Fooooooooood

I have an hour after lunch before I have to be sober enough to drive to Lisbon. Long lunches with plenty of food, beer, wine affect my afternoon productivity. Suddenly blogging seems almost constructive, and is about the only thing I can manage through the haze.

Todays lunch was courtesy of the carpenter. Im not sure why he bought us lunch and suspect it was our senior fieldy's idea more than his. He has been a bit of a groupy though, always turning up when we go out for lunch or have beers after work. The ultimate was this week when he brought his dad along for beers after work as well. I suspect we werent fulfilling our quota of old men sitting in the sun. The big bottle below is not water or wine instead it's homemade liquer, around 20% and very nice after a big lunch. Usually its served in normal glass wine bottles but we drained one of them hence the emergency stash being brought out.

I havent really written the "food" post yet. I had this great idea of photographing lots of different meals for you, but that never really happened. Part of the problem is they all look fairly similar.

First the starter - at a minimum bread, olives, cheese/salami (or both). The bread in the Alentejo is heaven - crusty, soft in the middle, sensational. You become a bread snob. I can now pick day-old bread, commercially produced bread, below-par bread. Some restaraunts also will put out fried liver, fried chicken/pork breast/cuttlefish served cold in oil/garlic, deep fried pig fat (kinda like crackling), or other tasty treat to start. Usually depends on the number of people and whats available that day (ie what was yesterdays special/leftovers). You can have soup too if you like (handy to use up the half a loaf of bread which gets put on the table).

I saw a tip in Lonely Planet that you should send back the bread and olives since its added onto the bill. People - the bread and olives combined cost about 0.80c (euro - ie about A$1.30). They will ask if you want cheese/salami/anything else. If you leave a plate on the table and dont eat from it you wont be charged for it. In Lisbon it might be worth it but in the country just wear it and think of it as a tip; it will take more time, effort and bad feeling to send it back. Just dont eat it and it will discreetly get recycled for the next customer, and instead tip less. Everyone will be happy. I bet Lonely Planet tell you to tip in Portugal too - you dont really need to. Max 1 euro. If at all.

Put simply in the Alentejo food = pork. Lots of it. Roast pork, roast/grilled pork leg steaks, grilled/fried pork "breast" steaks, stewed wild pig, pork chops. The famous black pig is the best. One of the most famous dishes is "carne do porco Alentejano" - meat of the Alentejo pig - a tongue in cheek description since the dish consists of diced pork and clams fried together in tomato paste (the Alentejo coast is famous for clams hence clams are almost as typical as the pig). After pork comes lamb, but only in spring. Again roast, stewed or in chops. And then veal, rarer, stews or roast or grilled but never really steaks like in Australia (OK Im not that hot on the difference between veal and beef but I bet I get told after this!).

I missed chicken in there. Ive had chicken a couple of ways, firstly grilled chicken breasts, but the more unusual one is served alongside chicken soup with bread, egg, coriander and garlic (the chicken is stewed in the soup as the main flavour for it and then served at the table alongside it).

Fish is around - mostly on Fridays (this is a Catholic country after all). Always served baked/grilled whole. Bizarrely fish arent served with chips, instead with boiled potatoes and vegetables, then oil and vinegar left on the table for you to flavour the dish with. Cuttlefish are very popular, grilled or fried. Partly this is coloured by me living in the Alentejo away from the coast where traditionally the only fish was salt cod (bacalhau). Despite freezer trucks and the availability of fresh fish its still popular today. In Lisbon fish or seafood is much more common during the week, and fillets are a little more normal (although the Portuguese tend to like seeing the eye of the fish to know its fresh). Also more common on the menu (and cheaper) are mussels, crabs, prawns, lobster etc. etc. all very fresh.

The Lisboans also like dishes like beef fillet with mushroom sauce, not so popular here. The only concession to vegies, apart from cabbage, carrot and potato in stews is meat "a gardenhia" - which to my knowledge means add peas. There is feijao - hotpot of kidney beans, sausage, leftover meat, cabbage. I am terrified of admitting this as now my cousin will never visit. There is one vegan restaraunt in Lisbon. In fact interestingly there arent too many restaraunts of different food types/cultures in Lisbon unlike other capital cities. Just shows that the Portuguese like their own cuisine. In fact it affects their choice of travel - if they cant get a decent meal in a certain country then who cares what they'll see there?!

Sides = fries and rice and salad (lettuce/onion/vinagrette). Noone here has come up with a good reason why they make chips/french fries, they learnt how to do it, substituted olive oil and pig fat for whatever oil was being used and kept going. In the Alentejo theres a side called "migas" bascially bread pudding but savoury, cooked with olive oil and pig fat and occasionally aparagus or spinach. Also can get fried after being cooked to turn it into a pancake, or water and seafood added to make it more of a porridge.

Olive oil is the most common condiment, next to salt. After that garlic and/or coriander, maybe some pepper and occasionally chilli oil (or by request). All spices/condiments/flavours used heavily, I estimate my salt intake to have increased 10x since being here. The other interesting condiment is lemon/orange - when meat is served you usually get slices of one or the other on top. You put it on your plate and press on it with your fork to let the juice out - as much to keep the meat moist as for flavour.

I

m ignoring desserts. Well I usually dont need them after lunch or dinner as Im full. But theyre good. Trust me. You can have mine. Coffee is essential - always espresso. But a lot smoother and a lot more "crema" than the Italian equivalent. Very very nice. And with coffee come the liquers. In the country you usually get a bottle of aguardente, or brandy, or whiskey, or homemade liquer dumped on the table. And then you tell them how many shots you had. In fact 90% of the time we've been the ones telling the waiters what we had so they can make the bill. The smaller cafes occasionally give up and just charge so much a head. Its all very civilised. And kinda the way it should be.

Anyway Im off. Luckily Ive had a good lunch to keep me through all that "terrible food" in England (the Portuguese dont travel often to the UK for that reason!). Im suspect I'll survive ;)