Hello from Fairfax VA, USA

[jgray4613]

Ola,

My daughter and I are planning to walk part of the Camino Frances starting in late May or early June. Tentatively we are planning to start in Leon and continue walking to Finisterre after a couple days in Santiago.

Afterwards, my wife will fly over and we will have a mini European vacation.

We have lots of questions but we have already learned a lot just from reading the posts on this board. One thing though, we are curious about the food. What did people like and not like?

Buen Camino,

 

[ivar]

Hi there and welcome to the forum!

I love Spanish food, but some I can understand that it might be quite different from, especially food from North America. There is not a lot of "pre-fabricated-food" restaurant in Spain.... in fact I do not know of one yet. By the way there are two McDonald's in Santiago, and I think they are both struggling to survive.

If you are hungry along the way and want a safe bet for food, my advice: Tortilla. This is different from the American tortilla (the chips). Tortilla in Spain is a potatoe omelet, very good and I have not met someone that does not like it (unless you do not like potatoes and eggs).

You can get tortilla in almost every bar along the way.

Anyone else with some pilgrim-food-favorites?

 

[jgray4613]

I hope we didn't sound too squeamish about trying new food. Actually, we are looking forward to eating our way across Spain. But while Central and South American cuisine is relatively popular in Northern Virginia, there doesn’t seem to be any Spanish restaurants.

In most accounts I have read people seemed to love the food, but we saw an episode of "Globe Trekker" where the presenter walked into a bar in Santiago and ordered the cheapest dish on the menu. Turned out to be pig's ears and they were definitely not to her liking. We both speak a little Spanish but our food vocabulary is Caribbean, Central and South American. So we decided to compile a list of foods to look for and what to avoid.

We are really trying to prepare for our Camino and not just the food. We are reading "The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook" by David M. Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson and "The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago De Compostela" by William Melczer. To prepare physically I'm walking 10 miles a day on weekends along with dieting and aerobics. My daughter says she doesn’t want to have to carry me. I hope we're not over preparing.

 

[William Marques]

Spanish Food

The only people likely to be disappointed with Spanish food are vegitarians. Although larger towns may have a better choice the Spanish are a meat eating nation and there may be little choice in the smaller towns and villages.

The pilgrim menu at most places on the camino provides a filling basic meal at a low price.

Buen Camino
William

 

[ivar]

Yes, the pig's ears is a classic.... it is traditional food, but not served in most places. Not to worry, I don't think they will serve it unless you ask for it.

...they say it's good, I have never tried..

Another recomendation is Caldo, a kind of vegetable soupe served warm. You will probably see it on your "Pilgrim menu" once you get started.

Can you tell it is just before lunch?

Greetings from Santiago,
Ivar

 

[jgray4613]

I just saw another thread on deciphering spanish menus. We can follow that thread and see what people have to say. Maybe we can compile a list when we are on our camino and contribute it.

Tomorrow a group of us are going to lunch at a local Brazilian restaurant. Since I speak a little Spanish I usually mispronounce everything that I ask for. I suppose we'll have the same problem in Galacia but whatever, I'm sure we will eat well anyway and have a great time.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[Peter Robins]

not sure that speaking Spanish in a Brazilian place is a good idea
Linguistically speaking, Galician is a sort of halfway house between Spanish/Castillian and Portuguese; it has elements of both. Don't worry too much about mispronouncing things; Americans mispronounce (and misspell) many English words too, but we can still communicate successfully most of the time

For background reading on food in Spain, wikipedia has quite a good general intro on Spanish cookery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_cuisine
with some links to other websites; http://www.spain-recipes.com is good

 

[ivar]

On a related topic, here is a thread we had a while ago related to cooking along the French Route.

If you are not sure what to order (or what you are ordering?)?
- Cook it yourself!

More here:
viewtopic.php?t=490

 

[John P.]

Hello jgray4613 -

I just wanted to add one thing, you'll probably be surprised at how easy it is to NOT be adventuresome in northwestern Spian. One of the menu del dia selections is almost always a basic meat (usually stewed, but sometime fried), potato's (fried), and a salad (the usual vegies, and a common tuna - that's quite good). So you can go quite bland, though I wouldn't recommend missing out out some wonderful dishes, especially fish. In one small town I stopped in a family run establishment and had a trout cooked with salted pork inside that was fabulous.

If you're just pointing & hoping, you might end up with tripe stew, or blood sausage - but with a cheat sheet you can avoid it if you want (I tried both, and both were quite good - though I admit if I'd KNOWN it was blood sausage I might not had have ordered it...)

To be honest, many even moderate sized towns have places where you can track down "burgers" and "pizza", but we made a conscious decision not to. (Though coming off of bad water in the meseta I admit to having a local version of pizza. It was made with fresh dough, local cheese, and drizzled with olive oil - wonderful).

But hey, the good news is that the local wines that go with dinner make everything better - and they change with the region, so you have quite a wine tasting "tour" also ~

Good luck!

John P.

 

[grayland]

Please take note the this Thread is from 2006. Some of the information may be dated.

The post above by @howardd5 from July 11, 2021 (while a bit late ) is very accurate and timely.