Posts Tagged ‘food’

We didn’t have Jools Holland grinning at midnight, instead, at about twenty to, Cova remembered the grapes. “We’ve got to prepare them,” she said. So a cup for each person with twelve grapes was produced and Liz got busy with a toothpick to deseed hers, Cova meticulously peeled her dozen. Julio and I scorned such shortcuts, we would eat the whole thing, pips, skin and all.

At five to midnight (bearing in mind we hadn’t actually reached dessert yet, having just finished the main course of roast veg and greek dips) we turned on the telly to find ‘The Channel Five Angels’ Marta Fernández, Sara Carbonero y Pilar Rubio counting down to midnight in front of the Puerto del sol in Madrid (a rather warmer version of the Trafalgar Square bash). On the stroke of twelve, a little pac man and a dozen dots appeared on the screen and the counting and eating began…

Definitely not Jools Holland

I knew of this tradition, of course, but hadn’t realised that everybody would be doing it, or that the tableful of celebrities eating grapes would be replayed, and still available on the channel five website.

The other new year’s tradition we had done was the day before. The walking group had invited everyone to their headquarters to wish each other a happy new year and they’d put on a buffet spread which finished with the Roscón de los Reyes, this is basically a big ring cake with candied fruit and fruit paste inside. In the Roscón there are two little gifts… a figurine (representing Jesus) and a bean… Liz got the figurine, and a (paper) crown. Ana, the secretary of the group got the bean, which means she has to pay for the Roscón next year!

El roscón de reyes

After the grape eating we went for a stroll, ending up in a cafe at around two. The night was just getting started for the young Ovetense who traditionally take advantage of the new year celebrations to tog themselves up very smartly. Being lightweights, we headed home at around three. A pleasant start to the new year.

No tuvimos Jools Holland sonriendo abiertamente a medianoche, en su lugar, a las doce menos veinte recordó Cova las uvas. -Tenemos que prepararlas- dijo ella. Así que producimos un vaso de doce uvas para cada persona y Liz empezó trabajando con un palito para quitar las pepitas, Cova las pelaba meticulosamente la docena suya. Julio i yo desdeñamos tal atajos, las comeríamos enteras, pepitas, piel y todo.

A las doce menos cinco (tener en cuente que todavia no habíamos llegado al postre, justo acabó el plato principal, de verduras asadas y salsas griegas) la encendimos la tele en que encontramos  ”Los ángeles de telecinco” Marta  Fernández, Sara Carbonero y Pilar Rubio quien contaban para atrás hasta medianoche delante de la Puerta del sol en Madrid (una versión mas cálido de la fiesta en la plaza de Trafalgar en Londres). Al dar la medianoche aparecieron un pequeño pacman y doce puntos en la pantalla y empezó el contar y el comer.

Ya lo sabía la costumbre, pero no me había dado cuenta que lo haría todo el mundo, o que la mesa de los famosos habría una repetición instantánea, y queda todavía disponible en la pagina de canal cinco.

Hicimos otra costumbre de la temporada el día anterior. El grupo Naranco había invitado a todos los socios a despedir el año en la sede. Prepararon unos embutidos y un roscón de reyes que es un bizcocho en la forma de un anillo, que lleva frutas confitadas y dulce (tradicionalmente se come el día de los reyes pero como el Christmas Pudding vale en casi cualquier día de las fiestas). Dentro el roscón hay dos regalos, una figura y una faba.  Liz cogió la figura (y la corona de papel), Ana, la secretaria del grupo, cogió la faba, lo que quiere decir que ella tendrá que pagar el roscón el año que viene.

Después de comer las uvas salimos para dar una vuelta. Acabamos en un café a las dos, la noche estaba empezando para los ovetenses jovenes quienes aprovechan tradicionalmente la nochevieja para vestirse muy elegante. Como no somos muy dados a ir a los bares, tiramos para casa a las 3. Un principio del año muy agradable.

En castellano As we strolled through the narrow back alleys of Cudillero we could hear the morning mass on telly through open windows. José Ángel timed it wrong and passed an old boy in his front garden just as the mass got to the sign of the peace so I had to wait while he shook hands with the old boy, his neighbor and a couple of other folk.

158 steps up to my house, he said... I only do it once a day.

I had bumped into JA while on the way to the cinema on Friday (to see The American, when it’s out in November in the UK don’t be fooled into thinking it’s an action thriller, it’s much more sombre, good though). We hadn’t seen each other for a good while and we agreed to head out and take photos again. He said when, I said Sunday? he said ok and there we were, a 7:30 start and to the coast to catch the early sun.

