It was on December 13, 1872, the feast of Santa Lucía, when Juan Fernández Calero, a native of Cintruénigo, opened a churrería on Calle de la Curia nº 13 in Pamplona. The activity took place in this place until 1890, when the family decided to move it to its current location on Calle de la Mañueta. His son Elías and his wife Fausta continued with the business, which over time passed into the hands of Paulina, current breath of this traditional churrería. Currently, only during the days of the San Fermín festivities, two Saturdays prior to them and the Sundays of the Rosario de la Aurora de Octubre, is when the Churrería de la Mañueta opens its doors to the public. An hour before opening the churrería on this first Saturday of the season, the Elizalde-Fernández family must have everything ready, starting with the fuel that will feed the fires that heat the oil boilers. “So, there are 6,100 kilos here. It has been the firewood that we have brought for this year 2009. And here it is already stacked and dry. " The most appropriate wood to feed the ovens is that of beech, and it must be very well cut with an ax so that it gives a live flame. “Beech wood. From the Irati forest. " "This wood is cracked, so that it has the most alive flame, so that it gives more heat when it is put in the ovens, then, being cracked, if it would be cut with a saw, having a clean cut does not remove the flame enough to give heat. As it is cracked with an ax, the fire enters better, it makes the flame more alive and burns better, it gives more strength. " The wood fire that heats the oil boilers also gives heat to some kettles that contain water inside. “Today we are going to light only these first two boilers. These are with oil but today they are not going to light. " “When the oil is hot, then we will measure to see the level of oil it has. And then, if it is necessary to remove something or put something on it. And this is being verified throughout the morning. " "Each of these notches is what corresponds to a jug of oil." “This is the oil jug and it is with which we take the oil, it can never overflow, and we always go with a support at the bottom to avoid dripping as much as possible. It is not always possible, but avoid dripping as much as possible. " As today is the first Saturday that La Mañueta churrería is going to open before the San Fermín festivities, the task that all those who work there must do is prepare the necessary supplies. "These are the molds that were used before, which were made of tin, which were tin welded and were sometimes dangerous because they could sometimes end up breaking and as we are working on top of boiling oil, it is problematic and then we went on to stainless steel. , which is safer, what happens is that they also weigh more. " The way to distinguish the molds for the special churros from the normal ones is by lining the handles with one or two plasters. “A bit of tape is put on the molds to be able to identify which are the ones that carry the bowl and the star of the normal churro or the special churro, because they are different. So, the ones with two of these are the normal ones and the special churro is this, the one with only one. And the difference between the cups, between the stars is here. " "This is the rolling pin, which is also made of beech and with this the dough is made in the pan." "There is a small indentation here that is made by rubbing the edge of the steel bowl ." “And here the famous sticks of the churreros. We have some more to spare. Here we have four. Enough. Normally we usually use two, but we always take out one more pair in case at a certain moment someone has to lend a hand because there is a thread that is burning, that the oil is too strong or so, well to be able to help. " The flour is the basic product for the elaboration of the churros and it must be of extra-strong rainfed wheat . When extracting it from the bags, it must be sifted to remove any impurities, but above all to make it more loose. "So so. Before when we knead without the bucket, what we did was what the plate took . So, there were many times that hard pasta came out, other times very soft because when it was time to take the plate it was not filled enough, and then in the end we decided to take an exact measure, to be able to knead, which is this cube. " Dough is the amount of flour that is kneaded in one go. To find out the exact amount , the measure indicated on a cube is taken as a measure. "Well, this is a carbon filter, in which the water is passed to remove the chlorine taste that the water in Pamplona may have." "And then it is in order that the water, once it is boiled and all this does not have the taste of bleach, that it can have from chlorine when it is kneaded." "Salt. This is salt. So, the salt is now added to the boiling water. " "Then we will wait a moment for the water to boil to take it out and knead it." “And the water when it is poured here is what is called the escaldau. Are you here, Pablo? Yes." "So, now, with this stick, we are turning it around so that the water enters through the flour and takes shape." It rotates around the bucket so that it is all over it ... " " This is now kneaded, it is left to