Camino de Santiago de Compostela

[Artemisofephesus]

Hi,

Just wondering, what does a typical pilgrim menu in an albergue consist of? I'm a vegetarian and don't necessarily want to go to a cafe or restaurant every night just to get something that doesn't have meat in it, I'm not going to have that much money to spend. Do the albergues offer vegetarian meals?

Thanks,
Jo

[Chev.Jerry]

Hola,

Just a thought but you might want to do a search for "Vegetarian food" in the search box and see what has been said on this before.

We only saw one "vegetarian" cafe before we got to Santiago and that was in Sarria.

You can, of course, go to the market and fix whatever you want in many of the albugues.

Rual northern Spain had wonderful food, but vegetarian was not high on the list.

Jerry

[viajero]

The wonderful hospitaleros in Ruitelan made a lovely meal at the albergue. There was a vegetarian option as well which was very satifsfying. They made a great veg. paella meal at the albergue in Vilar de Mazarife (I can't remember the name of the albergue but I believe it was the first one on the right just as you enter the village). I think a couple of the others may have done veg. meals as well but these are the two that come to mind. Several of the albergues have kitchens so if you pick up a few items you can prepare meals too. The restaurant Manolo in Santiago had a very fillling vegetarian plate (I don't think it is on the menu so you have to ask for it). I myself am not a vegetarian but met and walked with several on the camino and I must say it was sometimes difficult for them. They got a little bit tired of salad, french fries, bread and eggs. I think that buying a few groceries here and there will help. Good luck.

[sillydoll]

Hi Jo,
Very few albergues offer any food at all. Some of the smaller albergues - Eunate, Tosantos, Granon, St Nicholas, Manjarin come to mind - offer an evening meal for a donation whilst others, like Ave Fenix or the Albergue Vegetariano at La Faba, charge about 10 euro.
Many albergues have kitchens (with limited utensils) where you can cook your own meals.
The Spanish are a carnivorous people and eat a lot of meat and fish. I found that the Menu del Peregrinos, which you can get for about 10 euro in any little village or cafe-bar, offer chips and chicken, salads and a fruit or yoghurt. We very rarely saw vegetables on the menu.
It is much cheaper to make your own dinner. I took a little immersion heater (a spiral one cup heaters) and often bought a bottle or tin of vegetables to add to a cup of soup eaten with fresh bread. There are large and small supermecados along the way where you can buy pastas, rice, lentils etc to cook in the albergues. Often people leave opened packets behind and you are free to use those as well.
You can buy yoghurt with fruit or muesli for breakfast, some cheese or a tomato and a fresh loaf to have al fresco for lunch. Treat yourself occasionally in a restaurant and you will find that the platos are often cheaper than the Menu del Dia.
You won't starve - but you might crave a home cooked vegetarian meal!

[Pablo2007]

Oh well thats at least 3 meals you can have.......

I say to my wife that vegetarians in Spain are a little like Introverts, (they do exist but are very hard to find).

But seriously I don't know how much of a vegetarian you are (some will eat fish occasionally) but I think you may struggle in parts.

Even the mixed salads nearly always have tuna. I also saw someone order a mixed "vegetable stew" that when it arrived it had chicken in it and when questioned the waiter said "well its just chicken".

So be carefull, again it depends on how serious a vegetarian you are.

Someone once told me a story of about Swami Vivekanada (devout vegetarian) who after eating a dish with meat in it by mistake and being physically ill once he rcognised the fact came back inside and asked his host for another helping, saying that he should get over his "attachment" to not eating meat.

Anyway

I wish you the best of luck .

Buen Camino

Pablo

[sillydoll]

Pablo is quite right! The Spanish don't seem to understand the concept of vegetarianism.
I often ordered soup - sin carne - only to have the host spoon a big chunk of sausage out of it before passing it to me!
When I asked for ensalada - sin pescado - it often came with tuna chunks it. A Spanish pilgrim explained that tinned atún is not considered to be real fish!

[ksam]

Hi! There is/are breakfast cereal/yogurt combos (the come four cups together) that are "shelf" stable..and can be carried with you. We found them when doing the Camino Portuguese recently...can't think of the brand but I do remember it had Bifidus in the label in bold letters...helps with the digestive tract staying on track! They made a great breakfast or lunch addition...and helped with protein consumption.

Post when your on the road so we can see how you make out!! Being married to the butchers son...being a vegetarian ain't really possible!!!

Buen Camino, Karin

[Javier Martin]

Hi,

In 2003 I walked for more than a week with a nice canadian vegetarian girl. It was surprising for me to see how easy was for her to take only vegetarian meals.

Salads and omelettes, Caldo Gallego, lentejas, fruits, and so on.

Usually it's possible to order two "first" in a menu, so you can ask Caldo and a salad.

