There is something fishy going on in Galicia, and it’s attracting hundreds of thousands of seafood lovers. Rosie Khdir discovers the Fiesta de Exaltación del Marisco.

A seaside town promoting its array of fresh fish may seem like a cliché to most, but O Grove in the Galicia region of Spain really has something to boast about this autumn.

October in O Grove means one thing, seafood, and lots of it. Fish lovers from all over Europe flock to this small and picturesque seaside town to showcase their finest stock and over 220,000 visitors every year are more than happy to sample it.

For two weeks this month O Grove is filled with booths, stalls, information stands and contests, all centering around this fishy theme.

Visitors are entertained by live seafood sculptures, folk dancing, seafood sports and music, not to mention as much seafood as you can eat. The marquee-lined port hosts a number of competitions including that for best mussels and turbot and there is even the chance to win a goodie bag filled with mussels, crab and the catch of the day!

Galicia is the perfect region to find the very best seafood, with its extensive coast line and estuaries where you’ll find hake, sea-bass, turbot and sole to name but a few. The region is also famous for its selection of shellfish; you name it and Galicia probably has it in its waters. There is even a festival in December devoted entirely to the spider crab!

Octopus is a year-round delicacy in Galicia and will surely be eaten at the O Grove seafood festival. It is most popularly served al feira, where it is chopped, boiled and seasoned with paprika, salt and olive oil.

Although it is a seafood festival, it isn’t all about food. Visitors can enjoy the Galician-Portuguese folklore dancing and the Celtic gaita music, which is native to Galicia, as well as the granite sculptures created for the annual International Symposium of Open-Air Sculpture, which runs alongside the festival.

So to warm up you winter why not try some seafood stews alongside O Grove’s beautiful coast. This festival is free and runs from 2nd-12th October. Opening hours are 11am-4.30pm & 7pm-11pm daily.

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Image credit: bensonkua

Tags: Lifestyle, Spain by Rosie Khdir
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October kicks off the winter holiday season with our favourite US import, Halloween. John Hillman tries to sum up attitudes to spookyness on the other side of the English Channel.

The UK is often accused of being too quick to ape the US. Whatever misadventure they embark on, be it food or foreign policy, we dive in with all the enthusiasm of a naive lovestruck schoolboy, as the rest of Europe looks on bemused.

But while surging obesity rates and dubious wars are just cause for our neighbours to tut disapprovingly and raise their eyebrows, at least we can say we have embraced some of the better things too.

Halloween is fast becoming one of the most popular holidays of the year. School kids love it because they get to dress up and extract sweets from their neighbours; Grown-ups just enjoy any excuse to get drunk in fancy dress – it really is a holiday for all ages.

In many parts of Europe people remain quite resistant to what they see as nothing more than a crass consumerist US-style marketing exercise. In France it is reasonably controversial amongst the more traditionalist elements, although the lure of rum punch, fake blood and fishnet stockings is proving hard to resist. Its popularity is growing year on year.

From what I can gather (correct me if I’m wrong) Belgium and Holland simply don’t have a clue when it comes to Halloween. Apparently there is something similar in Holland around the 12th November but it involves children singing politely at people’s doors in return for sweets, which sounds just horrible. I mean trick or song? I think most of us would happily take the dog poo through the letter box option over the 10 minute rendition of Dutch folk songs by the cute and cuddly brigade, eurgh!

My friend in Madrid informs me that in Spain they are embracing Halloween with all the gusto you would expect from Europe’s most ‘up-for-it’ party nation. The fact that November 01st is a public holiday certainly helps, so this is my top recommendation for anyone thinking of heading away for Halloween this year.

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For information about minicruises to Spain, including P&O’s Halloween themed minicruise to Bilbao, including fancy dress ball with one of Britain’s best live party bands, click here

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Image Credit: John Althouse Cohen

Tags: Belgium, Britain, France, Lifestyle, Netherlands, Spain by Gabriel Grant
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Every year millions of innocent little kermits are being boiled, sizzled and fried to extinction – and all for the sake of a rubbish unsavoury snack. John Hillman thinks that it’s all gone a tad too far.

What is it about frog’s legs that the French find so dammed irresistible? Greasy little slithers of tasteless meat, its flavour dependent on the accompanying sauce, they have about as much point to them, once parted from their unfortunate owners of course, as alcohol free beer and diet cake.

Yet for some reason our friends from over La Manche appear to be intent on eating them to oblivion. Having munched these amphibious absurdities to the brink of extinction in their own region they now seem to be steadily working their way through the entire Anuran population of Asia.

Chefs will tell you that frog’s legs are a rare delicacy, a thing of exceptional beauty; it’s worth remembering that these are the same people who consider spending 18 hours a day in a boiling hot unventilated windowless prison, whilst getting screamed at by an overweight malodorous alcoholic, as some sort of aspirational lifestyle choice.

The French import 4,000 tonnes of frog’s legs each year from Asia. Coupled with climate change, increased use of pesticides and the destruction of their natural habitat they have little or no chance of surviving in any meaningful way.

I’m absolutely convinced that a people as sophisticated as the French, who have given so much to the world through art, philosophy and culture, are unaware of the effect that this pursuit-of-the-pointless-peccadillo is having on these poor helpless little green men.

Surely if they did they would desist from the destruction of an animal whose hind quarters have been made famous throughout the world but can no longer keep on giving. Surely enough is enough? Perhaps they could turn their attention to a new yet equally silly gastronomic proclivity. Badgers testicles perhaps?

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Image credit: JoshMe 17

Tags: France, Lifestyle, Science by John Hillman
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