Wow, what an interesting place Galicia is. Our northern Spain trip had lots of components of food, with caves, history and a dose of mountains to round things out. We started this piece of the journey in Galicia which is the northwestern corner of the Iberian peninsula. Galicia is a distinct culture with it’s own language and practices which is a mix of many ancient cultures.
Food
A big piece of visiting Galicia was to explore it’s food. Food here is almost all based upon the sea. The inhabitants here, post stone age. arrived by sea and thus found much of their food there.
A Michelin Experience – Restaurant Pepe Viera
There are many good restaurants in the area and Leesa secured us a spot at Pepe Viera, a Michelin 2 star restaurant. Chef Xose Cannas uses the bounty of the area in bold and unusual ways to create quite interesting and very tasty creations. Sadly, Jim could not join us as he had eatern too much wonderful food in Portugal and Galicia and his innards were saying no more! But Leesa, mark and I were totally amazed at the creations and flavors.
This was our very first course. The reading we’d done said the presentation was bold…. We were not sure what to do, or that we wanted to continue. Was it too bold for us? Turns out, we did not eat the whole fish head, just the small mackrel morsel on the center. A bit of fish with some “Galician flavor things.”Some food came from the kitchen, other things were prepared in the restaurant. Here a chef is preparing a clam to be added to a small cup of the richest fish broth I’ve ever had. The broth is fermented for multiple days which greatly intensifies the flavor. Wow!The presentation of each dish was so unique. This was a piece of… some sort of fish buth there was a bit of lobster bisque served in the head of the lobester.Don’t ask me what kind of fish this was…. I don’t remember. It was carefully sliced into pieces that we could just pick up and pop in our mouths. The fish was quite smokey and was sitting on some sort of leaves??? from grape plants that had been used to smoke the fish.This was a movable feast. We started on sofas for some early appetizers, then moved to a table, then to a bar counter for a couple courses, into the wine cellar, then to the kitchen (where we are here) and then back to our table. Here he had 4 types of fish that had been smoked in 4 different ways. Some were only smoked for a few minutes, others much longer. Just long enough to absorb the flavors but keep the fish tender. These were incredible morsels.
I can’t begin to remember the details of each course and there was so much explination with each dish. They use lots of fermentation, smoking and local herbs, plants and spices to create each dish.
Cooking School
The day before, we had taken a cooking class to learn how to cook various traditional Glacian dishes. Very different from the food at pepe Viera, but all based upon the same heritage. It was just the 4 of us in class, at the market buying fish and seafood, then whipping up a host of dishes in about an hour. Galicians, and many Spaniards, tend to eat one big meal mid day, then tapas around 5 – 7 and maybe dinner at 9 or so. This meal was MUCH bigger than we could possibly eat so the gardeners enjoyed the remainder of our cooking.
I love markets. This market in Cambados was an excellent fish market.Here Rocia, our cooking instructor was picking the shell fish we would cook.Here is our wrass, the only one we saw in the market. This woman descaled it and cutit into thick steaks for us.We cought anchovies and sardines form the same woman She was so fast at cleaning them without looking. She was just chatting away.The bread seller. He cuts off a big hunk of your choice, weights it and wraps it. We also bought several cheeses at a differe stall.Jim and Mark busing doing the chopping. Leesa was on cake duty. I was helping with veggie prep.Jim cooked the clams, while Mark worked on a sauce for the mussles.I had sardine duty. Two pans of sardines, fried. EVERYTHING had LOTS of solive oil. Some things fried, others wheere oilve oil was just the base.Leesa made the cake which was almond flour, lots of eggs and some sugar. A very tasty treat.What do you think, can the 4 of us eat it all? Two types of clams, mussles, bread with cheese and quince jam and a big plate of sardines.But don’t forget the main course, lots of onions, potatoes, peppers, olive oil, the jusce from cooked clams and that whole fish. Add a couple bottles of wine, and the almond cake to finish. Not a chance! It all tasted wonderfully!
Caving and Ruins
Some form on humanoid has lived in the area of Galicia (the northwestern corner of Spain) for at least 500,000 years with later Celtic peoples, Romans and Germanic tribes to follow.
Castro de Baroña
Castro de Baroña is an amazingly well preserved Celtic Iron-Age settlement from around the 1st century BC right on the shore of the Atlantic. What a place to build a settlement. There is not a great deal known about the settlement but it was amazing to think about people building a fortification here.
What a setting! The main settlement is to the left with more “ceremonial” locations to the right.Looking back towards land. There was a mote of sorts that may have provide protection for land invaders.The locals do seem to like climbing around to the ocean side to fish.
Torre de Hercules
On our way east along the Galician coast, we stopped at Torre de Hercules. This is an ancient Roman watch tower and lighthouse near A Caruña on the northwest Atlantic coast of Spain. Built by the Romans, 2 centuries after Castro de Baroña the renovation was done in… 1791!
During th facelift, it received the squared shape and some of the windows were covered. yes, you can climb to the top!One can see why it was such an important early watch tower and light house. The earliest light house had a big stone vase of oil which was lit.The bigger harbour in back is a a large natural harbor used by early sailing vessels.
Our First Cave
We visited two different caves while in northern Spain. The first was the real deal, Tito Bustillo. There are limited visits to the ave, but it is still open to visitors. The cave, used as a prehistoric rock shelter around 10,000 BC, was not discovered by modern people until 1968. It was so amazing to be able to visit this cave and these paintings original paintings.
Here is the motly crew that discovered the new cave entrance in 1968. The original entrance had collapsed in ancient times. Tito (2nd from left), the man the cave was named after died in a caving accident shortly after the cave was found.We were able to see the cave painting live and had an excellent guide who clearly showed us and talked about the various drawings. We could not take photos in the cave, so this is a photo taken in the museum of a piece of the cave paintings. They had an excellent museum that discussed the discovery as well as the history and extent of the cave. They also had exhibits to played with our childlike notions. In this image (left the right), Cave men Mark and Jim and Cave women Sylvia and Leesa.
The Pilgrimage to Santiago Compostela the Easy Way
One day we took a drive from our hotel in Meano the hour north to Santiago de Compostela. There is an ancient pilgrimage route from the 9th century to Santiago to visit the remains of St James (Santiago), the 2nd apostle to die. St James is the patron saint of Spain and his remains are in the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. We say many pilgrims during our time in Galicia, some at our hotels or walking along trails. We however, took our car and drove there.
One stores take on the pilgrams to Santiago de Compostela.
Jim and I did wait a bit in line to see the crypt thought to contain the remains of St James and visit behind the alter. I know it is silly, but after we got there, I felt a bit more affinity for this town and saint as St James in Jimbo’s name sake.
Waiting in line to enter the crypts. Getting close to the alter of the cathedral.St James tomb.We walked behind the alter right behind the middle center statue. No pictures allowed from that vantage but many people stopped to hug or kiss the statue.This cathedral has two organs, both facing each other. This is one of them. I can only imagine how big the sound must be with them both playing.
So Much More to Come
We’ll return to food again, and again and do a bit more cave exploration in a future installment. Northern Spain had not been a place I’d really not been thinking of visiting, but wow, there is so much interesting culture here to learn about and understand. One of the things I love about travel is learning about our world. Some random pics from this part of the explorations.
A guy painting his boat in Cambados. The tides in this part of Spain are quite large, 6 feet or more. When there is not a lift available, a beach and tide will do.Bread delivery.A very inventive door knob and entry.An hórreo, a traditional grain storage building in Galicia. Always raised with slits to let the air in. I really don’t get how they work. We saw them at old homes, but definitely not new ones.Perhaps my favorite bathroom sign ever.