She used to buy fruit for breakfast.

Buen Camino,

Javier Martin
Madrid, Spain.

[JohnnieWalker]

Alas Caldo Gallego is made from meat stock - at least pork and beef and in some places also chicken. I've also never known lentejas to be made with anything other than ham.

But there are plenty of vegetable/salad options plus tortilla and of course ubiquitous chips.

If you eat fish then there are many other options.

[elzi]

Hello, Just made it thorugh the whole camino alive and I´m vegetarian.

Most vegetarians I met along the way tried to stay in the albergues that had kitchens and made their own food (lots of chick peas, lentils and salads etc). It was usuallly fairly easy to find albergues with kitchens but I struggled a bit across the meseta and also in very small villages sometimes if there is just one bar offering a pilgrim menu the albergue might well not offer a kitchen (presumably so the bar gets the money?). In big towns there was almost always a kitchen.

If you want to eat out be very caareful about ordering. If you eat fish you will probably find you will be eating fish almost constantly. Almost all salads in spain seem to come with tuna on for some reason so if you don´t eat fish be sure to ask for "sin carne" AND "sin pescado". Or just ask for a salad without tuna.

Also be very careful with soups. Even vegetable soups come with meat in. Most soups are made with meat stocks so even if you ask for a vegetable soup without meat you will almost certainly be given vegetable soup made with meat. I haven´t eaten meat for about 18 years and it makes me very sick, I got very ill a few times on the french route last year and once this year eating "vegetable" soup so now I avoid soup entirely. I guess it depends how fussy you are about how "vegetarian" you like your soup.

Sometimes people can be very understanding, the last pilgrim meal I had I left the soup and the chef came out to ask me what was wrong with his food. When I explained about the meat stock he gave me a lovely vegetarian salad and made me a really nice egg pasta diah as well. Mostly though don´t expect the spainsh to truly understand the concept of vegetarianism.

Please remember though that you won´t starve as virtually EVERY single bar in spain has Tortilla a vegetarian staple. Whatever restaurant/bar/albergue you are in you´ll pretty much always be able to order tortilla as an alternative..... Wow, I´ve had a lot of Tortilla!

Good Luck!

[viajero]

Years ago when I lived in Spain, an American friend met a Spanish family who said that they were vegetarians. She was surprised as she had met so few Spanish vegetarians. When she asked them what they ate, the father replied, "vegetables, chicken, and Jamon de york "(regular deli style boiled ham as opposed to jamon serrano). We found it pretty amusing that chicken and ham were considered vegetarian fare. If you ever order the "sandwich vegetal" beware! In the village where I lived the sandwich vegetal always came with ham.

[Annette]

...If you are a vegetarian like me... (well... ok I do eat fish)... you can still survive the camino, though spanish restaurants tend to put meat in everything. I always remove the meat from the soups... (I dont mind if the stock is made on meat... - as long as I do not have to eat read meat)

Ham is not considered as meat in Spain... sometimes when I ask... "¿lleva carne?" (does it have meat?) They usually answer me "No! lleva jamon york" (no it has york ham). When I reply to them "Ham is meat..." - they respond... "Yes but it only has a little bit".

Some restaurants can cook up a VERY nice vegetable plate... with NO meat.

Also it is posible to get lentel soup with no meat... (however as already mentioned the stock might be from meat.... )

I haven't eaten red meat for 20 years... and if I have it I will get a bad stomace ache... however it seems I can deal with the stock...

I have done the Camino now 3 times... without suffering or having to eat the same thing over and over again... - and now living in Spain... I still survive.

Just use your imagination. Most restaurants can serve you tomatosoup, lentelsoup... a nice plate of beans... there are salads... tortilla frances or tortilla de patata... it is even posible to get integral bread... so you do not have to eat white bread.

Nothing is impossible... many restaurants will cook something up if you ask nicely... and with out expecting to get it as a part of the peregrino menu...

¡Que aproveche!

[sillydoll]

I don't eat any animal, eggs or milk. But, I will eat a muffin or cake baked with egg and milk - or even a patata tortilla. I always take my little spiral immersion heater and a large mug with me on my travels. Even the smallest shops in Spain sell bottles or tins of mixed vegetables and these, added to a mug of packet soup, make a really substantial meal accompanied with bread and cheese. I carried a couple of those little tins of veges with the pull off tops and often ordered a plain salad - sin atun - and just added my own vegetables to it.

[Rebekah Scott]

If you stop in at our place on the meseta we´ll make you up a lovely veg. meal. We´re just now starting into a semi-vegetarian lifestyle (we only eat meat when we have company who eat meat); Patrick is becoming a fine vegetarian cook, and we operate on a co-op/donativo basis.

Reb.

