Community dinner

[Anthony Coyne]

This may be a silly question but can someone explain the 'community dinner' in albergues.

Does it mean the food is provided by the albergue owners/staff and if so is the cost included in the cost to stay in the albergue?
Or does it mean the pilgrims shop and cook together by group arrangement?
I've searched and can't get my head around it!

 

[Anhalter]

It's a bit interchangeable.... "We had a nice community dinner, the italian pilgrim cooked for us" and "the hospitalero made a really nice community dinner for us". With the latter, sometimes you have to help, sometimes not. The price is (usually) not included in the price for the bed but extra.

Don't worry to much about it, once you're on the ground everything will make sense.

 

[J Willhaus]

Some albergues offer a communal meal and/or breakfast where a hospitalero cooks for you or provides food and helps coordinate the meal while pilgrims share in the food preparation. It may or may not be part of your overnight cost. In private albergues you will be asked if you'd like to be added to the meal and a price will be given. At Donativo albergues, the meal is usually a part of what you donate. In this case, you may want to adjust your donation to give what you might for both your lodging and meal at a private albergue.

Some albergues don't offer a communal meal, but have a kitchen and often pilgrims will join together to buy food and cook together.

Communal meals are often offered in albergues where there may be many pilgrims, but not many options to eat on the economy in town.

 

[Wanderingfriend]

It's a bit interchangeable.... "We had a nice community dinner, the italian pilgrim cooked for us" and "the hospitalero made a really nice community dinner for us". With the latter, sometimes you have to help, sometimes not. The price is (usually) not included in the price for the bed but extra.

Don't worry to much about it, once you're on the ground everything will make sense.

Great response. So many things make sense when on the ground. For budgeting purposes it is safe to assume dinner is not included in cost. It is sometimes offered but the cost is extra. Sometimes you get to be involved in the preparation and sometimes not. Part of the joy of the Camino for me was the variety of experiences.

 

[JerryStroebele]

Participating in communal meals in any albergue, public, parochial or private is one of the great pleasures and rewards of the Camino. I try to never pass up these opportunities when offered, whatever the cost in time or money. Well worth the experience of sharing a meal and meeting new fellow pilgrims. Buen Camino

 

[Jodean]

I extra seek out places offering a meal as it is almost always really delicious. Always an extra charge, but always worth it.
A couple of donativos it was pay what you wanted and so it is nice to be generous. Have never been asked to help make a meal in an albergue, and have never been asked if I wanted to cook together with anyone.

 

[J Willhaus]

At Grañón on the CF, pilgrims are invited to take part in meal prep. I always find when pilgrims join in the prep, the consensus is usually that what is served tastes better. Sometimes the contribution is someone playing the guitar while the work is being done. Other times some just help with getting the tables set up and plates on or with the washing up after. There's almost always someone who wants to help cook or at least take turns stirring the pot.

At Arrés on the Camino Aragones, I usually asked if pilgrims wanted to help. Only got one or two takers for cooking, but others always helped set up the tables, plates, etc. And helped with washing up.

One year serving at a different albergue, I had a pilgrim who arrived and showed me photos of he and I rolling out egg noodles together from Grañón from several years earlier. I love a communal meal and the way it draws pilgrims together.

 

[Philtration]

Or, a communal meal can be a group of pilgrims going out together for a meal at a bar or restaurant.

 

[OzAnnie]

A strong memory from 2016 on the camino del Norte. Coming to an albergue, (I don’t remember where ) and there was a strong friendly danish pilgrim (Jan) walking with quite a few following …. He took the reins … walked quite a way extra up to stores and bought the necessary things back to the albergue to make dinner … organised all of us .. to different tasks (chopping this or that etc )…. It all went well .. and we all shared the cleaning up and the cost (or I suppose ., those that could ). It was fun - we had met and eaten together on occasion on other days of the walk so the company was great and we all worked happily together.

Those memories never fade.

 

[GaTeach]

One of my favorite community suppers was in Olmos de Atapuerca this summer. It was a Sunday and I think the town was about 3km from the Camino. We were staying in a Casa Rural with a couple from the Netherlands and a man from Austria. The owners had left a note that the closest store was 3km away and nothing was open, but if we wanted, there was some pasta in the pantry. It was cold and windy and no one wanted to walk.

We cooked the pasta, tossed it with olive oil, found a jar of green beans and some sort of packaged hard, crunchy toast, hard boiled some eggs-and made a beautiful supper. Combined with the tiniest bottle of wine that had been given to us a week earlier by a Canadian gentleman-we had been toting it with us for just this occasion.

It was a feast fit for a king.

Thanks for this thread and bringing me this smile on a cold December morning in the Southern US.