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Elias Arostegi fishing elvers in Butrón.

I can’t even remember when I last ate elvers! I only know that it was a long time ago. Now I come to think about, I am whisked back to my childhood, when I would watch those tiny cars (Seat 600, 127, 850, R-5…; tiny compared to the current ones) go by, with long sticks and large sieves, sometimes tied to the roof racks and other times just sticking out of the car windows. Those people would be coming back from fishing for elvers where the River Butrón flowed into the Plentzia estuary.

Elvers were and continue to be typically eaten on Christmas Eve. Yet they were and still are a luxury product that not everyone can afford. That meant that a few decades ago, quite a few people would catch and sell them to make some extra money. However, some people only would go from time to time and catch them to be eaten at home.

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