After the cliffs and beaches we wandered round Cudillero, it’s a typical Asturian fishing village, small colourful houses packed into the side of steep hills with pricy seafood restaurants at the bottom. We walked in search of pictures. After the handshake incident we passed a house up on the top level outside of which were hanging half a dozen spatchcocked dogfish. It looked like there was no meat on them so I asked what they were doing there. Drying, JA guessed, but he didn’t know so he asked the old boy in the doorway behind the stinky fish.

The flies found them quite appetizing

They were dogfish, shark of some kind, drying, to be used at christmas to make a traditional dish somewhat like bacalao (the classic salt cod you get almost everywhere in Spain). The old boy motioned us to enter, he was making a fishing lure, but he did more than that, all the walls were covered in shells and pictures made from shells and photos of him as a young man on his boat. We chatted for a while, asking if he still went out fishing. I’m 86 he said, they won’t let me. Your family? The damn government. He showed us some of his mounted shellfish, spider crabs with foot-long claws, mussels the size of baseball gloves, an 8 inch dried seahorse surrounded by dried clam shells. It’s my hobby, he said. As we chatted amiably he said the fishing was sometimes still good but the Basques, the Galicians and the Russians were ruining everything. He said he could understand why the Somali pirates did piracy.

He was a spry old boy, if I was running a boat along the coast of Spain I might be a bit worried.

Mientras paseábamos por las callejones de Cudillero oímos la misa de la mañana por la tele tras las ventanas abiertas. José Ángel eligió un mal momento y pasó por un viejo en su jardín al mismo momento que la misa llegó al “gesto de amistad” y tuve que esperar mientras se daba la mano al viejo, su vecino y unos otros.

Había encontrado a JA cuando iba yo al cine el viernes (para ver la película El Americano, cuando se estrenarán en noviembre en el reino unido no se engañe en pensar que es una película de suspense con acción, es mucho más sombría aun que buena). No nos habíamos quedamos en mucho tiempo y quedamos en salir para sacar fotos otra vez. El dijo ¿cuándo?, dije ¿el domingo?, dijo vale y ya estuvo, una salida a las 7.30 y a la costa para coger el sol temprano.

Después de los acantilados y las playas paseamos por Cudillero, es un típico pueblo de pescadores, con muchas casas pequeñas y de colores muy vivos que están en los pendientes, y abajo hay restaurantes de pescado caros. Andábamos en busca de fotos. Después del incidente de darse la mano pasamos por una casa en el callejón mas alta en donde se colgaban seis pescados (abiertos como libros). Parecía que no había carne así que pregunté por qué estaban allí. Secando adivinó JA, pero no sabía el entonces preguntó al viejo en la puerta detrás los pescados hediondos.

Eran gatas, un tipo de tiburón, secando para utilizarlos en navidad en la preparación de un plato típico, algo semejante a bacalao. El viejo nos invitó adentro, estaba haciendo un cebo pero hacía mucho más, en todos las paredes había conchas y cuadros hechos de conchas y fotos de el como un joven en su barquito. Nos charlamos un rato, le preguntamos si seguía pescar. Tengo 86 años dijo, no me dejan. ¿Su familia? El gobierno de mierda. Nos mostró unos de sus caparazones montados, un centolla con pinzas de 30cm, mejillones de tamaño de guantes de béisbol, un caballito de mar de 20cm rodeado de conchas barnizadas. Es mi hobby dijo el. Tras charlamos amigablemente nos decía que la pesca estaba buena de vez en cuando pero los Vascos, Gallegos y Rusos estaban arruinando todo. Dijo que entendía porque los Somalís hacían piratería.

Era un viejo dinámico, si fuese yo en cargo de una flota de pesca en la costa norte de España podría estar un poco preocupado

Tombs for one, or granaries

En castellano

It dawned fresh on the crossroads and we headed to the bar for the breakfast of champions. Unfortunately this is Spain so we settled for Madeleines (well Julio and Liz did, I opted for pre-packed sugary doughnuts). A lady from the hotel drove us back to our spot in a big old wobbly estate car that juddered from side to side independently of the camber on the road.

The plan for the day was to walk to Merlán. We had stopped planning in detail thanks to the loss of the guide book so we were relying on a leaflet we had picked up the previous day in the parish of San Lazaro. We didn’t actually know if there was an albergue in Merlán but the second part of the plan was to walk until we came to somewhere to eat or to stay.

