Gastronomy of el Bierzo and León.

  As the title says, we are going to talk about typical food, beginning with León's.

  Morcilla leonesa, that's 'Black pudding' in England, is made of a mixture of blood, onion, rice, bread crumb and pig's fat. It is stuffed in pig's guts. It can be eaten fried, boiled, with bread, chips or even fried eggs. This food looks awful ! We are uploading an image about it, and you will see it.

As you see, this is an image of fried eggs with a little bit of Black Pudding.












 
  Secondly, we have the "Ronchito", which is a typical sweet from León. Many years ago, the Santos Factory had the idea of creating a unique candy from León. It is made of peanut, cocoa and sugar. The name comes from the Spanish verb "ronchar", which means 'to crush like flour mill'. The "ronchito" is only distributed in León, so if you want to buy this sweet, you have to come here and buy it - or making someone bring it to you -.

We recommend it to you! It's really delicious!

 Then, we have the Cecina, that's 'Cured meat' , which is dried cow meat. It has a toasted colour, with a characteristic, salty flavour. It was catalogued as Protected Geographic Indication in 1.994. It's basically eaten in León and Zamora.

Here is a picture of the cured meat.












  
  Now, in third place, we are going to show you the Hojaldres de Astorga (Astorga's Puff Pastry), which, as the name says, are made in a town that's about 50 kilometres from León. They are made by mixing a 600 gram puff pastry roll with half a litre of water, 750 grams of sugar, 3 honey spoonfuls and some lemon drops. With this recipe, you will be able to do about 15 of them, so they have a huge amount of sugar, and because of that, they are not recommended to eat if you are on a diet ! They look very good, sticky and tasty because of the honey and the rest of ingredients. That's a pity we can't eat them very often.

These puff pastries look very mouthwatering, right?











  We are going a little further and we arrive to el Bierzo, a region located near Astorga. There are many traditional foods like the Pimientos de el Bierzo, Pulpo a la Gallega and Botillo de el Bierzo, and we are going to talk about the last one of them.

  It is the most known of the typical foods of el Bierzo. It might be because of its antiquity - it comes up in the pre-Roman's time - , but we don't know it exactly. It's made with some pig parts, and the only thing you have to do to prepare it is boiling it for approximately two hours - depending on its size - . Then, it has to be taken out and it will be ready to eat. It is recommended to accompany it with boiled potatoes and vegetables and, if you like wine, a red one is a perfect match to have with this food.

As said before, it is accompanied by some boiled potatoes and vegetables.













  These are some examples of typical food around here. What about yours ?