Gluten-Free in the Canaries

Eating gluten-free in the Canary Islands is easier than in most of Europe, because so much of the traditional cooking is fish, potatoes, pulses, goat and vegetables — but one island staple is a grain flour, it is not obvious from the menu, and it turns up in dishes you would never suspect. That staple is gofio. Get gofio straight in your head and the rest of a Canarian holiday is largely a matter of asking the right question in Spanish.

Spain as a whole takes coeliac disease seriously. Labelling is good, supermarkets carry a decent sin gluten range, and restaurant staff are used to the question because Spanish diners ask it. The islands are a little behind the big mainland cities and well ahead of, say, rural France. In the resorts, where kitchens deal with British and German visitors daily, you will often find a printed allergen list; inland, you will be relying on a conversation.

This page covers the gofio problem first, because it is the thing no general Spain guide will warn you about, then the dishes that are naturally safe, the phrases that work, and where to shop.

What gofio is, and where it hides

Gofio is toasted grain, stone-milled to a fine flour. The Guanches were making it before the Spanish conquest, and it remained the basic carbohydrate of the islands through centuries of poverty. It carries a European protected designation as Gofio Canario, and the protected specification explicitly covers wheat gofio, maize gofio and mixtures — so "it's protected, it must be maize" is exactly the wrong inference.

The places it appears:

• Escaldón — gofio stirred into hot broth until thick. The gofio is the whole point of the dish.
• Gofio amasado — kneaded with water or milk into a solid roll, often served alongside soup or eaten as a snack.
• Sancocho — the salt-fish dish is served with a ball of gofio called a pella on the side. Ask for it without.
• Potajes and soups — many village cooks thicken the pot with a spoonful of gofio, and it will not appear on the menu.
• Frangollo and gofio ice cream — two very common puddings.
• Bread — pan de gofio is a standard loaf in island bakeries.
• Milkshakes and children's breakfasts — gofio in milk is the classic Canarian child's drink, and it turns up on breakfast buffets.

If a dish is described as con gofio, escaldado, amasado, or comes with a pella, that is your signal.

The dishes that are naturally safe

Now the good news, which is considerable. A very large part of the Canarian repertoire contains no cereal at all:

• Papas arrugadas con mojo. Salt-boiled potatoes with red and green mojo. Traditional mojo is garlic, oil, vinegar, salt, cumin or coriander and pepper or chilli — no flour. Some commercial and restaurant versions add a little breadcrumb or thicken with bread, so it is still worth asking, but the classic recipe is safe.
• Grilled and baked fish. A whole vieja, cherne or sama a la plancha or a la espalda is simply fish, oil and salt. The island fish are mostly cooked this plainly. Avoid anything rebozado or a la romana, which means battered, and be careful with fried-fish platters that share a fryer.
• Grilled meat. Goat, rabbit, pork chops, chicken — the standard mountain-village main courses.
• Queso asado. Grilled goat cheese with honey or mojo. Canarian cheeses are plain milk cheeses and are reliably fine.
• Potajes and legume stews — chickpeas, lentils and beans — provided they are not thickened with gofio. Always ask. The big pot dishes vary from cook to cook.
• Tortilla española — egg, potato and onion, nothing else.
• Salads, avocado, papaya, mango, bananas — the islands grow all of them.
• Gambas al ajillo, pulpo a la gallega, lapas — the standard seafood tapas.

Ropa vieja is usually safe as well — it is chickpeas, meat and potato — but the sauce occasionally gets a flour dusting, so ask.

The phrases that actually work

Say these, in this order, and you will get a straight answer nine times out of ten.

• Soy celíaco / soy celíaca — I am coeliac. Use this rather than "gluten-free", because it signals a medical condition rather than a preference, and Spanish staff respond to it quite differently.
• No puedo comer gluten: ni trigo, ni cebada, ni centeno, ni avena. — I cannot eat gluten: no wheat, barley, rye or oats.
• ¿Lleva harina o gofio? — Does it contain flour or gofio? This is the single most useful sentence on the islands.
• ¿Está frito en el mismo aceite? — Is it fried in the same oil? Shared fryers are the commonest source of contamination in a Spanish kitchen.
• Sin pan, por favor — no bread, please. Bread arrives automatically.

Print or screenshot these. The Spanish coeliac federation, FACE, issues a restaurant card and an app listing certified products and accredited restaurants, and its certification mark — a crossed ear of wheat — is the one to look for on packaging and on restaurant doors. Its website is the authoritative Spanish-language source and worth consulting before a trip. More general vocabulary is in useful Spanish phrases, and a realistic view of the language situation is in do they speak English — in the mountain villages, probably not.

Shopping and self-catering

If you are in an apartment, self-catering solves most of the problem. The large Spanish supermarket chains present on the islands all carry a sin gluten section with bread, pasta, flour, biscuits and beer, and the German discounters found in the bigger resorts stock their own ranges. Packaging in Spain follows EU allergen rules, so gluten-containing ingredients appear in bold in the ingredient list, and sin gluten on the front means it meets the legal threshold.

Fresh markets are the easiest option of all: fish, meat, fruit, potatoes and cheese with no ingredients list to read. The island markets run on set days, and the municipal markets in Las Palmas and Santa Cruz open most mornings. Health-food shops — herbolarios — are common in the cities and carry specialist flours.

Hotels, all-inclusive and buffets

Tell the hotel before you arrive, in writing, and again at the restaurant on the first evening. Most large Canarian hotels will arrange gluten-free bread and will have a chef walk you through the buffet; several keep a separate small counter. The buffet itself is the risk — shared serving spoons move crumbs between dishes faster than any kitchen can control — so ask for your plate to be made in the kitchen rather than serving yourself. If you are on an all-inclusive package, this is a reasonable request and they are used to it.

Beer, wine and the drinks list

Standard Canarian beer is barley beer and is not safe. Gluten-free beers are sold in supermarkets and increasingly in bars, though you may have to ask. Island wine is fine, as are sherry, rum and the honey rum poured at the end of a meal. Be slightly wary of pre-mixed cocktails and of anything thickened or garnished.

If something goes wrong

Spanish pharmacies are excellent and pharmacists are qualified to advise on minor problems; how pharmacies and medical care work explains the green cross system and the out-of-hours rota. UK visitors should carry a GHIC and travel insurance — the requirements are set out on the insurance page, and the authoritative source is gov.uk rather than any guide. A gluten reaction is not food poisoning, but if you are trying to work out which you have had, the food safety page is worth a look.

The bottom line

The Canaries suit coeliac travellers well. Order grilled fish, papas arrugadas, queso asado and a plate of grilled meat, and you can eat traditionally for a fortnight without a slice of bread. The one discipline to keep is the gofio question — ask it every time, in every restaurant, including the ones that have already told you they understand, because the flour is so ordinary here that cooks genuinely forget it counts.

For the rest of the menu vocabulary, how to read a Canarian menu decodes the fish names and the portion words, and the practicalities of eating out covers timings and the bill.