PULPEIRAS ARCOS FAMILIES:

There is evidence of the old trade as early as 1752 (18th century), developed mainly by some inhabitants of Santa María de Arcos that records 5 pulpeiras and San Juan de Arcos another 5, in many cases they are described as “fish handlers”, trading With both products.
Office born at the fair, at that time controlled by the monastery and cunningly located by the monks at a crossroads of roads, where at the same time they traded their people they collected the taxes of their parishioners. This point of commerce, develops what is nowadays the historical center of the city, the neighborhood of Flores, from where it grows to become the town of O Carballiño that we know today.
Considered as a semi-itinerant work, the pulpeiros not only focus on this fair, they also travel to other parties, fairs and nearby pilgrimages, returning home to continue with the self-sufficient agricultural and livestock activities.
Described in numerous books of the time where, thanks to rigorous cadastres, reference is made to this guild and other craft crafts such as shoemakers, leather tanners, tailors, seamstresses, bakers, etc., highlights the oil, or “oil handlers ”, Fundamental dressing, which support the work of the pulpeiros, a job also found in Arcos.

Mentioned from a traditional point of view, the old craft of pulpeiro is perpetuated generationally among the families of Arcos, not only because of the advances that facilitate their work and their great success in any secular or religious festival, but also by young married couples that although in love, both families seek an honorable and dignified bond for both boyfriends, while advantageous, strengthening commercial ties within the guild.

AT THE PRESENT TIME:

The need for collective that increase their distribution to higher earning not limited to specific dates of events and customs demand as introduced in the whole province of Ourense in the last you decades ago evolve them positioned at strategic points of the city, roads very Busy and villages, constituting skewer or main course of the family menu during some Saturdays and every Sunday of the year.
the traveling racking and the constant challenge to the climate throughout the year, the tireless sacrifice of collective easterly along more than three centuries, coming hard and prestige professional until today is recognized by the hardness of the craft.

See Historic Gallery

SIGNS AND IDENTIFICATION TOOLS:

Small section, no less important, to detail the ancient way of preparing the octopus and the utensils and materials used without practically variations from its earliest times, where three key utensils are: firewood, firewood, copper pot and plate Natural pine wood, which once cooked octopus is served with three simple dressings: oil, fat salt and paprika, resulting in the well-known dish that gives the name of “pulpo a feira”.
Within the same hallmarks of this guild they distinguish between them, either individually or in a family way, by means of the dish in which they serve the octopus, marking on their wood the initials or signs of the professional, getting on the one hand to highlight their antiquity and origin, and on the other hand counting the largest number of dishes served as a clear indicator of the success of the pulpeiro.

TRANSPORTATION AND CONSERVATION:

Special mention to the muleteers who transported the taxes of the convent from the coast, giving rise to a type of professional muleteer who sells to the pulpeiros gathered in the monastery’s fair space, while trading with other products of the coast and taking others from the interior on their way back to the ports.
The oldest means of transport used by these carriers, which bring and carry the various products, is done on the back of animals or in animal-drawn cars, making this trade a way of life walking through towns and roads.
Of animals and carts that prevailed until the year 1920, the traditional carrier was passed to the automobile, modern means of transport, as a last attempt to compete and maintain his trade until his progressive disappearance in 1930, being replaced by large-capacity mechanical traction transports . Expanding media that in addition to merchandise carried passengers, such as bus lines, trains and trucks, facilitating the work of the pulpeiros that collect the merchandise at nearby points or even the possibility of traveling to pick it up in port. With what the job of arriero, intermediary character, disappeared.
With the conservation of the Octopus through freezing, towards the 1960s, a specific and professional transport of this sector arises, to take the products of the sea to the interior, which is divided into two ways to supply the pulpeiros. On the one hand, shipowners and wholesalers from Toledo who introduce the frozen Octopus already on the high seas, keeping it in cold stores arranged in the port and also in the same area of ​​Arcos. On the other hand, the direct treatment of pulpeiros with trusted fishermen who accumulate their frozen fishing in port and by means of trucks and refrigerated vans, which the own families of pulpeiros own, go directly to port for the quantities they need and that once in Arcos they store in large cold rooms belonging to other pulpeira families, families that originally only held the trade now also supply the largest pulp sector of Arcos.