Supermarkets abroad are a bit of a hobby, The Boy and family always tend to get a bit carried away and buy way too much stuff! And as a vegan, if you arm yourself with a list of non-vegan e-numbers and some basic spanish phrases for non-vegan ingredients (see Vegan in Brighton's post for a list) you can pick up some amazing things too!
First thing I wanted to pick up was a packet of palmeritas as I'd heard so much about them. They're kind of a like a pasty usually covered in a sticky syrup and are sold almost everywhere. Most brands are vegan but still check as I found one brand that contained egg. Here's a picture of me eating my way through a pack whilst watching a cruise ship set off!
El Corte Ingles is a Spanish department store chain, it's kinda like a Spanish John Lewis but has a food hall like M&S. The one in Las Palmas is GINORMOUS, and has stores on both sides of the road, one with 7 floors and the other has 8 floors. We ended up visiting the food hall for interesting Spanish foods quite a lot and this one had a sizable free from section and included things like Cheezly Edam (I was tempted to buy some for breakfast!) and vegan white chocolate. I didn't take any pictures of the selection but it's worth a visit even if it's a bit pricey. They also have a souvenir department and I managed to find tubs of Peanut Butter & Co white chocolate peanut butter. I'm not a fan of white chocolate and find it way too sweet, however even I was gutted that I we were travelling hand luggage only and couldn't bring a tub back.
The other large supermarket we visited was Carrefour, which are a must visit in Spain if you're doing self catering and are pretty reasonable with pricing. The one in Las Palmas again had a large free from section and sold things like vegan Spanish tortillas and empanadas.
It also had a sushi stall and when I see sushi I can't help checking if it's vegan. I was excited to see that they had vegan friendly avocado and cucumber maki.
I wasn't too keen on the cucumber maki, as I found it a bit bitter somehow (I didn't use any of the condiments that came with it in case they weren't vegan) but the avocado one was amazing and had large creamy chunks of avocado.
I was also surprised to see this vegan cookbook on sale in Carrefour, and its a positive sign that veganism is starting to gain ground in Spain. The Boy and I like to get each other little souvenirs when we go away and he actually bought me this. It's a reason to get my butt into gear and start learning Spanish so that I can understand the delicious recipes!
I really enjoyed my time in Gran Canaria, even if it was pretty windy and I think choosing Las Palmas as our base was a good idea- I can see if we had gone with a package holiday in the tourist region we would have spent most days travelling to Las Palmas to avoid the tourists!
People complain at how hard it is to be vegan in Spanish countries, and yes, the first time I went to Spain as I vegan I had a few disasters. But if you do a bit of research beforehand it helps.
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