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A guestion of food: emparedados vs bocadillos?

mai

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Time of past OR future Camino
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Thanks for many pilgrims having talked about cafe con leche, te, vino, el menu de dia, etc....very important Spanish words for camino survival n refreshment.

I would like to ask if it is easy to buy sandwiches along CF? If I want to ask for sandwich, should I say emparedado or bocadillo? What's the difference in Spain?

Will appreciate very much any experiences about sandwich which is easy to carry on camino.

Thank you!
 
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I would stay away from those rock-solid-tasteless-bocadillos. Oh yes, I tried bocadillos de chorizo once, the bread was like taking a bite on a brick, so, I just eat the chorizo. Now, after leaving Burgos we were lucky to find the best sandwich in Spain at a small restaurant in Tardajos, a few kilometers ahead of Rabe de las Calzadas. My recommendation would be to go to the mercado after your walk, buy the bread you like plus whatever you want to include in your sandwich and prepare your own at the albergue's kitchen. Enjoy, y que la luz de Dios alumbre su camino.
 
Agree completely. I always made my own sandwiches as the pre-made ones available in the bars usually left much to be desired.
 
My understanding from my last Spanish lesson, was that a sandwich made with square sliced bread, is called.......................a 'Sandwich'.................

A great British invention of course........

"The bread-enclosed convenience food known as the "sandwich" is attributed toJohn Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), a British statesman and notorious profligate and gambler, who is said to be the inventor of this type of food so that he would not have to leave his gaming table to take supper"

Have yet to try a Bocadillo..........
 
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Always found bocadilos easier to find but I have got to admit they are rather dry. Banana bocadilo is quite nice.
 
The best thing would be to make your own bocadillos. The panaderias "bakers" open at 06:00 where you can buy lovely fresh every morning. The supermarkets and shops also sell bread and everything else you will need for the day's walk.
Bien Camino.
 
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“Sandwiches” have been popping up in food places where only bocadillos had appeared before. The bread has the appearance of Wonder Bread, or at least a Spanish version of it. The choice is nice to have, I suppose.
 
Oxford Alice said:
You can usually just point to what is waiting on the countertop. Careful though: those lovely bocadillos will tear the skin off the roof of your mouth!
Click to expand...
And test the strenght of your teeth fillings, if you have any
 
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The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
Thank you very much for sharing experiences about bocadillos on camino!

I use to have soft bread at home. I still want to keep my teeth after camino, both top n bottom teeth!

From my last trip in Spain, the food in supermarkets is terrific!!! Never tried bocadillos. So want to check before going camino to avoid any tragedy.

Thanks again for your experiences n humor.
 
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In the 1980s. we used to camp near the small town of Cervera de Pisuerga. Hidden in the back streets was a very traditional bakery that sold wonderful barras. The crust was crispy and crunchy - liable to loosen fillings and scratch the roof of your mouth, but not in the slightest chewy so no need to worry about dislocating your jaw (something I have to watch out for now, thanks to a supper of Nigerian dry fried chicken). Hubby and I used to share a barra for lunch, tearing off hunks and then dipping them in the oil of tinned tuna. Mmmm heaven when you have been walking all morning. The bakery was still there a few years back so I hope it will be there when we next visit.

We found that as we travelled west in the mountains, the quality of bread deteriorated. I assume that at the time, Cervera was a wealthy-ish town, where people were prepared and able to pay for decent bread, which was not the case further west.

I gave up eating bocadillos when I walked in 2014 after a few too many tasteless offerings. I did however, have one decent bocadillo de tortilla in a cafe in Santa Domingo, but it was about twice the size that I needed, and I was on my own at the time.
 
Just to be clear, on the camino I never had any food that I did not appreciate, bocadillos included; it's just that the latter were sometimes a little hard on the jaw joints. In Acebo I was delighted to find un bocadillo con anchoas (anchovies) y tomate which was superb.
 
If the bread (white barra) is too baked then just break the crust with your fingers and your gums, teeth and jaws will remain as they were.
Otherwise I do bocadillos of my own with ingredients bought in shops and markets. Cheaper and exactly to my taste but you have to carry it

I don't agree at all. You used term "quality of bread deteriorated" and "decent bread" (sigh) which I assume stands for personal taste. Which can't be disputed of course. But since when white bread is superior health-wise to the black bread which you can almost not find before Bierzo and Galicia (speaking of CF)? I OTOH could hardly wait to get hold of that beautiful black round bread

To each his own.

Buen provecho!
 
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another option is a "BIKINI" is is ta sandwich made with soft bread (like in America) and toasted a la plancha.
 
