The clock strikes 11 on a breezy Tuesday morning, marking the start of another busy lunch shift at Ansots, a Basque restaurant in Boise, Idaho. The spot is a cornerstone of the local Basque immigrant community.
As soon as the doors open, crowds shuffle inside to grab a coffee and a house-baked pastry to-go, or to take a seat and fill their table with small plates of croquetas, Spanish olives with anchovies. The restaurant’s prized chorizo hangs in a refrigerated case next to a row of tables, a reminder to diners as to why they’re likely there: the traditional dried sausages.
Dan Ansotegui, the 66-year-old proprietor, comes by each table to greet regulars who stop by for a quick bite or to spend a few hours lingering over a glass of Rioja. Ansotegui’s chorizo is the smoky emblem of his lifelong mission to preserve the culinary traditions of the Basque Country in the American West.
The Basque people hail from a region that encompasses northern Spain and southwestern France. The American diaspora dates more than a century, as people came to find work in sheepherding. Ansotegui’s grandfather, Santiago, arrived for this reason, taking work as a sheep ranch foreman in Nampa, Idaho…