A street of Castrillo de los Polvazares

Castrillo de los Polvazares is a small village close to Astorga, a well known (in Spain) city of the province of León in a region called 'Maragatería'. It is located in Northern Spain, near to Galicia and Asturias. It is a beautiful old village, famous because in its restaurants is served one of the best 'Cocido maragato' and also for its craftwork. Usually, in this village you can only eat 'cocido maragato'.

It is very hard to translate into English the name of this village and the 'cocido maragato', because the name of this village has a meaning. 'Castrillo' could be small 'castro'. A 'castro' is a celtic fortification, usually built in Northern and Eastern Spain and North of Portugal, created during the Iron Age. I am not sure what is the actual meaning of Polvazar. It is probably related to 'dust cloud'. The 'cocido maragato' is a stew very traditional, served in three steps: you eat first the meat, after the vegetables and, finally, the soup. Finally, you eat custard. And you drink red wine -it is the tradition-. In this kind of old Spanish stews, the 'Cocido maragato' is served in the opposite order as usual -for instance, the order in the 'cocido madrileño' is different, and the usual is that you eat first the soup-. That strange order is due to the fact that the inhabitants of this región used to work as mule drivers, and when they had to lunch in inns in the country, they carried their own cooked meat, they ate it first and after they asked to the inn tender for a hot soup.

I visited that village, and I ate 'cocido maragato' of course, in a beatiful travel that I can not repeat at the moment.