When making your own sandwiches /snacks ... do you bring a few ziplock bags to pack them in, rinse and reuse? Roughly how many extra ziplocks of different sizes did any of you bring? Or Tupperware containers?
 
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I have always been a little bit suspicious of the tuna empanada that has been in the unrefrigerated case for several hours! To each is own; I have eaten tacos from street vendors in Tijuana and survived it.
 
Camino Way markers in Bronze
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
I feel impelled to write in defence of Spanish bread. As all good peregrinos know, man shall not live by bread alone, but this peregrina was sustained for several weeks by a diet of barras. Quite apart from the taste, texture and price, all of which I found quite palatable, its low water content inhibits the growth of mould. As I never knew where my next meal might come from, it was reassuring to know that the barra in my pack, supplemented by some local cheese and wayside herbs would last for at least three days.
 
I loved Spanish bread, and I believe it also has less gluten
 
One barra and a tin of sardines in tomato in a ring pull can. Great emergency rations. If not used add a different filling for supper ☺. We ate menu del dia for lunch mostly.
Spanish bread is great, but we avoid the Pan Bimbo, horrible IMO.
 
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I always just wrapped my food in a napkin, the bag that the food came in when I bought it, or a bag that I got when I bought something else - whatever was available. I didn't take any ziplock bags for that purpose, and certainly no tupperware. Sometimes my food got a little squished, but a squished lunch never hurt anybody.
 

Agree about brown bread vs white bread, but at the time I am talking about, brown bread was virtual never seen in the areas we were travelling in. It was Bimbo or white barra, and a chunk of white barra with a meal. And I should have qualified my reference to going further west a bit more - further west only as far as La Robla. We were travelling in areas that were connected with the coal mining industry, which was already starting to decline, and the lack of (relative) affluence was notable.

And I should have qualified what I meant by quality too. In England, think the difference between buying a (white) crusty loaf in somewhere like Sainsbury or Tesco and a traditional bakery. The supermarket loaf always disappoints. That's because, in the UK, most supermarket bread is made using the Chorleywood bread process (CBP) that is not traditional - it involves rapid rising and proving and low protein flour. Hence the very different outcomes. My feeling was that when we journeyed west, the bread definitely resembled UK CBP-made bread. It was also a lot cheaper, which I don't think is a coincidence.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the increased availability of brown bread on the Camino. Some were very nice, especially if fresh, but yesterday's bread is only fit for toasting.
 
Bocadillos all the way. Stay away from British style, cardboard cased (probably tastier than the sandwich) triangular ones. Often made over night the resultant soggy mess is an insult to the palate and is likely to be the cause of the downfall of the British Empire and the current state of World affairs.

I find there has been some changes over the years and whereas before all you could get was queso/jamon/serrano in dry (unbuttered) bread whereas I had a fabulous tortilla frances and bacon double wrapped in foil from a bar in Logrono. They also had avocado and boiled egg, tuna and anchovy and good old roast beef - THE sandwich.

Or stack up on the Desayuno Ingles and you won't need to eat all day. I was in Valencia this week and breakfast consisted of:

Croissant/butter/honey or jam (jello in US)
pot of fresh fruit (strawberries/melon/pineapple)
fresh orange juice (local - was more like an orange/grapefruit cross)
pot of youghurt
2 fried eggs
2 slices of serrano ham
2 slices of jamon York
2 slices of cheese
1 chipolata/frankfurter
1 tostada (large slice say 8" x 4")
cafe con leche

€9.50

I staggered from the bar and didn't eat again until 8pm.
 
Camino Way markers in Bronze
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
falcon269 said:
“Sandwiches” have been popping up in food places where only bocadillos had appeared before. The bread has the appearance of Wonder Bread, or at least a Spanish version of it. The choice is nice to have, I suppose.
Click to expand...
Bimbo Bread!
 
There is lots of "Bimbo" bread in the US. You probably have some in the cabinet now, just under a different label. To name a few: Sara Lee, Thomas, Entenmann's, Ball Park, etc...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimbo_Bakeries_USA#Main_brands

In Spanish, "Bimbo" has no negative connotation, as it does in English.


-Paul
 
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Well, in Mexico Bimbo is Bimbo [the company owned by Grupo Bimbo] and oh by the way, they do have some good products, my daughters loved the "Gansito Marinela" during our good years of living in Mexico [almost four decades ago], the product is still going strong. No pares de caminar, y que la luz de Dios alumbre su camino.
 
Bocadillo, zumo y cafe con leche the breakfast of champions
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When I was walking the Camino, I really enjoyed the bocadillo de tortilla (de patatas) with which I broke my fast whenever possible, along with a cafe con leche (the only time in my life I ever regularly drank coffee).
 
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