That’s what one of our extremely gracious hosts at the Instituto de Estudios Gallegos, kept repeating during the wining and dining that made up an important part of the IV International Colloquium Compostela. I can now attest that it’s absolutely true. The meals were extended food fests where serving after delicious serving, dish after delectable dish — of locally caught seafood and fish, locally grown meats (which I had trouble abstaining from, 18 years of meatlessness notwithstanding), fresh breads, local wines, and tasty desserts — kept arriving for hours on end, keeping us at the table well into the night from our late starting dinners (10 pm being typical).
Aside from the food and the setting — the gorgeous medieval city and World Heritage Site of Santiago de Compostela — the colloquium itself was very good, with an interdisciplinary mix of researchers including anthropologists, historians, scholars of religion, a few geographers, a sociologist, and a handful of others (including two archbishops presenting on Christian pilgrimage in north Africa and the Middle East) discussing pilgrimage and its relation to conflict and peace in the world’s religions (and, in my case, outside the world’s religions). The plan is to publish the results in book form.
