shellypaul
New Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- Frances(2016 September)
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I agree completely with jozero although, as far as knives go, I am partial to the French Opinel No. 7 which is a simple but brilliant design which is light, locks open (and closed) using the twist collar and has a beautifully thin blade which is perfect for slicing and dicing everything from fruit to nuts. It's about 9 euros and available almost everywhere in Spain. Make sure it is an Opinel and not one of the cheap knock-off imitations though. Sadly it doesn't have a corkscrewYes, there are many kitchens available and you can get the information from this forum which Albergues have them. Cooking pots and pans and not generally needed however I do recommend a decent little knife as the ones I found couldn't slice through butter sitting out in the midday Meseta sun...! I carry a little Swiss Army knife and always did fine for me. Is it all worth it? For my two cents, yes. The evenings when I met up with other like-minded Peregrinos and went to the store together and planned and meal together, cooked it and ate together with a nice bottle of wine were some of the most enriching nights on the Camino. Great camaraderie for sure. On the flip side though, some days after a long walk it could be tough to be motivated and those nights became the Menu del Peregrino nights!
Here's a great resource on the forum that shows all the albergues and whether or not they have a kitchen. Click here to go to the page to download the PDF that you can put on your smartphone. Once you have a rough idea then if you can get into a nice comfort zone, you can start winging it a bit so you don't need to have the stress of make a strict plan and sticking to it.Thank you guys for the great information! I have a guidebook, have downloaded the lists of albergues but, it still seems a daunting task to do the planning which feels so necessary. Keeps me up some nights...lol
That looks like the perfect, lightweight little kit for pilgrim's making their own meals. You got all the essentials in there.I'm with you on not wanting to eat out all the time.
We often had a quick coffee and some sort of pastry for breakfast, sometimes with yogurt which we bought with our lunch supplies. The spoons came in handy.
We had a pic-nic lunch everyday with whatever we could find, i.e. bread, cheese, fruit, tomatoes, salami, cookies. We used the knife to cut cheese and tomatoes. The Ziploc containers held leftover cheese (if there was any!).
We had a mix of restaurants and kitchens for supper. If we were cooking we made pasta with a bunch of veges and there was often leftovers. The Ziploc containers were handy for leftover pasta eaten cold the next day for lunch, with the forks.
Happy Eating!
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This is exactly the knife we buy as soon as we arrive in Spain, as we can't take a knife on board the plane. We never check in our packs. Once in Santiage, we give it to someone ( anyone).I agree completely with jozero although, as far as knives go, I am partial to the French Opinel No. 7 which is a simple but brilliant design which is light, locks open (and closed) using the twist collar and has a beautifully thin blade which is perfect for slicing and dicing everything from fruit to nuts. It's about 9 euros and available almost everywhere in Spain. Make sure it is an Opinel and not one of the cheap knock-off imitations though. Sadly it doesn't have a corkscrewalthough there is a larger version that does Light coloured handle, like this, is stainless steel (inox in Europe). Orangish coloured handle is carbon steel - which keeps a better edge but is prone to rusting and/or staining.
And there are some refugios that have a lovely kitchen but won't let you cook in it - or has the Swiss refugio in Ponferrada eased up over the years?
My.main issue was trying to find decent food to cook. Small town supermarkets suck.
The quality of the fresh produce was uniformally terrible, even in the main town Dia supermarkets etc.
Northern Spain has such a good climate to grow food so I don't understand.
Where did you walk? My wife and I consistently found wonderful fresh produce in the towns and larger villages, including at the chain supermarkets. Appearance might have been more variable in smaller places. For example, some stores were carrying stock that was starting to look a little old, and there was produce everywhere that didn't appear perfect inasmuch as it had growth imperfections. It reminded us that here in Australia we discard a substantial amount of perfectly good food because it doesn't meet some advertizing agency view of the perfect looking tomato, pear, peach or the like.The quality of the fresh produce was uniformally terrible, even in the main town Dia supermarkets etc.
Northern Spain has such a good climate to grow food so I don't understand.
I doubt it. We were walking less than a month before you. It's hard to imagine that you managed to find only stores selling unappealing produce, but having read your blog it appears that you probably gave it your best shot.Maybe it's the time of year. Just giving my honest opinion. I am not a fan of tinned anything, but ended up buying tinned veg a lot of the time because the fresh stuff looked so bad.
Although I am a vegetarian, I did not cook much, mostly because I did not want to carry much food, which quickly adds to the weight of a pack. I do not consider myself a fussy eater, but the quality of the produce was often poor, when the situation made it compulsory for me to cook if I wanted to eat. One example will suffice. I walked from Leon to Villar de Mazarife, hoping to stay at the Albergue San Antonio de Padua, which serves vegetarian meals and has a good reputation on the forum. It was closed for a few days, because of an infestation. I had heard that Tio Pepe, a second albergue in the village, had had problems with bed bugs. I would not stay there, but I tried to get a menu. There was no vegetarian option. That left only the Jesus albergue, where I would have to cook for myself. There were two small tiendas in the village, with very little produce in either. I bought a small and scruffy head of lettuce (what there was) and a few other items to make up a salad meal. I did not get sick, but I did not feel well after the meal either. I went on in the morning with nothing open to get any breakfast until Puente de Orbigo at 11 am. Verde was a relief for the next night: wonderful fresh vegetarian food and a clean and friendly environment. Well this is not serious. You take your chances when you travel, especially if on a diet which varies from what seems normal locally. And by this point it was late October/November. The night at the Jesus albergue was Hallowe'en, an odd experience as all the locals seemed to celebrate the occasion in the bar and the albergue was pretty closely attached. Fresh local produce may just have been out of season. Let me just say that I have no complaints about the food, given the price and the conditions under which I was living. But mostly, it wasn't great. I lost a lot of weight on the camino, and it wasn't all from over exertion. I wonder if better quality food may be available for those who have walked more than one camino and have better awareness of local conditions and where to shop and eat.
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