rest for five minutes so that the dough takes shape, the moisture it may have from the water disappears and it is given again again, after five minutes or so, it is given again with the same stick, it is already given so that the dough is completely thin. " “Here it goes over the last line, this one has a jug left over. And this other has two jugs left over. I'm going to get them out. One jug from here and two from here. " "And so, in principle, they would be at their proper level." Each boiler has a capacity for 60 liters of oil and when it is hot , the content of each of the two boilers that will be used this day can be regulated . After the five minutes of rest that the pasta has needed, it is necessary to give it another shake to leave it in perfect state of use. "Well, this is now taken to the filling tables ..." "Well, with this spoon, what is done is letting the dough become completely thin to fill the molds." Each one of the churrería workers has their role in this simple process that, at the same time, requires so many hands and a perfect synchronism so that nothing fails. “This is where the pasta that is made is pointed out every day. So each pasta is a stick. When the kneaded dough is already brought to fill, then it is already marked here. And then in the end there are some graphics of this type. You can see the number of pasta that has been made. " “That is to say, here, when they are marked, each line is a paste that has been made, from when it has been kneaded to when it is boiled to fill the churreras. A line is made here, so here are six lines, another six, and here we would be with four and one, five. Here there would be six, twelve and five, 17 pasta that were made on this eighth of this year, of the year I don't know which one. " “Very good, Paco, this one has come out. It is that of course, when shooting freehand, until he takes the shot a bit. " Everything is calculated inside the churrería. Minutes before opening the door, the oil has reached the appropriate temperature to start pulling the first threads. Once the thread has been thrown into the boiler, you have to watch it and turn it from time to time with the sticks or flags so that the hot oil acts evenly on the pasta. "And now it's the drain." In times of scarcity, olive oil had such a high price that it was necessary to make the most of it, which is why the churreros used to say that " the profit is in the drain ." "See, now this is brought here and now to cut." The area of the counter, the one facing the public, is the domain of women and especially Paulina Fernández, the link between all the family generations that have been maintaining the churrera tradition in Pamplona. “But hey, these trays were carried by me because we had two stalls in the market and my mother used to be in the market. And they made me go, they threw the churricos here and I went like that to the market. And this is where we put the bits to taste. Everyone who comes, you know, goes through this fence and when they pass, the grandmother gives them a trocico to try. So they ask, here it says, there they charge. That fence was made by my father for the postwar period, because when they let us open after seven years closed in the postwar period, then people would come so eagerly that they would get four or five rows and push and lie down, because they gave us very little amount of oil and we couldn't make all the churros that the customers wanted to buy. So my father made this fence and so on, since then, so if anyone comes to play with the fence, I tell them, please, that it is indeed a hundred-year-old. " “These brown bags, there we put the whole threads or the quantities of four dozen or five dozen. We wrap the greaseproof paper first and then, in these ballots, because we never put the churros with the sugar if they are going to go far, because they get soft. So, I prepare these bags to put the sugar here, they put the churros in the bag and send them with the sugar in the bag so that they can put it on when they go to eat it. " At eight in the morning the doors of the churrería open. Although it is the first opening day of the season, there are already people waiting for this moment. Inside the workshop, the human team starts up to supply the store area with the churros that are requested. Service to the public has been one of the keys in the history of this centennial churrería. Currently, Paulina serves customers with panache and grace, offering them to try the "cascos" or small pieces of churros that result from the chopping of the threads. "The board, which simply has a hole, a plate and is placed on the chest, this is the mace, which enters the hole with this skewer so that it does not slide, you put the mold or the churrera ..." it goes down, tightens and spins, in a spiral. " "And now the mace is removed from the churrera, the largest remains of pasta are removed, it is left there, the mace is left and this mold passes to be filled again." The pace of work is marked by the demand of customers who are arriving at the churrería. “This one is pulling to the right and now Harry is going to pull the other. They would hit each other with the elbow. " Among the shooters there are some who