So we walked, passing through tiny villages and one-house hamlets and hórreos. In Galicia the hórreos are stone built, with either air bricks or wooden slats in the side, they look like individual sized tombs (I guess you could stack four in if you tried). We stopped facing one as a couple of old ladies paced slowly past. We asked if there had been many pilgrims along today. ¡Ay muchos! Muchos, they replied.

From Lugo to A Coruña en llanto

While we were sitting there another woman came past with a big tub of milk which she proceeded to feed to a calf in a building we had thought deserted. We exchanged pleasantries –Life in the countryside is hard, she said, lots of work, up early, hard work. We made sympathetic noises.

We kept going, hoping for a bar to top up in. Nothing. We talked to one woman who pointed us towards the casa de remedios (basically a private house in which they will sell stuff to pilgrims) but when we got there no one answered Julio’s increasingly despairing cries of !Oiga¡ ¡Hay alguien! and ¡Remedios! (Hellooooo! Anybody there! Foooooood!) One old boy said that we’d find a bar in Seixas. At that point we realised we were in Merlán and we would be walking much further than we thought. In Seixas there was an albergue rather than a bar. Julio and Liz had pulled ahead of me (I was dawdling) and as I approached I could see that the albergue was new. So new in fact, that they were taking delivery of the beds. Great, I thought, we can stop here and have an easy day of it.

Summer rose

As I arrived Julio was enraged. He and Liz had poked their heads in the door to see what was what and the warden had rushed out screeching for them to get out and that the albergue wasn’t open until one and they mustn’t come in. It takes a lot for Liz to say anything bad about anyone, but she said the woman had been really rude. So we filled our water bottles and decided to keep going. Melide became our next stop, and judging from our found map, there were still 6km to go before we had a chance of finding anything to eat.

I practice my stiff-armed penguin waddle

The path rose towards the Hospital of Seixias (basically the old word for a pilgrim’s rest stop) which was just below a col on a hillside filled with heather and windmills. No bar though. We crossed the border between Lugo and A Coruña at the col and started down. The day was heating up, Julio was complaining about being en yanto, which he explained as equivalent to running on empty but literally means to be on the rims of your wheels (after say, a puncture). He pinched a couple of apples and plums from a tree overhanging the road. The plums were inedibly tart, the apples bitter. I was glad of my doughnut choice in the morning.

We passed another village, asking anyone we met where the nearest bar was. We got differing answers but they all pointed downhill. A chap in a car said we’d find a bar in Vilamor which was 3km ahead. We reached it and gratefully cooled ourselves under a fountain. No bar. We continued and an old boy came out of his house and said another coulple of kilometres, at the end of the village. The vilage was about 3km long. Most annoying. Well eventually (at about 4:30) we got to the bar Carburo and asked what they had. The owner said something about a plato combinado with steak and salad and chips and we said yes. Plus wine and soda. Most welcome, although we sat outside so we were accompanied by significant numbers of flies.

So do they measure the 2cm from the end or the middle?

The steak was big and tender, the chips abundant, the wine homemade, but good, the post prandial snifter of orujo possibly unwise.

The sign on the wall said 55km to Santiago (5km to Melide) but the stone markers we’d been following said 60. Well actually the marker (el mojón) twenty metres up the street said 60.020. They seemed to go in for some serious precision, centimetre level precision. But lacking accuracy. Despite the discrepancy there were still 5km to Melide so we had to get moving, it was 5:45 when we left, there were unlikely to be places in the albergue but we’d just have to see what happened. We sweated past polytunnels filled with flowers until we entered a built up area.

Melide reminded Liz and me of the small towns in rural Argentina, the low rise buildings and the styles of frontage. Not surprising really given that, as the Irish to the US, the Galicians were to Argentina. So much so that pretty much any Spaniard is called a gallego in Argentina. The sounds of the Argentine accent seems to come from Galician too, the x in so many Galician words has lent itself to the sh pronunciation of  ‘ll’ and ‘y’.

Liz has had a little bit to drink at this point, and is happy that there's only 55km to go

Sure enough the albergue was full, so we were directed to the sports centre where we were lucky enough to get three of the last four beds (the people who came after us had to sleep on the floor). This was our first contact with the camino frances (the route that most people think of when they think Camino de Santiago). About 1% of pilgrims do the camino primitivo, that’s 2000 so far this year. 75% or more do the camino frances.

