Food, Glorious - Pilgrim Menus

My firm expectation on setting off to do the Camino was that I would lose weight. Walking every day and carrying a 20 pound pack was surely a recipe for a slim and fit profile. Maybe the odd beer might interfere but that would not be enough to reverse the effect - I would be out buying a new wardrobe on my return.

It hasn't worked out like that.

The culprit is the Menu Pelegrino. Throughout our trip, various forms of menu pelegrino have surfaced. Most are three courses for 10 euros, including bread and wine. There have been occasional variations - we had four courses in the wonderful Albergue Suseia at Zubiri and we have occasionally settled for a pizza (and we were once royally conned into an expensive steak) - but, whether as part of a communal meal in an albergue or in a restaurant, most meals have been menu pelegrino.

Almost all of them have been good - and amazing for the money. A few have been amazing if we had paid twice the price or more. In most places I have drunk a lot more than 10 euros worth of wine (at English prices) and many of the wines have been good by any standard I can apply. The Bierzo wine and a couple of the Navarre wines were a revelation. Almost all the red wine was served chilled but I like that and it wasn't usually a way of masking cheap plonk. Moreover, the communal meals have often featured ridiculous amounts of wine and I have been cursed by having non-drinkers as my neighbours at table; what's a man to do but politely imbibe to excess?

While the menus do not win any prizes for healthy produce (veg is lacking), they have varied along the way. Hake, chicken and beef are almost ever present but Galician hake is not like Navarre hake and on the meseta the eternal question 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' is answered by putting both on the same plate (weird!). Over such a long period, the range has been impressive, lots of paella to start our journey, morcilla in and around Burgos (I love morcilla); last night I had octopus (pulperia, a Galician speciality) and tonight a wonderful pork knuckle. Desserts lack variety (as anyone who has been to Spain will confirm) but we are at last in the land of the Tarte Santiago (an almond cake) and I have had some wonderful specialist cakes when we have stopped for coffee.

So, if you are looking for a reason to do the Camino, I am afraid weight lost should not be one. Good food might be though.

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