It seems when you travel, planning happens around what you want to eat, when you want to eat it and where you want to be while you’re eating it.
My preference is something with sauces at a table overlooking the ocean, preferably outside. I’ve eaten outside in Europe in most months including Nice and Antibes in December, and now Lisbon in February. I notice that many restaurants have heaters and blankets out for the hardy souls who, like us, want to eat outside although they weren’t in evidence and were not needed in Lisbon.
This trip hasn’t been any different, and we have had some amazing meals so far.
I noted as I did my usual pre-trip research, that Portugal, so close to the ocean throughout the country, serves a lot of seafood. I’m sure that comes as no surprise to anyone. What I read over and over was that the lifeblood food for centuries has been salted cod, and I read that the Portuguese have hundreds of ways of serving said salt cod. And sure enough every restaurant we have eaten in has featured it in some form. One menu served it five ways. FIVE DIFFERENT WAYS. Typical roasted. Roasted with bell peppers, cod fish cakes, shredded, and one menu item, no doubt a highlight, gave you a plate with three different cod treatments. You may have guessed that it is not high on my list, unless it is battered and deep fried, then served with chips, and in fact, I have made it my mission to avoid salt cod.
But it is everywhere.
A local restaurant, highly recommended by our hosts, is open daily from noon until 3:00 p.m. or so. You go in, you sit down and they give you food. You have no choice, you eat what they give you. Well you do have a choice. You can choose the number of different fish that appear on your plate. I think you can choose six or nine. I think the variety of fish changes with what came in on the fishing boats that morning. We have gone a couple of times, but it is highly popular locally, and we have never made it to a table. Maybe. Maybe not.
What we look forward to every trip, and look for in every destination, is the farmers’ markets. These are usually trip highlights. And so far Portugal has not let us down.
We are staying in Olhao in the Algarve. It’s not quite as south as you can get, but darn close. Our hosts told us proudly that this is a working town, not like so many places on the West coast where people live in their houses two or three weeks of the year and the town is deserted the rest of the time. Olhao is a fishing port, and our house is about a block from the waterfront, so we have watched the fishing boats go out. This makes the market really special.
They have a daily market here, from 9:00 to l:00 each afternoon, then on Saturday, a farmers’ market joins in. The daily market takes place in two huge brick buildings right on the water front. They are the only brick buildings in town I am lead to believe, and two of the few buildings that are not white. I am not good at estimating size, but each building is much bigger, say than Bountiful Market in Edmonton. This time of year, you can get all sorts of local fruits and vegetables, all sorts of meats, preserves, baking. But we looked at each other and said “There’s no fish here!” Then we decided to go to the second brick building, and, well, no shortage of fish. The entire building was fish. Tuna, salmon, bream, shrimp, eels, skate, rays, octopus, big, HUGE, small, all just off the boat. It was beyond my ability to describe it. We went home with some tuna. And we will be back to further sample the wares.
On Saturday, in addition to the two brick buildings, the entire waterfront was filled with booths hosted by local farmers. Our hosts had told us that sometimes there were crafts and I was looking forward to seeing some of that on display, but not that day. But the fruits and vegetables once again were amazing. Not quite as big as the Saint Albert farmers’ market, but about three blocks long and three separate rows of booths.
And did I tell you about the oranges. They grow oranges here. We were out and about and passed field after field of orange groves. So lotsa oranges for sale in the markets, and lotsa orange jam (not marmalade mind you). And the oranges are wonderful. You need a shower when you have finished eating one, they are so juicy. The jam was pretty wonderful too.
And of course there was entertainment. I can’t tell you anything about it except to say they drew a crowd and they were entertaining. Several young men, perhaps six or eight. I just looked at Ken’s photo and there are ten of them that I can see. (I couldn’t use Ken’s photo here as it turned out to be a video, so the system wouldn’t let me insert it.). They sang, took turns dancing, cavorting, leaping, hitting themselves on various body parts with the tambourines. Two had flags on long poles, which I couldn’t read, so I still don’t know who they were, and they waved them and twirled them, again, dancing and cavorting. In the background, there was at least one ukulele, and an accordion and drums. They were all dressed in blue pants, white shirts, and blue jackets, one wore, rather flamboyantly, a knee length cape, also blue. They were fun to watch. And the crowd was really into them.
On a non-food note, cork is big here. Portugal supplies 80 per cent of the world’s cork. It’s sustainable, renewable and huge business here. They peel the bark, use it, and the bark grows back, and they peel it again. And again. And again.
When I think cork, I think wine bottles, with corks. But it is so much more. Shoes, purses, bags, briefcases, bookmarks, book covers, wallets, glasses cases, coin purses, fans, shoes, yes shoes. And beautifully and decoratively engraved and painted. I’ll be coming home with something cork.
Afternote: we managed to get a table at the fish restaurant. I’m a prairie girl, born and raised in Saskatoon. The only fish we ate growing up came in frozen rectangles, and tasted like the crackers and lard, yes lard (and probably animal based at that) it was fried in. The only fresh fish I had ever eaten came to my plate, again breaded and fried, when my Mother was able to buy fresh fish when we were at Waskesiu [Prince Albert National Park] for the summer holidays. Don’t know what kind it was. So, fish is never my meal of choice, in spite of years of much tastier fish appearing regularly on my plate at home. If I order fish in a restaurant it is because it started out in a shell and costs a lot. You can imagine how my feet dragged as we walked in to this fish restaurant today.
They give you a menu, which basically says in seven different languages, you eat what we give you and you eat until you are full. So I am not sure why the menu. Menu says the fish is all fried, but it is in fact, all cooked over a barbeque right in front of us. However…..Olives, bread and what I think is tartar sauce appear on the table first. Then people start coming with food. First comes a platter with three different kinds of fish on it. Today, we started with tuna, mackerel and sea bream. Then they brought a tray with a lovely tomato salad, a bowl of new potatoes and sweet potatoes, and a bowl of cooked bread.
[Cooked bread is exactly what it sounds like. Bread cooked with garlic, and other stuff, undefined, to the point of mushiness. It’s the consistency of a bowl of oatmeal. Nice, but the bread that wasn’t cooked was delicious, so I stuck to that.]
Another plate arrived and it contained octopus and two other fish I didn’t catch the name of. It’s like a Brazilian Steak House. They keep bringing food until you say “STOP!” I think somewhere in the plates and plates of fish that came past, I was defeated in my goal of not eating any cod. I think some slipped onto the plate. Doesn’t matter. It was all delicious.
From what I can figure, they go to the fish market early in the morning, and what they buy is what they serve. Perhaps they have their own fishing boat. Who knows. But they are open and based on the fact that it took us three trips to their door to get a table, they obviously do a thriving business three hours a day. (I said earlier that they were open noon to 2:00. Wrong, they are open until 3:00)
And a P.S. In my last post I said the third epiphany Ken had was double barrelled, then only told you about the gyoza. The other barrel of that was that he discovered he loved the dipping sauce — which he has always sneered at — that came with the gyoza too.
And as another add on to the epiphanies, today after our fish lunch we walked to the waterfront and had a gelato for dessert. Ken ALWAYS has vanilla. That is the only kind of ice cream that exists for him. Today he had, wait for it, cheesecake. And he loved it. I see a whole new world of taste treats coming my way. Who knows what he may try next.
Tray of salt cod in the local grocery store
We share an ice cream sundae (mine is called Chocolate Sin) as the sun goes down.
The best of a bad lot of photos of the entertainment.
Our street. In a feat of masterful driving, Ken backed down this street (it’s one way, no surprise) passing parked cars to park near our house…the yellow one.)