In addition to the normal August crowds, this week also included 12,000 young people doing a pilgrimage ending in Santiago on the following Sunday. They, fortunately, were staying in specially reserved sports halls. Our beds were in a walled off area within the sports hall. It was like a temporary military hospital, showers, toilets, dorms of 40 beds walled off. So we showered and marveled at our good fortune and then went out to eat cheese and pimientos de padron (fried green peppers) and drink galician white wine from much bigger porcelain cups than they use in Oviedo.

We strolled happily back to the bunks for the 10 o’clock closing time. I lay on the bed, put my earplugs in and fell asleep in seconds.

Si alguien pudiera hacer unas correcciones si he cometido errores grandes estaría agradecido

Hacía fresco el amanecer al cruce aquel y nos dirigimos al bar para tomar un desayuno de los campeones. Por desgracia este es España así que comimos magdalenas, así comieron Julio y Liz, tomé yo un dónut empaquetado y azucarado. Nos llevó al inicio de la ruta una mujer del hotel en un gran coche familiar que se bamboleaba independientemente de la inclinación de la carretera.

Ademas de la muchedumbre normal para agosto, esta semana hacían el camino 12.000 jóvenes terminando en Santiago el domingo siguiente. Afortunadamente quedaban en pabellones especiales. Las camas nuestras estaban en una área con paredes adentro del polideportivo. Era como un hospital militar con duchas, dormitorios para 40 personas detrás de las paredes. Duchamos y nos maravillamos con la suerte que tuvimos. Salimos para comer queso, pimientos de padrón y beber vino blanco de Galicia de tazas mucho mas grandes que las que utilicen en Oviedo.

Paseamos feliz a las literas antes de la hora de cerrar (las 22h). Me eché en la cama, puse los tapones y me dormí enseguida.

Julio in the mist at the hospital chapel

I’d like to say that the next day started bright and sunny. I can’t though because it was more of the same, I put my umbrella up as we left the albergue. The other pilgrims had capes of various sizes and colours and everyone had the same ‘oh well, what can you do’ expressions. Breakfast was from the coffee machine in the albergue, when I say coffee machine I don’t mean a Gaggia, no, a Nestle special accompanied by a Kit Kat from the other machine. No matter, we thought, there’s a town just 8km away, we’ll have a late (or Spanish) breakfast in a bar there. More wandering through pine plantations and muddy tracks occasionally looking up to see if there was a view (not often) and then looking down to avoid the biggest deepest puddles and mud pits. The path follows the main road to Lugo but is a little more direct, which means there’s a steepish slog up to Montouto, a pass where there are the remains of old hospitals. I’m not sure why they put hospitals in these places, maybe to ensure that when people reached them they’d need hospitalizing. The hospital at Montouto dates back to the 14th century, founded by Pedro the cruel (great name, I can imagine it “Sire, what name will you be known by?” “Well, I think… ummm… cruel, yes Pedro the cruel… it’s got a certain ring to it no?” “Ummm….” “off with his head!”). We arrived in Paradavella hungry and ready for a coffee or something warming but had forgotten that it was Good Friday. The bars were shut. An old lady peered out of her doorway and looked anxiously at the three of us, Julio asked if there were any bars nearby. Four kilometres along the path. Ah well, a museli bar and a gulp of water would have to do for the time being. The path joined the road and then left it, joined it again and left it. Julio began saying phrases like ‘me cago en la puta que le parió’ (I crap on the whore that gave birth to him: quite strong language) when it became clear that the path went steeply down only to go steeply up later to rejoin the road.

Caldo, chorizo, pan, vino = happy

Finally we rounded a bend and saw a village, Julio, stomping ahead in the rain, turned and waved jubilantly. An open bar. We shucked our things and sat, it was only 12:30 but we were going to eat anyway, who knew when another bar would present itself? What have you got? we asked the old chap behind the bar. He indicated to the back, I’ll ask the boss. We’ve got caldo, he said. We nodded, caldo is good warming stuff. I can give you a chorizo too. Warm? we asked. He shook his head. It would do. We sat. His wife bustled out and said she’d make us a tortilla with chorizo. So pretty soon the table filled up, galician bread is thick and crusty, you could live on that and wine, and we set about the doorstops. The chap brought out wine in tankards, Julio asked for some soda (he likes his wine weak and fizzy) and the owner shook his head and said that wasn’t possible, you couldn’t do that to his wine. Good food, good caldo (according to the guidebooks they use grelos, which are turnip tops) good chorizo, good tortilla, acceptable wine. Then we asked for some cheese and the guy brought out a half round (about two kilo’s worth) and a knife and said have what you like. We finished with a coffee and an orujo (again, the bottle dumped on the table with a shrug). Replete, we asked for the bill, seven euros a piece. So full and happy we headed back into the gloom.

