Churros made by hand. Churrera La Maueta's dough and threads are made in a traditional way.

Churrería La Mañueta It was on December 13, 1872, the festivity of Santa Lucía, when Juan Fernández Calero, natural of Cintruénigo, opened a churrería on the street of La Curia number 13 in Pamplona. The activity developed in this place until 1890, when the family decided to move it to its current location on the street of La Mañueta. His son Elías and his wife Fausta continued with the business, which over time passed into the hands of Paulina, the current breath of this traditional churrería. Today, only during the days of the San Fermín festivities, two Saturdays before them, and the Sundays of the Rosary of the Aurora of October, is when the churrería of La Mañueta opens its doors to the public. A hour before opening the churrería on this first Saturday of the season, the Elizalde Fernández family must have everything prepared, starting with the fuel that will feed the fires that heat the oil boilers. Here there are 6,100 kilos. It has been the firewood that we have brought for this year, The most suitable firewood to feed the ovens is that of aya, and it must be very well cut with an ax so that it gives a bright flame. If it is cut with a saw, having the cut clean, it does not bring out the bright flame enough to give heat. So if it is cut with an ax, the better the fire, it brings out the brighter flame and then it burns better, it gives more strength. The firewood that heats the oil boilers also gives heat to some peroles that contain water inside. Today we are only going to turn on these first two boilers, the other two are with oil, but today they are not going to be turned on. When the oil is hot, then we will measure to see the level it has of oil, if it is necessary to remove something or put something on it, and this is checked throughout the morning. Each of these notches is what corresponds to a jar of oil. This is the oil jar, which is why we take the oil, it can never be overflowing, and we always go with a support below to avoid dripping as much as possible. It is not always possible, but try to drip as much as possible. As today is the first Saturday of which the La Mañueta churrería will open before the San Fermín festivities, the task that all those who work on it must do is to prepare the necessary tools. These are the molds that were used before, which were made of tin, with tin welds. They were sometimes dangerous because they could end up breaking, and since we are working on boiling oil, it is problematic, and then we move on to stainless steel, which is safer, but it also weighs more. The way to distinguish the molds for the special churros from the normal ones is by lining the handles with one or two sheets. You put a little sheet on the molds to be able to identify which are the ones that carry the pot and the star of normal churro or special churro, because they are different. So, the ones that have two, these are the normal ones, normal churros. And the special churro is this one, which has only one. And the difference between the pots, between the stars, is here. This is the kneading stick, which is also made of tin, and with this the dough is made, you will see it there in the pot, with this is what is kneaded. It has a small notch here that is made of the friction with the edge of the steel pot. And now the famous sticks of the churreros. We have one more spare. Here we have four, enough. Normally today we are going to use two, but a couple more are always taken out, just in case someone has to help because there is a thread that is burning, that the oil is too strong, to be able to help. Flour is the basic product for making churros, and it must be extra-fine wheat. When extracting it from the bags, it must be sifted to remove any impurities, but above all to make it softer. More or less, before when we kneaded without the cube, what we did was what the plate took, so there were many times that the dough came out very hard, other times very soft, because at the time of taking the plate it was not filled enough, and then in the end we decided to take an exact measure to be able to knead. The dough is the amount of flour that is kneaded at once. To know the exact amount, it is taken as a measure that they have indicated in a cube. Well, this is a carbon filter in which the water is passed, to remove the flavor of chlorine that the water of Pamplona may have, because lately they add a lot of chlorine, and then in order that the water, once it is already boiled and all this, does not have the allergy flavor that chlorine may have when it is kneaded. Salt, this is the salt. This is the salt that is now poured into the boiling water, so that it is undone. Then we will wait a moment for the water to boil to take it out and knead it. The water when it is poured here is what is called the escaldado. So now with this stick we are turning it around, so that the water enters through the flour and takes shape. It is spinning around the cube. This is now kneaded, it lets it rest for five minutes, so that the dough goes taking shape, and the moisture that may be in the water goes away, and it is given again after five minutes or so, it is given again with the same stick, it is given to leave the dough that remains completely fine. It goes above the last line, so this one has a rice left over, a jar, and this other one has two jars left over. So now I'm going to take them out. Each cauldron has a capacity for 60 liters of oil, and when it is hot, the content of each of the two cauldrons that will be used on this day can be regulated. And so, in principle, it would be at its proper level. 