Spain and Portugal for Visitors

This is the best Galicia has to offer, especially its fantastic fish and seafood, and at bargain prices. Meat-eaters will not be disappointed, either, Galician veal and beef having the same prestige as, say, Irish beef, and pork and lamb are perfectly satisfactory. Traditionally fattened Galician capons are particularly delicious, and game birds, especially, abound. Non-marine dishes to look out for include caldo gallego, a winter soup with white beans, potatoes and turnip tops, lacón con grelos, shoulder of pork with turnip tops.

But Galicia's main gastronomic claim to fame is its fish and seafood. Apart from the fishing towns and villages found all along the coast of both the Rí­as Baixas and Altas, Vigo is the largest fishing port in Europe and the world, except Japan, ensuring the best and freshest fish you have seen (though the Spanish taste for salt cod is also found in Galicia). The seafood is also outstanding and the low cost of living in the area is reflected in its accessible prices. Special mention must be made of Galician percebes, goose-barnacles, a delicacy for the moment only fully appreciated by the Spanish and Japanese. It is often said that eating percebes is like taking an essence of the sea, though I must admit a little courage is required: Woody Allen is supposed to have said, "How can anything so ugly be so delicious?" about percebes. They are collected by percebeiros, a high-risk activity, as the percebes live in the most inaccessible rocks on the coast and need to be "harvested" by hand at low tide, often in poor weather.

There are too many types of seafood to list, but others of interest are vieras, scallops (not for nothing is the scallop the symbol of the Camino de Santiago); mejillones, farmed in the rí­as; pulpo, octopus, particularly in the form of pulpo a la gallega, boiled octopus with potatoes cooked in the same water and dusted with paprika - pulperí­as are octopus-dedicated restaurants; and a bewildering variety of crabs and lobsters (check prices for these, though - Galicia is cheap, but lobster is lobster).

The local beer is Estrella Galicia, invariably called simply Estrella; like most Spanish beer, it is quite fine. Albariño is the name of the grape used to make a very light, fresh white wine in the Rí­as Baixas Denominación d'Origen and a similar wine is made in the Ribeiro D.O., around the town of Ribadavia in Ourense. It is served in a taza, a kind of small bowl. The Ribeira Sacra region is relatively new as a D.O., but wine has been made here for thousands of years. Among others, it produces a very dark red wine from the Mencia grape. Orujo is a local aguardiente, firewater, made from marc, what is left over when grapes have been pressed. A queimada is a kind of fruit punch made with flamed orujo - it has associations with witchcraft.