Happy walkers but wet

From this point on the Camino Primitivo is much less up and down, the paths improve a bit, less mud, more towns. We rolled into the albergue at O Cádabo at around 3:30 and had a little siesta. The houses in this part of Galicia are traditionally made or clad in pale grey granite which looks incredibly depressing in the rain. In fact, they use granite here as fenceposts instead of wood, probably because of the speed of rotting the damp climate would cause. We strolled around the town (took about five minutes) and decided on a place for dinner, ate and went to sleep.

There will be none left in short order

This week Spring has most definitely sprung. One of the signs here (as opposed to the UK, where Spring seems to be marked by the same shot of someone having a butty in a London park without a jacket) is the sudden appearance of strawberries in vast quantities. Liz cannot pass up the opportunity of fruit, so she bought a crate (no punnets here, just little crates, holding 2Kg) at the frutería just around the corner. We have some requesón (cream cheese) ready and waiting.

Chocolate con churros
Originally uploaded by correoscar.

After skiing on Saturday (along with the rest of the entire world, it seemed, thanks to the closure of the two other ski resorts in this neck of the woods… far too many people, low visibility and a ton of snowboarders made for an entertaining morning) and finally getting the internet sorted in the house) we had a fairly lazy day on Sunday. At six we decided to go for a stroll, taking cameras, and seeing what we could see.

Eventually we wound up on la losa (the slab), where there are some modern looking cubist flats built on a big slab over the railway lines. Large numbers of older folk were strolling, showing some fine suits, polished canes and enough fur keep the whole of Leeds warm.

At the bottom of one of these cubes (they actually look pretty good all lined up) there is a chocolate shop called Valor. Valor do some of the best chocolate there is, hot chocolate, which I never used to like because it was milk and cocoa powder (an abomination). This is more like chocolate, but melted. Ahhh.

Valor is decorated in a very traditional style, in contrast to its surroundings. Inside it’s marble and cane backed chairs and every table full of chatting folk all tucking in to chocolate and churros.

Rather bad for you if you eat them too often, but every now and again, rather fine.

Día soleado en San Isidro
Originally uploaded by Marcos Dopico.

“Fancy going skiing some time?” Asked Pompeyo on last week’s walk.

“Why not” We answered, fresh from the week in the Alps.

The phone rang on Thursday:

“The forecast is okay for Saturday, how about it?”

So we went. And it didn’t rain, and it only snowed a little bit. The snow was a bit heavy (alright, on the lower slopes it was papa (as they say here, mashed potato consistency) but higher up it was fine).

We set off at 8, sure in the knowledge that the majority of Spaniards would not be rising early to ski. Well some of them did but not too many.

A half day pass for San Isidro (in León) is €16, boot and pole hire for Liz another €11. Pompeyo lent me his carving skis, he skied on his ancient long thin skis. Liz used Carmen’s short skis, which she enjoyed, and we just tootled up and down the reds (which were easier than many blues in Courchevel).

We ate on the way home in Felechosa, pote then trout and now we’re home, digesting and getting ready to head out to the opera. It’s a hard life…

Although it hadn’t felt particularly christmassy (maybe we’re just used to the three month build up you can get in the UK when the shops fill with decorations in October and certain parts of the brainstem are directly targetted by Slade or, worse, Shakey) Liz had expressed a desire to have a few folk round for some nibbles and a glass of wine.

MJ (aka Maria Jesús) had previously suggested going out dancing so we decided to combine the two and show off the new flat too.

Liz also bought me a Spanish scrabble set (which includes tiles for “ch” “rr” “ll” and “ñ”) so we thought we might play that too.

We did a fairly standard table full of cold meats, cheese and dips… we even managed to find some humous. What we didn’t know is that dipping is not spanish, and there were a couple of comments along the lines of “what’s this raw carrot for?” In fact, on the humous pack it said “para dipear” which is a hispanicization of ‘to dip’ leading to a discussion about what dip is in Spanish (meter, we decided).

