Gastronomy in the Pilgrimage of Our Mrs. of the Guadalupe (1º Sunday of September)

On first Sunday of September is celebrated the gastronomic pie of corn in A Pobra do Caramiñal , mainland of Barbanza with old paths that they remember the step of our ancestors who they left a deep print in our feelings and our gastronomy. District that keeps the best recipes about old house and farm that belonged to nobles and farmer. Where the pie was the most popular food from farmer and sailors, therefore, the ingredients of this dish are a mixture of products the field and the sea.
The specialty which surrender homage in this small place Casás , beside the Chapel of The Guadalupe, is the pie of corn with the particularity that is elaborated by the women from the village and as it was made in last century with ingredients characteristic of the area; corn, rye, onion of own crop and the cockles of the Ria of Arousa, without forgetting the bake in stone oven. That same day we will also able to taste of a great sardines and mussels with baked potatoes, bread of corn and wine of the country , all this accompanied by the performance the groups of music. 

The Pie 

There are pies of earth, sea and air but they always complete the fuction of having in a single piece stew and bread. After some years in decadence, they return with force , surely the biggest Galician gastronomic, together with the Lacón with Grelos and Broth.
I remember when I was a child, they used to prepare me the filler of the pies at home who took charge either my grandmother or my own mother, later stretched the mass, they tossed the filler and they covered with another layer of mass either corn or wheat and they cooked it in the stone oven.
Nowadays, Usually the pies are buy made, each day more ovens make goods copies. My preferences go for the Xoubas ( small sardines) , mussels, cod with raisins, and Raxo ( meat of pork), without forgetting the pies of tuna , one of the most popular, at least outside of Galicia, and , of course, pies of apple an melon after dinner.
During a lot of time the pies was synonymous of party, today is still one of the strong dish of many Galician Pilgrimages, there are not restaurants that don't have among their dish some pies specialty.
The mass admits many variations, not so many as the filler, but many: wheat, with or without ferment, corn, rye…Personally, I prefer that the mass is fine and dry, because a pie should not be greasy.
It is said many times that Galician, in front of any strange animal the first thinking is: if it will be eatable and the second: how it will be the pie?

The Oven and the Batch

I remember when I was a little child, the chin reached me to the height of the oven and from there everything it seemed enormous. Every morning, when I got up I went to the kitchen. My grandfather Emilio and my Grandmother Serafina used to sit down in a bank with two cups of milk.
Do you want to have breakfast? My grandmother asked to me.
With the eyes in the oven I look at it as she filled a great cup with milk , I opened the door and I took out a piece of bread of corn , how dark was the oven!, it will be very long? What will there be up? May be it reaches to the attic, I thought, in that moment the grandmother put a cup of milk above the trough.
Come on to eat everything! I liked to see my grandmother knead in the trough, when she finished I went up running to the attic to know if I could see the oven from up, but there was nothing that I could see and then I went down again.
One morning, when I woke up, I observed in the floor of the kitchen an amount of firewood. The trough was with the lifted cover and the grandmother was cleaning the flour.
In a side of the trough there was a sack of corn flour and to the other the boiler of the cows. With a plate she filled up the sieve of flour and she made it dance between their hands. I liked to put my arm under the sieve so that the flour fell over me.
What do you sieve the flour for? I asked to my grandma.
In this way it is finer and the thick pieces are eliminated.
Grandma, “where did you get the flour?
From the corn that yesterday we left to dry off inside the oven. This morning we have to mill then in the river mill, and the grandfather took a sack of corn and another of rye and he began to mill. She left the trough opened and she extended the flour, she tossed firewood under a big pan of full water.
She gave me his hand and we went to the basement, how cool was there?, there it was the bathroom of salting the pig, she lifted the cover, she filled the saltcellar of thick salt and she put the cover of the bathroom down, when we arrived at the kitchen, the water of the pan began to boil. The grandmother tossed two handfuls of salt and with a skimmer she began to revolve the water so that salt was diluted, because otherwise it could be a piece of bread more salty than another.
She separated the mixture of the rye, she caught the fermented mass and she extended it over the flour. Then she made some hole in the flour and she began to toss hot water to revolve it with the rasps, it was to mix the water with flour properly , without clots. If the water is too hot, the flour becomes potatoes.
Then she began to knead with the hands mixing the mass little by little until it was completely bound. She joined to a side of the trough and then she extended a little of flour on it and she draw a cross with their finger, murmuring at the same time; “so that God helps you to grow up a lot!”.
She took some pineapples and some old canes of vine, and she lit the fire inside the oven and she was carefully putting old stumps and sticks.
Every time the flames were bigger and bigger, suddenly finally, I could see the oven inside, it was round, as an igloo, and made of stones. The stones of the oven are made specially so that They keep the heat properly.
After two hours she began to remove the small embers left, she took some flour of corn and she tossed it over the home of the oven and the flour become brown. Then she put the pie in the oven , she put some embers in the door by the time the wonderful smell of pie already arrived, immediately she separated the embers and she removed the pie.
Then, we will eat a piece of, now we will cook it well! The grandma said. she opened the trough, she spread same flour of corn and immediately she took out the mass fermented to a cup, so she could make bread another day. The grandmother after flouring the mass of the oven she took a shovel and she began to draw crossing in the air, in front of the door saying: “ God the bread increase in the oven, for poor and rich to who wants to eat of it , the bread to grow, and the evil tongues to burn, AMEN”
The blessing so that the bread comes out good . Now, we have to cover it so that the heat doesn't escape. She took a stone and she put it to cover the hole of the oven, she took a pot full with animal excrements and with the hands she began to cork until closing the whole oven.
After shortly, the kitchen began smelling to bread, it was an unforgettable smell. Today has already spent more than 40 years, but if I close the eyes I can feel that aroma.
After three hours, the moment arrived of seeing the result, with the apron on we separated the stone to a side. From inside a cloud of vapour came out.
Now it is so hot! it could harm the stomach, tomorrow it will be good! The grandmother said.
The following day there was in the trough a cocido .My grandmother took out of the oven an enormous piece of bread and with a knife she cut it in small pieces. It was tasty and delicious bread. My grandfather told me: surely after some years, this will be considered poor food and they will stop making it in spite of being very healthy! And I answered to him: No grandfather, I will still making and eating bread of corn since it is very tasty .