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 here is to leave the dough, which is completely fine, to fill the molds. Each of the churrería workers has their role in this simple process, which, at the same time, needs so many hands, and a perfect synchronism so that nothing fails. This is where the pastas that are made are written down every day. So, each pasta is a stick, when the kneaded pasta is brought to fill, then it is marked here. And then, in the end, there are some graphs of this type, where you can see the number of pastas that have been made. That is, here, when they are marked, each line is a pasta that has been made since it has been kneaded to when it is raised to fill the churreras. And then a line is made here, then here are six lines, another six, and here we would be with four and a five. That is, here there would be six, twelve and five, Everything is calculated inside the churrería. Minutes before opening the door, the oil has reached the appropriate temperature to start pulling the first threads. Very good, Paco, this one has come out ... First ... That's right, pull it hard, until you get a little cold, or it can shake you. Once the thread is pulled into the cauldron, you have to watch it and turn it from time to time with the sticks or flags, so that the hot oil acts uniformly on the pasta. Well, now it's time to drain. In times of scarcity, olive oil had such a high price that it had to be taken advantage of to the maximum, so the churreros used to say that in draining there is profit. The area of ​​the counter, the one facing the public, is dominated by women and especially by Paulina Fernández, the link between all the family generations who have been maintaining the churrera tradition in Pamplona. These trays, my father ... I used to carry these trays because we had two stalls in the market, and my mother used to be in the market, and they used to take the churritos here and go to the market. And this is where we put the pieces to try. That is, everyone who comes, you know, goes through this fence, the grandmother gives them a piece to try. So here they ask, they put it, there they charge, and that fence was made by my father in the post-war period. Because when they let us open, after seven years locked up in the post-war period, then people came with such greed that they put four or five rows, they pushed and threw, because they only gave us a very small amount of oil, so we could not make all the churros that the clientele wanted to buy. So my father made this fence, and since then ... So when someone comes to play with the fence, I tell them, please, that this is centennial. These brown bags, there we put the whole threads, or the quantities of four dozen or five dozen. We wrap the anti-fat paper first, and then in these papers, because we never put the churros with sugar if they are going to go far, because they get soft. So these bags, I prepare them, to put the sugar here, the churros are put in the bag, and they are sent with the sugar in the bag, so that they take it 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 worker, the human team sets out to supply the area of ​​the store with the churros they request. Service to the public has been one of the keys in the history of this centennial churrería. Currently, Paulina serves the customers with grace and grace, offering them to taste the shells or small pieces of churros that result from the chopping of the threads. The pace of work is marked by the demand of the customers who are arriving at the churrería. The board, which has a hole, a plate, and is placed on the chest. This is the mass that enters the hole with this skewer so that it does not slide. The mold or churrera is put and now it is lowered, tightened and turned in a spiral. And now the process is the other way around. First the board and now the mass is removed from the churrera. The largest remains of pasta are removed, the mass is left there and this mold is passed so that it becomes full. And now Harry is going to throw the other one. Among the throwers there are some who have the habit of throwing the threads to the left and others to the right. The effort to throw the threads is exhausting for the muscles of the arms due to the pressure that must be applied to the mold. After cutting the threads into pieces to the extent that Paulina has always applied, the churros are served in quantities of dozens, whole thread and special thread. To calculate the temperature of the oil, Elías refers to the eye of experience. What they call play consists of adding or removing an amount of oil to cool it from the cauldrons when it is excessively hot. To be able to lower the temperature of the oil, then one or two jars are removed, 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 the churro. The cauldron jars that Elías' grandfather used were replaced by the current two-liter steel ones. At the time of throwing the threads, the churreros introduce their foot into one of the holes that are under the oven flush with the ground. This allows them to make the lever enough to be able to lean on the cauldron 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 of making churros for so many years. Water is another of the ingredients to be constantly renewed as it is used. The churros that are next to the oil cauldrons take advantage of the heat of the fire to keep the water hot. With it, the churro is filled that keeps the water boiling, which is used in the preparation of the dough. All the containers that are being heated must always maintain the appropriate water level. The special threads, which are thicker than the normal ones, must be thrown by approaching the mold to the maximum, to the boiling oil. The special threads carry the same amount of pasta, but with a larger 