WJ-
But, at least you would recognize a Basque meal when you see one and would know what part of the country to look in.

Actually the Spaghetti was the dead give away….
I remember going to a Basque Restaurant in Bakersfield CA back in 1996 when I moved from Seattle to Pittsburgh. It was in the dead of winter and my mother was still living in Albuquerque at the time. I wanted to avoid the wintry mountain passes , and Northern California was going through a warm spell, so I took the Southern Route stopping over night in Portland OR (to visit friends), Sacramento CA, Kingman AZ, Abuquerque (two nights), OK City, Tulsa (unexpected overnight due to ice storm) Effingham IL and then Pittsburgh  I don’t recall the name of the Basque Restaurant in Bakersfied, it could have been Chalet Basque. Anyway it was the first time (and I’m pretty sure the last) that I had spaghetti served to me at a Basque Restaurant.