2019s lovingly cooked and irresistible. \u201cFood that gives you feeling is what we do,\u201d Pili continues, \u201clike a warm hug.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Berry growing has a long tradition in Asturias, where El Mala\u00edn farm makes exemplary berry ice creams.<\/p>\n
Photograph by Anna Huix<\/p>\n
Full of beans<\/p>\n
Asturias is a land carved by coal mining, forged by steel making and sustained by fishing and farming. My route just inland to the village of Villay\u00f3n cuts through luscious patchworks of green hills and valleys specked with cattle. I\u2019m on the lookout for El Torneiro, a restaurant owned and run by Mirta Rodr\u00edguez, the newest member of the Club de Guisanderas. She welcomes me with a wide smile and tells me to take a seat at the bar so we can chat while she keeps an eye on the kitchen. \u201cHere\u2019s something to snack on,\u201d she says, handing me a family-sized portion of empanada with ox meat and red peppers. \u201cWe slow cook the ox for three to four hours,\u201d Mirta continues, while pouring me a chilled white wine from the nearby Atlantic breeze-buffeted mountains of Cangas. The pastry is crisp and crumbly and the meat divinely tender, perfect with the minerally wine.<\/p>\n
We move to the dining room where a few couples are already feasting on giant pote, the most esteemed of Asturian stews. I\u2019m full, but I know that the pote is imminent and Mirta soon appears with it as if carrying a crown \u2014 fitting for one of the jewels of Asturian cooking. The lid comes off with the flair of a magician\u2019s \u2018ta-da\u2019 and the scent of rich meaty broth rushes towards me. Inside is a slow-cooked stew of potatoes, large white, buttery Asturian beans, meat and rich broth. Depending on your taste \u2014 or your grandmother\u2019s recipe \u2014 you might add cabbage or other vegetables. In this one, Mirta tells me, are navizas \u2014 turnip greens. The accompanying plate contains the meat that\u2019s been slow cooking in stew for hours: chorizo, black pudding, pork belly and crispy pig\u2019s ear.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m in stew heaven and begin to understand why this dish is so cherished. Torneiro means wood turner or carpenter, a nod to the restaurant\u2019s former occupants. Mirta tells me that one of the jobs of the torneiro was to make madre\u00f1as, clogs that were carved from a single piece of wood and worn as an overshoe. I can imagine pote was a nourishing meal after a day of cattle rearing or wood turning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a recipe from my village,\u201d Mirta adds, nodding to the stew. She\u2019s had no formal training and tells me that being recently bestowed the title of guisandera is a true honour. \u201cMy food is slow food but good food, tradition mixed with a bit of evolution.\u201d It\u2019s also satisfyingly snooze-inducing, but I\u2019ve a lot more to explore. Mirta suggests that I might want to stop at the waterfalls nearby or venture on a hike in the countryside \u2014 the perfect terrain to work off a rib-sticking stew.<\/p>\n
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The wines at Bodega Monasterio de Corias are much preferred locally to cider.<\/p>\n
Photograph by Anna Huix<\/p>\n
Taken with the wine Mirta served me, I instead head to Corias, a tiny village on the Narcea River an hour south. The neat slopes woven with vines rake down to a fortress-like building on the valley floor. The Abbey of San Juan Bautista de Corias, a former Benedictine monastery, was restored as a plush hotel in 2013. The winery next door takes its name and I\u2019m met here by oenologist Andrea Gonz\u00e1lez, for a stroll around the vineyards.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlbar\u00edn Blanco, Verdejo Negro, Carrasqu\u00edn\u2026\u201d Andrea nods at the varietals that proliferate on these sunny slopes. \u201cThis area has always been more into wine than cider.\u201d In the tasting room, Corias Guilfa Albar\u00edn Blanco catches my palate\u2019s attention with its notes of citrus and tropical fruit. But there\u2019s something else \u2014 a toasty, nutty flavour that I can\u2019t place. Andrea helps me out. \u201cThe wine is matured in barrels made from Asturian chestnut trees. It gives something different.\u201d I\u2019m sold, and stock up on a bottle from the shop downstairs. \u201cThis is the only place in Asturias that grows grapes and some of our vines are over 100 years old. That\u2019s what makes our wines so special,\u201d Andrea adds.<\/p>\n
