Food is not a topic of little importance ever, especially not on the Camino. I myself am gluten-intolerant, and I knew that would be a challenge in Portugal and Spain. I also had just worked myself into becoming a vegetarian shortly before my Camino. Changed my mind temporarily when I realized that would probably just be asking too much - NO bread AND no meat? Yikes!
Anyway, I do not recall names of dishes. I just know that I learned early on I could get eggs in the AM if I wanted (I'm into protein) and also thin slices of ham & cheese if I wanted those instead. Salads were good - standard of lettuce, tomato, onion, vinegar & oil. Very yummy, actually. I brought a slew of gluten-free "energy bars" with me from Seattle. I don't even normally eat them, but it seemed smart for some carbs. I also brought a huge bag of a trailmix which was completely low-carb - nuts, seeds, and just a little bit of dried fruit here and there. It literally lasted me the whole 2 weeks I was overseas. Yummy. I also had a store-bought trail mix from Portugal on me.
Vegetables were hard to come by. I'm a huge vegetable-eater, so I settled for "salads" (see above). And fruit, that's also something else I eat a ton of here. But I found the fruit selection in Mercados and elsewhere unappealing. We must be very spoiled here with produce. I did eat their apples and bananas and peaches, but I never found anything that was really tasty. Along the Camino, though, all food tasted pretty darn good!
I loved the squid - always have to try that dish with the fava beans! YUM YUM. And the other fish I really loved was Hake (Spain) - a delicious white fish. One thing I really appreciated was that not much was overrun with sauces, as we tend to do here in the States. Most dishes were actually very simple and SO SO tasty.
I had the Padron peppers, or so I thought (an earlier poster indicated they are not available fresh in October, so I guess I was foiled?) Whatever they were they were scrumptious.
I ate a lot of cheeses, chorizo, salads, seafood (no sardines, though...), drank lots of absolutely delicious coffee and my were the Portugal wines wonderful!
The night before we walked into Santiago (in Padron) we went for 7 tapa dishes and shared them. That was the best food the whole time I was there, I think. I cannot recall all the dishes, besides the peppers, some prawns, a pork dish, and of course potatoes (and I cannot find them on the web), but everything was absolutely fabulous and gluten-free! I never did get to try the almond-lemon dessert that was so popular, though. No worries; I'm not a dessert person anyway!
I didn't have trouble ordering. Sometimes a dinner-mate who spoke Portuguese or Spanish ordered. Sometimes they had an English menu. Sometimes the server spoke a bit of English. And sometimes we flailed our hands about as best we could! (And I used my dictionary.) I never ended up with something I didn't order, except bread. Even when I clearly said in the correct language with correct words "No bread", I got bread. I usually carried it out with me then gave it someone because I was afraid it would be insulting.
Experiment and have fun with it! I found the food delicious, nourishing, and reasonably priced.
Salud!
Laurie B.
