scruffy1
Veteran Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- Holy Year from Pamplona 2010, SJPP 2011, Lisbon 2012, Le Puy 2013, Vezelay (partial watch this space!) 2014; 2015 Toulouse-Puenta la Reina (Arles)
We have all met the little vans that go beeping around the villages and smaller towns along the Camino, visiting noisily twice a day with lovely fresh bread. There are also little vans which come by at least twice a week with fresh fish on ice, offering everything from octopus to turbot. Fish! A real treat when its fresh but alas, the merluza - hake - which somehow always appears next to lomo on the menu is usually frozen and tasteless. For those who do eat fish there is always bacalao – bacalhau in Portuguese or Gallego, salt cod, something I personally could never develop a taste for. But as one approaches Santiago the opportunities to taste different fish and shellfish grows by leaps and bounds. pulpo – octopus – and No!, "Ezekiel" is definitely not the best pulpo along the Camino – it’s a barn of a place with servers who are tired, dropping on their feet, and sulky due to the incredible number of pilgrims who inhabit the place-often inebriated. Santiago is a heaven for seafood pescados and mariscos– all of it overpriced and often over cooked in the many restaurants below the cathedral. Tanks of lobsters bogavante occasionally langosta or lavagante, crabs or centolla or pateiro or necora, wonderful fresh hake merluza or sole= lenguado or turbot rodaballo or frightening monkfish rape or ,piles of shrimps or prawns (define each as you will and there are many names in Spanish), bags of mussels -mejillones, clams –almejas- , razor clams - navajas, scallops – vieiras the big ones and zamburiñas the smaller ones, oysters –ostreas, goose barnacles – percebes and more and more. Don’t even consider the restaurants. Santiago has a wonderful market open mornings until about 1300 where may be found the freshest fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, and shellfish all fresher and cheaper then the supermarkets while the fish/shellfish offered are much better and infinitely cheaper than the restaurants. A plate of 4-6 prawns cooked in butter/oil and garlic will set you back 10 Euros anywhere, a kilo of the same prawns, 20-30 of them, will cost you 8-10 Euros in the market. Dublin Bay prawns –cigalas are sold by the kilo in the restaurants starting 90 euro a kilo while the very best of them in the market are 30. The wonderful people in the market will clean the fish however you want and open the shells of those shellfish which need to be opened. A pilgrim should have a little celebration but do it yourself and enjoy it much more without breaking the bank.
Wine? Albarino is the best and the most expensive white, a lovely flowery fruity taste which all but disappears with taken with food. Every supermarket every shop every restaurant in Santiago also offers a wine called Godello produced by many wineries, an excellent white which is not afraid of butter garlic or fish and comes through every time for a much better price.
PS tuna atun in Spain does not mean Starkist! Great stuff in the jars not cans, white and nicely flavored a better source of protein since it does not have the cholesterol of eggs.
Wine? Albarino is the best and the most expensive white, a lovely flowery fruity taste which all but disappears with taken with food. Every supermarket every shop every restaurant in Santiago also offers a wine called Godello produced by many wineries, an excellent white which is not afraid of butter garlic or fish and comes through every time for a much better price.
PS tuna atun in Spain does not mean Starkist! Great stuff in the jars not cans, white and nicely flavored a better source of protein since it does not have the cholesterol of eggs.