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 special threads have to be fried more slowly, so the temperature of the oil 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. That is, it is already done, but the only thing is that it is low in calories, which is a little more expensive. First normal, second special. In the post-war era, there were many problems to get the two raw materials, oil and flour. Due to the lack of supply, 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 hundred-year-old churrería in which it ceased to serve the public. The oil to fry the churros is olive oil, but the one that is pure is not used directly, because the churros would take a lot of taste and acidity. That is why it must be mixed with olive oil already used. In the churrería of La Mañueta, all the work is done in the eyes of the public, artisanally, 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 holidays. During all the days of the San Fermín holidays, the activity in the churrería of La Mañueta is intense, because you have to open the door 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. In the past, when the churrería worked every day, it was governed by the schedule of the neighboring Mercado de Santo Domingo, while the workers were incorporating their tasks. While the first customers wait for the churrería door to open, the workers have already prepared the first rolls for breakfast. Yes, of course, we eat the first churros, to see if they come out good. The quality of the first threads guarantees that both the pasta and the temperature of the oil are in optimal conditions to continue with the work. At six in the morning, two hours before closing, the doors of the churrería open. To take now or to take? In front of the festive crowd that envelops the door, the churreros boil the flour to turn it into a warm dough. They handle the wooden spoon with energy. They tightly fill the molds, which, with the pressure of the chest and arms, unload their precious pasta, forming a spiral over the oil about to boil. The long sticks, handled with that ease that gives the practice of many years, move and turn those spirals that take on their golden color and the crunchy and tasty touch that the customers expect to receive. As the closing time approaches, the clientele increases and the work in the workshop intensifies. In this work, as it happened in all those guilds of past times, the trade is learning little by little, starting with the filling of the molds, until it reaches that white spiral of dough that falls floating on the boiling oil, trying not to be mounted on top of each other. In the last process of straining in the cauldrons, that is, in the transformation control of the pasta into 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 inside. But all this knowledge is the result of the ease that the years of experience give. The day before the race Shortly before eight in the morning, everyone is pending from the confinement, 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 of the San Fermin breakfast. In this chaste place, the work environment is filtered between the smoke of the firewood and that of the oil of the cauldrons, which bubbles while the thread floats, which is going to become precious churros. As they say, pulling the threads is a chest work and requires a lot of experience to make the churros with the quality that has given fame to these craftsmen. The parishioners are waiting to buy their dozen churros to eat them with the flavor of tradition. Notable queues are formed and the latter have to wait up to an hour. This one has to comply with the tradition of the churrería of La Mañueta. The secret of the churros of La Mañueta is to be faithful to a totally traditional way of working, inherited from past generations and maintaining the quality ingredients that have characterized them. They will be made with good flour, good oil, good wheat flour, olive oil. That's why they have to spice this up. They are the best. They have always been classic La Mañueta, here they make them with firewood. They are not like now. When I went to the market, we bought the churros. After making the purchase, we always bought some churricos to go to breakfast. Over the years, the churrería has not lost a pencil in its flavor and has become a Pamplonica institution with four generations behind it. The season will end by opening the churrería on the four Sundays of October, in which the auroras will come out on the streets before dawn to sing their songs. Then we will have to wait until June of the following year. When I say June, I get nervous. If things will go well or not, if the boys want to come to work or not. If they say yes, then come. Well, in principle now it is like this. I am going to tell you that it is a concern that it is getting more and more difficult to do this. My children have their whole 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, they all have their lives organized in a different way, and it is getting more and more difficult for everything. In 2009, in the middle of the San Fermín festivities, the Maisonave Hotel in Pamplona has organized an emotional tribute to Paulina Fernández and to 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 the well-done work, Paulina's eyes intuit the expression of gratitude from her ancestors for this tribute. And it is that the churrería of La Mañueta has not been just a churro factory, but a meeting place and starting point on every day of the San Fermín festivities. But I can't, I can't. Thank you all for coming. 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 its ancestors. But how long will the churrería of La Mañueta resist with its doors open in the early hours of San Fermín?