Family and fabada<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recently celebrated our 100th anniversary,\u201d says Blanca Men\u00e9ndez at Casa Lula in Tineo, a town deep in the countryside half-an-hour north of Corias. Blanca is a guisandera, as is her mum, Mayte \u00c1lvarez, who\u2019s sitting next to her nodding approvingly. \u201cWe once had 600 guests, so I put a message on the guisanderas\u2019 WhatsApp group asking if anyone could help,\u201d Blanca continues. \u201cIn minutes, 12 volunteers were at the door ready to cook. That\u2019s how we are, the guisanderas, we help each other.\u201d Similar stories come at a gunfire rate in a verbal tennis match between mother and daughter. Blanca never planned to be a cook, but with her great-grandparents opening the restaurant and it being handed down, it was sort of destined. \u201cRight!\u201d she declares, calling a hiatus to the back story. \u201cYou must be starving.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Guisanderas Mayte \u00c1lvarez and Blanca Men\u00e9ndez are the mother-daughter duo behind Casa Lula, where visitors can taste the best of local cooking such as hake stew with potatoes and garlic.<\/p>\n
Photographs by Anna Huix<\/p>\n
I\u2019m served slices of homemade chorizo, chosco (tongue sausage) and fabada \u2014 a classic in the pantheon of Asturian bean stews. This is followed by mince beef-filled cabbage rolls and a rice pudding that sings of Tineo\u2019s pastures. Such food has had something of a meteoric rise since the club was formed in 1997. Travelling to food shows, it\u2019s won prizes including the silver Medal of Asturias. Today, top-rated chefs laud this cooking, but as Blanca says, wryly: \u201cYou couldn\u2019t bring a chef into these kitchens. Everything they do is too measured and precise. We cook by eye and hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next, I head 75 miles east to the upmarket seaside town of Lastres. At its heart for the last 61 years has been Casa Eutimio. Current owner Maria Busta Rosales is also the head chef and a second-generation guisandera. I walk past a small deli at the entrance selling tinned fish. \u201cThey\u2019re ours,\u201d she says enthusiastically. \u201cCome and see.\u201d Her energy is infectious, and she introduces me to her mum Aida Rosales Cambiella, a retired guisandera. Downstairs, in a tiny canning room, we meet Gonzalo Cand\u00e1s, a man with the calm of a Buddhist monk who shows me how to fillet and clean anchovies that have been salting for four years. \u201cIt gives more umami,\u201d says Maria, of the lengthy process. \u201cPeople don\u2019t realise how long artisanal products take.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Casa de las Conchas was made using sea shells and is a famous destination in Tazones for it striking architecture and excellent seafood.<\/p>\n
Photograph by Anna Huix<\/p>\n
Upstairs, the modern dining room has glimpses of the Cantabrian Sea. Maria serves deep savoury clam stew, firm preserved mackerel in escabeche (marinade), and hake with creamy black rice, as Aida tells me that the restaurant has been a generational labour of love. \u201cI don\u2019t think we had a day off for the first 10 years,\u201d she says of her and her husband, who founded the restaurant.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a similar story in the nearby port of Luarca. \u201cHe always went to get the fish,\u201d says Carmen del Riego Crespo of her husband, Alberto, with whom she founded and ran her former restaurant, Villa Blanca, for 55 years. The retired cook passed on the business to an employee some years ago, but the couple are still much-loved regulars and the menu and decor remain largely unchanged \u2014 the dining room rich with eclectic decor including bronze head busts, a wooden cart and an intricately latticed wooden confessional booth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of mine,\u201d says Carmen, hair lacquered to perfection. She points to my plate of asparagus filled with sea urchin, breaded and fried. \u201cMost of the dishes I learned from my mother, grandmother and mother-in-law, but this one is my own creation,\u201d she says proudly. I take in the burst of savoury flavour, the zing of the sea and the crunch of breadcrumbs, and ask Carmen about the guisanderas. \u201cEven though I\u2019ve retired, I still get involved in the club, \u201c she says. \u201cBecause once you become a guisandera, you are one for life.\u201d<\/p>\n
How to do itTrailfinders<\/a> offers seven days in northern Spain from \u00a31,439 including six nights\u2019 hotel accommodation, car hire, two food tours and flights.<\/p>\n Getting there & around When to go Where to stay
Vueling<\/a> offers direct flights between Gatwick and Oviedo in Asturias.
Average flight time: 2h.
A car is required to explore the region.<\/p>\n
From late spring to early autumn Asturias is warm but not hot, generally ranging from 18C to 27C. Winter can be cold, wet and even snowy.<\/p>\n
Parador de Corias<\/a>. Doubles from \u20ac130 (\u00a3112), B&B.<\/p>\n