[Pacharan]

La Trucha in El Acebo is a vegetarian B&B; the host is very welcoming and the homecooked food a world away from the chicken'n'chips pilgrim menus. I'm not a veggie but enjoyed it very much. Ensuite room, dinner and breakfast for 2 was 60 euros total so treat yourself if not on tight budget.

[LTfit]

Completed the Camino Frances from SJPdP to Finisterre July 2010 without (as far as I know) eating meat.

It was actually quite easy - always had a supply of dried fruits (apricots/figs) and nuts with me which I usually munched on for breakfast/lunch. There are lots of grocery stores or small markets along the way where I picked up food. My pack was light so I also carried a tin of beans (garbanzos), pack of olives, apples, etc.

I never had a pelegrino meal but treated myself to ensalada mixta or racion de queso every once in a while and at Perroquial albergues we made vegetarian pasta meals, salad and fruit.

Besides surviving well, I also spent very little money - only about E15,- per day including auberges.

Cheers,
LT

[peregrino_tom]

I did frances in the winter of 2008. Found there was often some leeway with the peregrino menu to change the main dish to an omelette. But was heartily sick of any egg dishes by the time I got to finisterre. In fact couldn't look at an egg (or for that matter cheese and white bread) for about a month afterwards. Fenix did a nice lentil dish which I reckon really was veggie and the one restaurant doing a (very meaty) peregrino menu in Portomarin also did pizza.
What kept me sane was that so many village shops stocked chick-peas and other beans in jars as well as a good range of vegetables. This meant we could prepare big bean soups where there were kitchen facilities. Little shops have a limited range of spices and dried herbs though, so it's worth taking some of your favourites with you as they're so light to carry.

[falcon269]

Vegetarians always make me feel a little guilty. So does my Hindu neighbor's respect for insects (bedbugs?). Maybe I have just been carrying on a long tradition:

Early hominins were using stone tools to butcher meat as long ago as 3.4 million years, about 800,000 years earlier than previous evidence dates to, scientists report in this week's issue of Nature.

The whole article if you care:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100811/ ... 0.399.html

[ksam]

Vegetarians always make me feel a little guilty. So does my Hindu neighbor's respect for insects (bedbugs?). Maybe I have just been carrying on a long tradition:

Early hominins were using stone tools to butcher meat as long ago as 3.4 million years, about 800,000 years earlier than previous evidence dates to, scientists report in this week's issue of Nature.

Oh...don't worry 'bout the guilt! Eat and be happy....according to a similar article I stumbled to recently, the carnivorous aspect is what allowed us to grow larger brains and evolve into what we are now! Oh...wait...maybe we should go back to veg only!! The article pointed out that when we were strictly gatherers...we barely made our caloric needs...nothing much left to spare, but when be began to eat meat, there was finally enough to allow for more and more growth, esp the brain. Although perhaps the amounts some of us eat, might explain our attitudes and aggressiveness.

Still, my sympathies to those who choose not to eat meat. It's not easy, but you have my admiration and respect. Be creative and hit every Super Mercado...one way to make sure YOU are in control.

Buen Camino, Karin

[hel&scott]

This is a bone of contention for us as Scott is a committed carnivore while Hel is a vego (actually a funny meat allergy) and so can end up throwing up and breaking out in weird rashes from misplaced chicken stock or worse, salad where someone has picked the ham out - same thing right?

In generally the food is great and if you have your own personal taster (or can eat seafood) you'll still enjoy a wide range of great food. But it is a shame that a lot of the great beany /lentil food you want to eat is always cooked in spec or ham base so its out of bounds - yes they do think pork is a vegetable. And why do they use chicken in seafood paella? Actually Hel had a great meal in 2004 in Najera when the local albergue found out that the she wouldn’t be able to eat the festivals paella they were making, they began another from scratch for her which was fantastic – even more so when they were being cooked in 3m wide paella pans and served down the river bank toped off with melon and copious local wine – bliss!

Tortilla is a great saviour, the bread is usually petty good and you can pick up lots of fresh produce to make your own along the way. I wouldn't resort to packet /tin soup as not only being dreadfully dull and boring it doesn't have enough to keep you going - and for goodness sake if you're only going to eat bland safe food you have at home, why bother going all the way to Spain.

[hel&scott]

La Trucha in El Acebo is a vegetarian B&B; the host is very welcoming and the homecooked food a world away from the chicken'n'chips pilgrim menus.

Good to see this one mentioned too, it's a great little find, and a memorial meal finished of by fresh picked blackberries and grappa - just go light on the grappa!

[lynnejohn]

Jaime's hospitality and company and his wonderful fresh food at La Trucha made it the best stay in all of our camino last year. I will not forget him or his fantastic and imaginative menu.

lynne