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Camino de Santiago: Food – Conversation Lesson

Kristin: So what did the food end up being like in Spain, particularly for you, Joe, being vegan?

Joe: Well, on the Camino, y’know, I remember before I started I actually looked at a bunch of entries on this Camino forum where there’s a lot of information.

Kristin: Yeah.

Joe: And everyone seemed to be saying that it’s terrible for vegans and vegans should definitely become vegetarians only when they do the Camino or they’re going to die…not really die, but they’re going to starve to death, and…

Kristin: So was it difficult for you?

Joe: Y’know, I’m used to having the challenge of being a vegan so, and I knew what to expect, so no it wasn’t super difficult. I mean, it would have been better if there were some other options at times, but no it wasn’t too bad because I always made sure I had some source of protein with me. Like I always had nuts with me and I knew that there were certain towns along the way, certain cities, like Pamplona, Leon, Burgos and Logrono, and a few other places where there were vegetarian restaurants and health food stores, they called them BO markets, but what we would call health food stores here.

Kristin: Yeah, yeah.

Joe: There were some towns that had those so whenever I was in one of those towns or cities I would buy a bunch of supplies and I’d carry them with me. Like things like, they had vegan chorizo.

Kristin: Oh, okay.

Joe: Y’know? And little vegan sausages.

Kristin: Yeah.

Joe: And, y’know, I’d get hummus. Y’know, things like that.

Kristin: So what was…what was the typical food day to day? AJ?

AJ: Well, for me, for breakfast I would have what the Spanish call a tortilla but we would call kind of like a quiche really, is what it was. It’s kind of…it’s made from eggs and then often had potatoes. So that would be, that plus a coffee with milk, I would get that for a typical breakfast. And, of course, the famous thing in Spain are the tapas, which are essentially little appetizers, lots of little appetizer plates that you can eat a wide variety of them. I especially liked those when I was in, when we first got to Barcelona when we were walking around they had like, y’know, cured hams, little sandwiches, plates with olives and cheeses. So all of that was quite nice. On the Camino itself, when we were walking through little towns sometimes the food got a little repetitive because it would be the exact same menu at every place in the little towns so I got a little tired of eating, y’know, chicken and flan.

Kristin: So on the menu would you…did you have choices though? Like it might be chicken and beef?

AJ: Well, there was a menu of the day at most places we would go during the Camino, on the Camino.

You could go to a restaurant and get, y’know, just order ala carte. I did that in a town called Astorga, for example, and had the best meal of the whole Camino for me. But most of the time I got the menu of the day, set menu, just because it was…basically because it was cheap and easy.

Joe: Yeah, y’know, the menu of the day they’d give you three different courses I think it was. So basically the first one was like an appetizer, the next one was the entrée or the main dish and then they had a dessert.

Kristin: And so it was just a fixed price.

Joe: Fixed price, 10 to 12 Euros, I think is what it was. Y’know, you’re doing this for a long period of time and it would get quite expensive if you were ordering ala carte and paying 20 or 30 Euros a day for your meal. Usually the first dish, y’know, the appetizer was like a soup or a salad and there were a lot of different choices.

Kristin: What would a choice be, what would an entrée choice be for you?

Joe: Well, vegan meant basically you would tell them to…

Kristin: Salad.

Joe: No, you’d say, “Give me the spaghetti but don’t put the fish in or don’t put the meat in.” But I very rarely got the menu of the day. I would say maybe once or twice a week I had it and that was it. Y’know, because normally I would have my own little food and I would just order a side salad or, depending on where we were, y’know, the dishes changed. Like when you got to Galicia, that’s where they started to have really good soup called Galician soup. And it had like a lot of beans and stuff and, y’know, I’d have to ask if they had a meat broth in it, which I would ask in Spanish to make sure I knew how they made it.

But that was usually pretty filling. They made lentils a lot of the time but really a lot of the times they were cooked with some sort of meat so you had to ask. But if they had lentils and they were veg, then I would definitely eat those, too.

Kristin: Well, no wonder you lost weight. It sounds like you were starving.

Joe: No, I wasn’t starving at all.

Kristin: Starving yourself.

Joe: I ate plenty of food. No, no, no, every day for lunch I had bread, avocado, nuts and fruit, y’know?

And water and I would say maybe half the days or less I had what they call café con leche, which is coffee with milk but it’s not like in America where they have the big cup of coffee. It’s just really two shots of espresso and milk. And obviously, for me, I would only have the milk if they had a non-dairy milk, like oat milk is really popular there. Occasionally they’d have almond milk, soy milk occasionally, y’know, when you got to a big city the options opened up for you.

Kristin: Mmm.

Joe: But like when I went to the big cities and I would go to like a vegetarian restaurant, then I would just gorge myself. I’d eat so much.

Kristin: Yeah, so what was the food like on the Camino compared to when you were in Barcelona or, AJ, you were also in Madrid.

Joe: Well, there’s no comparison. I mean, you’re talking about a big city or two big cities versus, y’know, a small city. I mean it’s just like what’s the difference between being in New York or in a small city in America. I mean the choices in Barcelona and Madrid, be it meat or non-meat, you could get almost anything you wanted. And in a small town it was whatever was there basically. A lot of places just catered to peregrinos, the pilgrims, y’know? Because there’s not much else going on in those small towns.

Kristin: So we’re talking basic staples along the Camino and then in the city it was probably, especially like Barcelona maybe, I guess Madrid, too, you had more international choices.

Joe: Yeah, you had international choices for sure in Barcelona. AJ could comment on the food in Madrid.

Kristin: Yeah, didn’t you actually say it was hard to find some good food?

AJ: No, I think I was just getting tired of the same food by the time we got to Madrid. The thing that was hard to find in Spain was, say, Asian food. But it’s Spain, it’s not in Asia, so that’s why. It’s just that I enjoyed, like I said the cured hams and meats and things and I enjoyed the cheese and other Spanish dishes. But I think by the end of the Camino I was ready for a change and, of course, I like Asian food a lot so I just didn’t have the opportunity to get as much good Asian food in Spain, not surprising.

Kristin: Yeah, so I never even asked you. The cheese was really good?

AJ: They did have some good cheese, absolutely, yeah. They had good cheese and I…y’know, they had good cheese, good ham, sausages, things like that. That’s what I ate a lot of. And then things like olives, sardines, all these kind of little tapas, y’know, appetizer plates. Of course, they had big, regular main dishes, too, but those are the ones I remember most distinctly being, which felt Spanish, uniquely Spanish.

Kristin: Y’know, something that you both were talking about whenever I’d speak with you on Skype that really surprised me was how late people eat in Spain. Compared to here, it’s very different.

Joe: Yeah, on the Camino you had to eat a little earlier, but relative to bedtime, it was very late. Because we would, I think we’d finish eating and in an hour later we’d be going to bed and you can’t really stay up too late on the Camino because you have to wake up early the next day.

Kristin: Yeah, but like in Barcelona you said people would…

Joe: Oh.

Kristin: …would be going out to eat dinner at what, 9:00, 10:00 at night.

Joe: Oh yeah…oh, yeah, definitely, at least that late.

Kristin: Yeah, that’s very different than here.

Joe: There are a couple of staples of Spanish food, or what I thought were staples, and we had those a couple of times, too, with varying degrees of quality. Like we had paella one time at an albergue, y’know, a hostel, they call them albergues. And it was one of the better meals that we had and it was made fresh.

But then there are places that serve paella and it was like instant paella from a box.

Kristin: Ew.

Joe: And then the gazpacho I had, which I was really excited about because I love gazpacho, they…they weren’t that great. I mean the gazpacho that we make at home is way better.