So we dipped, we snacked, we drank wine and toasted a merry christmas. Then at midnight we all trooped out into the chill (-6C, nothing compared to a frosty Yorkshire I know) and off to Rock Circus.

Rock Circus is basically the hard rock cafe, without the eating. As we went in they were playing AC/DC or some such. Saul excitedly recognised Led Zep, I didn’t… and as such, suffered a dent in my muso reputation. Liz demonstrated a fine solo mosh to the new UK crimble number one (which I didn’t recognise either) and drew a few admiring comments from the chaps next to us.

And therein lies the problem with Rock Circus (or lay, because I don’t know if it’s always like that). The average age of the clientele went down when we went in…

After a drink in there we toddled off to Morgana Le Fey, where they played much less recognisable music (made no difference to me), more europoppy, a younger crowd, more noise…

We made our excuses at around 3 and headed home becuase the following day we were up at 7:30 to go walking…

Never got round to the scrabble.

Julio had been trying to convince us to take it easy on the third day and get to Grandas a bit later. This would have meant missing the only bus back and having to wait until 3pm the following day for a bus. So we were reluctant. As it was, the weather had eased a little, and we decided to get going earlyish to take advantage of the lack of rain. This meant we left Berducedo before the bar had opened. Never mind, we thought, there’s going to be somewhere to get a coffee between here and there.

There wasn’t.


We passed La Mesa, a hamlet with 13 people, all asleep, stopping in the albergue there to see if there was a jar of nescafe or something similar.

No.

Then we climbed steeply up, into real north of England territory, smoother hills, heather and a fierce cold wind. The houses here have slate roofs and are a dark grey that wouldn’t look out of place in Kendal. At the top we could see our destination, Grandas de Salime. Doesn’t look too far, we thought, maybe 5km in a straight line. Then we saw a sign that said 14km. There was a long descent punctuated by plaintive cries for coffee…

It was stunning scenery, the hills are big, 1200m and steep sided, plunging to a man made lake before rising on the other side the same way. The path wandered through pine forest then oak and chestnut, so we had all of the colours of autumn. We descended as far as the dam that forms the lake, it’s a big piece of engineering and when you get up close you’re knackered from the descent, and it seems even more impressive.

We’d spotted a building as we were descending and Julio had said it was a bar (well he actually said to Enrique that we’d be there in 15 minutes, an hour and a half out… not too bad). So we were hoping to finally have our first coffee of the day at about 1pm. It wasn’t just closed, it was abandoned.


Enrique and Encarna decided to stop there for some butties and we said our farewells. We were hoping to make it to the town in time to have lunch before the bus back. Which we did after a strength-sapping 6km up the hill.

Grandas de Salime has 500 inhabitants, it’s the capital of the middle of the back of beyond nowhere. Still, it has a couple of rather nice restaurants, we blagged a table and in contrast to the majority of diners, who were in their Sunday best (although it was Monday), we piled rucksacks and sticks at the side of the table and set to eating. A chickpea stew followed by (merluza for Liz) slices of hand (I think that’s the name for the cut in English butchers, in Spanish codillo, which is little-elbow, basically the forearm). We ate heartily, there is no other word for it, and even had time for coffee before getting on the bus for a 3.5 hour drive back.

On which we were able to actually see some of the hills we’d walked over, unlike the day before.

So, there were the Spanish soldiers, there, fighting against the French, and they sat down to dinner, had their soup and all of a sudden the alarm is sounded and off they go to defend the town, hungry. The same thing happens a couple of times more and then some bright spark decides he’s had enough of this so the next time he sits down to dinner he gets them to give him his meat course first, then chickpeas, finally the soup. This revolutionary idea meets with the approval of the hungry soldiers in his neck of the woods and so is born a regional speciality called cocido maragato.

We had a non-walking trip with the walking group to Astorga, a pretty little city high on the plain in León. It’s cold there in winter, blazing hot in summer, but it’s famous for its buttery cakes and pastries and this backwards menu. We wandered, looked at Roman ruins, had a glass of wine and generally ambled around. Then we got on the bus to head to a village called Castrillo de los Polvazares, all red sandstone and cobbled streets.

The first dish was then meat (basically all your boiled meats… beef, ribs, lamb, salty ham and the gelatinous stuff… ) then chickpeas with cabbage and finally soup, although I was a bit disappointed that the old Spanish soldiers didn’t go the whole hog and start with coffee and a spirit.

I have now digested the meat… although it did take a couple of days.