have the habit of pulling the threads to the left and others to the right. The effort of pulling the threads is exhausting on the muscles of the arms, due to the pressure that must be put on the mold. After cutting the threads into pieces to the size that Paulina has always applied, the churros are served in quantities of dozens, whole thread and special thread. "Because if it doesn't go too strong. Now it's getting too roasted. So, what happens? If it is not toasted on the outside and it is not done on the inside, if the oil is too strong . So it's about trying to find the right point. " "Let's see, play of the third. It goes too strong. Give me one .. And don't take it away. " To calculate the temperature of the oil, Elías uses the eye of experience. What they call "play" consists of adding or removing an amount of oil, to cool the boiler when it is excessively hot. “And it is to have cold oil so that when you don't need more churros because there are no people at that time, to be able to lower the temperature of the oil. Then one or two jugs are taken out, it depends on hot oil and cold oil is added. And in this way the temperature of the oil is lowered so that the oil does not burn without having churros. " The tin jugs that Elías' grandfather used were replaced by the current steel ones with a capacity of about two liters. At the moment of pulling the threads, the churreros insert their foot into one of the holes under the oven at ground level. This allows them to do enough lever to be able to lean over the boiler, with the minimum risk of falling into it. All the movements of the workers in the development of their activity are perfectly calculated in the workspace, due to the experience that he gives so many years making churros. "In the end you end up with the wrist ..." "More than anything because it is very repetitive and you end up at the end ... Say that we usually put more people in this position, and we take turns, but yes, in the end you end up with the arm ..." Water is another ingredient to be constantly renewed as it is used. The coppers that are next to the oil boilers take advantage of the heat of the fire to keep the water hot. With it the bowl that keeps the boiling water used in the preparation of the dough is filled . All containers being heated must always maintain the proper water level. “Yes, the water to pour hot to where we have the dough and not to waste time. It is water ready. " The special threads, which are thicker than the normal ones, must be thrown away, bringing the mold as close as possible to the boiling oil. The special threads have the same amount of pasta, but with a bigger star in the mold, so the churro comes out thicker. In the end it is the same amount of pasta, but the length of the thread is shorter. These specialty threads need to be fried slower, so the oil temperature must be lower than for normal threads. In any of its varieties, in the end, the threads must have the same toasted tone on both sides. “This boiler is stronger than this one, and then I'm going to take this one out, that's it, and I'm going to pass that other one to roast in this one. And this one ... " " This is how it is roasted, because it takes on a little more color. It's done, but the only thing that was low in color and so it remains a little more toasted. " "Come on, first normal, second special." In the post-war era, there were many problems in obtaining the two raw materials, oil and flour. Due to the lack of supplies, Paulina's parents had to keep the churrería closed for seven years trying to live with the savings they had. That was the only period in the history of this centennial churrería in which the public was no longer served . The oil to fry the churros is olive oil, but the one that is pure is not used directly , since the churros would take on a lot of taste and acidity. That is why it must be mixed with olive oil already used. "You take a piece of paper from here, when there are no people, you put it underneath like that so it does n't fly away and that way it doesn't get cold." In the La Mañueta churrería, all the work is done in public view, by hand, by hand, without machines that interfere with the process. The two Saturdays of the month of June that the churrería will open will serve as preparation for the next days of work during the San Fermín festivities. During all the days of the San Fermín festivities, the activity in the churrería de La Mañueta is intense, since the door must be opened at six in the morning to attend to the hundreds of customers who are going to pass through it. These days, all the members of the Elizalde-Fernández family collaborate with their work. Paulina's children stop exercising their professions to become churreros, picking up the family tradition that one day Don Juan Fernández began. Formerly, when the churrería worked every day, it was governed by the hours of the neighboring Santo Domingo market, while the workers got up to their tasks. While the first customers wait for the door of the churrería to open, the first bagels have already been prepared in the workshop for breakfast. "We eat the first churros, to see if they come out good." The quality of the first