The Food in Spain

One noticeable advantage to living in Spain is the quality and price of food. I would estimate that food costs approximately half of what we pay for equal quality in the US. While organic foods are available, we find that the local foods we purchase in the markets are of excellent quality and much less expensive. That is particularly true of certain foods.

Elyn eats a lot of lamb and she was able to purchase a half of a young lamb for less than half the cost of the organic lamb we have been buying at the farmer’s market in Santa Fe. We went to one of the local meat stores and asked for their young lamb. They brought out a whole animal, skinned and gutted, hung it up and split it from end to end, including one half of the head! The whole lamb weighed less than twenty pounds. The meat is very delicate and tender, and the animal was raised only a few miles from here, grazing in the fields. The butcher cut Elyn’s half into grilling-size pieces and Elyn has lamb for our entire stay in Sahagún this trip.

The Spanish cheeses we love to buy at Whole Foods in Santa Fe cost half as much in Spain and we have more variety. Our apartment looks out on the local cheese factory where we can see cheese being made every day. We can purchase our favorite aged sheep cheese next door for very little money—or at Corte Ingles, the big department store in León, we can buy unusual raw-milk Spanish cheeses with wonderful flavors.

Of course it would be more expensive to purchase American food products here, but we find that we can easily find most of what we want to eat from local sources. The bread is of excellent quality and baked locally, often in a wood-burning oven. We get a loaf for a little over one Euro ($1.35).

Most fruit is grown here in Spain and is of excellent quality and cheap. I just purchased Clementines that are sweeter than I can find in the states. They are like eating candy. Elyn finds the local apples as good as in the US, even if the selection is less varied and usually not organic (though we can buy organic in León). We can purchase all these fruits in the Saturday market here in Sahagún or in the corner grocery just a block away.

Shopping here is a different experience. We go from store to store with our little shopping cart, buying a few things at each place. There is a store that deals only in fish and chicken, several stores that have only red meat and cheese, several bread stores with a variety of baguettes and some cookies, several coffee bars that bake wonderful pastry, plus the (small) supermarkets with a bit of everything.

The quality in the local shops is generally better than the supers and they sell mostly local produce. Fresh seafood comes in by truck several times each week and is of excellent quality and tremendous variety. You can get octopus, strange shellfish, whole flounder, and many varieties of salt-water seafood. On the edge of town is a discount store, where there are great buys on quantity paper goods, frozen and canned food, and cleaning supplies, plus a huge selection of wine and liquor.

Life is good for us here. We get a lot more exercise walking from shop to shop and climbing to our fourth floor apartment (no elevator, of course). When we need things like computer supplies, clothing, and the like that are not available in Sahagún, we can hop on the train and ride to León for less than $15 for the round trip for both of us (we get a 40% discount because we are “of a certain age”), where nearly everything is available. The trains run many times each day and are usually on time and pleasant to ride. I’m really sold on our little pueblo and the life we are living.

I’m sure I’ll also enjoy Santa Fe when we return in February. There we have friends, the local art scene, the cultural activities, and films that we enjoy. I realized several months ago that we are really nomads. We settle wherever we find ourselves and enjoy what each place has to offer. Why be stuck in one place when we can have the whole world as our home? We’re just waiting for our Spanish ID cards to arrive before we can leave the country. Then we may go to Ireland, Malta, or some other place that calls to us. Then I may be enjoying a Guinness in a Dublin pub, or looking out on the Mediterranean while experiencing the local food and drink. Tally ho! Stay tuned.