The Food of Galicia

Since I got two requests yesterday to write about the food here, today seemed as good as any other day to address this topic. Truly, your wish is my command, readers!

Many of you may be aware that tapas restaurants are all-the-rage in Spain, but where we live? Not really. Galicia is in the Northwestern most part of Spain, which means that it’s very rainy and the temperatures here never get too hot. We’re also right on the Atlantic ocean, so our waters are much colder than the side of Spain on the Mediterranean, like Barcelona.

Via A to Z Maps Data

Our area is the green area at the top left of the map. We’re between La Coruña and Ortiguera.

Basically, it means a lot of seafood is eaten here. A lot.

When Mike and I traveled around Spain before coming to live here, people would tell us without fail “Galicia? The weather is terrible, but you’ll eat the freshest seafood in the world.” So far, the former has been very rainy, but not terrible, and the latter is very true.

The specialty of this region is Pulpo a la Gallego, which is Galician style octopus. Mike and I have had it many times and have both truly enjoyed it. The octopus is boiled, then cut into bite sizes, tossed with oil, salt and paprika, served over boiled potatoes.

Sorry for the cellphone pic, but you get the idea.

Speaking of the potatoes, everything here is served with boiled potatoes. They’re soft and buttery tasting naturally, but add in the oil and they’re very good! Only…I really don’t want boiled potatoes with EVERYTHING, know what I’m saying?

This past Sunday, Mike and I were invited to our new friends’ family lunch and we accepted. It was a very good opportunity to speak more with people here, and everyone asked endless questions about us. During that time, Louisa’s (the English speaking friend of ours) cousin fired up a couple of grills FULL of meat.

There were sausages, beef ribs, pork ribs, and a couple of cuts of meat I wasn’t familiar with. This was served with fried potatoes and fried croquettes.

Overall, the food here is very homey. It’s not terribly creative, they rarely use a spice other than sweet paprika, and they don’t use any sauces on anything. The fish is very good and fresh, so it doesn’t need too much dressing up, but if I’m being honest, the Gallegans could spice it up a bit.

We’ve only been out to eat a few times, and the story has been the same. Fish, still on the bone, mostly, served with boiled potatoes. Hunks of meat or sausage, served with boiled potatoes. There are certainly restaurants that break away from this, but if I’m talking about the food on a wide scale, this is what you’re likely to find here. I’ve been cooking up a storm since we like a variety of different things, but I’ve made a point to cook Galician style food when I can. So far, I’ve cooked berberechos, which are little shellfish that are very sweet and yummy, which you’ll remember I already showed you:

I’ve also cooked tiny little camarones, or shrimp.

And last night was the first time that I’ve ever cooked a fish whole! Mike asked if I wanted to take a picture of it, and I didn’t. Now I regret it, of course. The fish was very very good, though I’m not quite sure what kind of fish it was. We have two more that I didn’t cook last night, so I’ll take pictures when I cook those up.

We’ve really made a point to stay in and cook for ourselves as much as possible. Eating out here is expensive and takes HOURS. Especially since other people aren’t eating until the time we have to go to bed, it’s not worth it for us to go out on the weekdays. I’m happy cooking though, and I’m trying to make new things all of the time!

As for wines here, they are cheap, cheap, cheap. We’ve found decent bottles in our grocery store for 3 Euros! I have no idea how those winemakers make any money, but I’ll take it!

The coffee here is almost always divine. No matter what bar you walk in, they’ll have a shiny and expensive espresso machine, their beans are freshly ground, and we looove it.

Desserts?? Blah. Blah, blah, blah. The churros here are never very fresh (that’s a more southern thing anyway) and we haven’t really found a signature dessert for this area. I feel sorry for these people, honestly!! I’ve been all around and haven’t seen even a glimpse of cocoa powder, and as a result, no chocolate cakes or cookies. Their cakes are very plain, and flavored with a bit of licorice, which I don’t particularly like. I also haven’t seen brown sugar anywhere, or molasses for that matter to make my own brown sugar. Powdered sugar is also missing from the shelves, so I’ll have to make my own for that too (though cornstarch is something else I have yet to find). Candies, brownies and cookies just don’t seem to be done here at all, and even worse, I’m having a hard time getting my hands on the ingredients to make my own. My amazon shopping cart is just growing bigger and bigger.

So there you have it! The food here in Galicia is certainly good enough to keep us going, and we’re more than thrilled about the freshness of the seafood, but we’re not too thrilled with the traditional style of cooking. We’re used to a lot of variety when it comes to the places we eat out in Philly, and everything is cooked differently with it’s own interpretation. In Galicia, there’s no room for interpretation I think with ingredients like they have (the fresh fish) we’ll be able to create a lot of dishes ourselves that make us happy. As for the sauces, spices and baking ingredients we can’t find, we’ll just have to order them online.