threads guarantees that both the paste and the oil temperature are in optimal conditions to continue with the work. "Go ahead". At six in the morning, two hours before the closure, the doors of the churrería are opened. In front of the festive crowd that crowds at the door, the churreros boil the flour to turn it into a warm dough, handle the wooden ladle with energy, fill the molds with a tight will that, with the pressure of the chest and the arms, unload their precious pasta forming a spiral over the oil about to boil. The long chopsticks, handled with that ease that the practice of many years gives , move and turn those spirals that are taking on their golden color and the crunchy and tasty touch that customers expect to receive. As the time of the confinement approaches, the clientele increases and the work in the workshop increases. In this work, as it happened in all those guilds of the past, the trade is learned little by little, starting with the filling of molds until reaching that white spiral of dough that falls floating on the boiling oil, trying not to one turn over another mountain. In the last process of bustling in the boilers, that is, in the control of the transformation of the pasta into a churro, the specialist must calculate at a glance the state of the pasta, the temperature of the oil and that the churro is well done by within. But all this knowledge is the result of the ease that years of experience give. Shortly before eight in the morning, everyone is aware of the closure, some participating in the race in front of the bulls and others as spectators. In a few minutes the crowd participates in this typical ritual of the San Fermín festivities. After the confinement, hundreds of people, faithful to tradition, go to the churrería to buy the exquisite churros for the San Fermin breakfast. In this traditional place, the work environment is filtered between the smoke from the wood and the oil from the boilers that bubbles while the thread that is going to become appreciated churros floats . As they say, pulling the threads is a “chest” job and it takes a lot of experience to make churros with the quality that has made these artisans famous. The parishioners are waiting to buy their dozen churros to eat them with the flavor of tradition. Notable queues form and the last ones have to wait up to an hour. “And queuing every year. It doesn't matter an hour or two, whatever. Because it's worth it. " "You have to comply with the tradition of the churrería of La Mañueta." "Taca, taca, ta. So that they take out churros. Look, the churros are ready. " The secret of the churros de la Mañueta consists in being faithful to a totally traditional way of working , inherited from past generations and maintaining the quality ingredients that have characterized them. “That they will be made with good flour, good oil, with good wheat flour, good olive oil, that's why this is special. They are the best. Hey." “They have always been from La Mañueta, well classics from here. They make them with firewood and so on. They are not like now. " “When I went to the market, we used to buy churros on the way. After shopping we always bought some churricos to go to breakfast. " Over the years, the churrería has not lost an iota of its flavor and has become a Pamplona institution with four generations behind it. The season will end by opening the churrería on the four Sundays in October in which the auroros will go out into the streets before dawn to sing their songs. Then we will have to wait until June of the following year. “When June comes, I start to tremble. Whether things will work out or not. Whether the boys want to come to work or they don't want to come. They tell me yes, then pull it up. " “In principle now it is almost a concern that it is increasingly difficult to be able to do this. My children all have their profession, even the boys who help us have nothing to do with the churrería issue because they all have their usual profession. My children, my grandchildren. Everyone has their life organized differently and it is getting more and more difficult because of everything. " In 2009, in the middle of the San Fermín festivities, the Maisonnave Hotel in Pamplona organized an emotional tribute to Paulina Fernández and a whole saga of churreros who have kept the doors of La Mañueta open. With that natural joy and that security that the years give and the love for a job well done, in Paulina's eyes you can see the expression of gratitude of her ancestors for this tribute. And it is that the churrería of La Mañueta has not only been a churros factory, but a meeting place and a starting point in each day of the San Fermín festivities. “Churrería for me is like the athenaeum, not about culture, but about meeting the people who really love us. It's that I never tire of saying thanks to all those people who come, it's that I would like to unfold myself for everyone, but I can't, I can't. " A deserved tribute, which in the person of Paulina Fernández comes to represent a whole family that has known how to dignify the humble profession of their ancestors. But how long will the churrería of La Mañueta resist with its doors open at dawn in San Fermín?
