The Portuguese, celebrating generations of perfecting
I am lucky! I know it, and I need to remember it when I am bogged down in the day to day grind of work and trying to keep everything in life going and trying find time to do all these things at least competently. While work can be crazy – they recognize that, and provide opportunities to fill your cup. To be able to take a week to go on a culinary tour, with our culinary folks from around the world, and to share these experiences with people with the same passions, and whose minds all point in the same direction, is a blessing: a salty-aired, church bell-filled, nata-eating blessing.
I had 2 big insights about Portugal and the Portuguese people.
First thing I took away, Portugal is old –an aging population with long memories and children moving to other parts of Europe – something the government is actively trying to change. But you see the sense of age in good ways mostly - the heritage, the architecture, the history, the possessions, and processes that have been perfected over time.
Second thing I noticed is the pursuit of excellence- often over generations and generations. Because Portugal is such an old-world country (and this is unique for me only having lived in new world places like South Africa and America), there is a history - that some families can trace back six or seven generations. They preserve their history and pass on stories and ways of doing things each to the next generation. Not owning, milking or depleting- but holding safe and building something for their children.
The best example I saw was in Porto and Lisbon, where they make pasteis de nata – egg custard pastries perfected. In Belem, they make them the same way the nuns used to hundreds of years ago. The nuns used the egg whites to starch their uniforms and needed something to do with the yolks, so they made them into a creamy, sugary custard, and filled them in buttery filo pastry cases, delicately swirled on the bottom, then baked until the top has that beautiful caramel sheen! The result tastes kind of how you would expect a custard tart to taste, what is magic is the texture... creamy and sweet with crispy, papery pastry. While the Belem pastries are made the same way they have always been, there are many shops that have worked and worked on the recipe, and the resulting deliciousness was just one case of the pursuit of excellence I experienced.
Sardinhas – sardines are another delicious thing, served simply, salted and charred – and oh so gratifying. Just a few tasty bites on each fish, that you really must work hard for, dodging bones and guts. But go into any local restaurant, the lovely whole in the wall ones that all seem to have the same handwritten menu, and you will find sardinhas on every table. Served with potatoes ad a basic salad of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes onions and cucumbers – get your does of brain food, oily fish like sardines have Omega fatty acids that can help fight dementia!Our group bought some fresh sardines and used other Portuguese flavors to do a modern interpretation orange juice, almonds and crunchy salt.
We stopped in a town, somewhere between Porto and Lisbon, that specializes in suckling pig. This town’s pursuit of perfection was a competition, a restaurant on every corner with a recognizable silhouette of a staked piglet. The chef took us around his kitchen – he had been perfecting this for 30 years, and only looked about 40. He showed us how they are skewered and stuffed with tasty goodies like onion, wine and garlic, then roasted at 400 degrees Celsius to get the crackling and then slow cooked for another hour or so after that… the resulting paper thin delicate crackling was like filo dough and the sweet and salty meat, finished with a squeeze of fresh orange juice was delicious. Oh, and don’t forget the dry sparkling wine that must be served with it!
An ice-cream shop called Santini that has been in a family for generations, with a father who’s 5-year-old son has already developed his first flavor – raspberry and pomegranate. This shop is only open in summer because they care so much about the fresh ingredients, they only use fruit, sugar, egg and cream, that if they can’t get them seasonally, they won’t make their product. The buy table fruit to make their ice-cream, and have developed their own machine to carefully wash it to preserve the integrity and extend shelf life. The resulting perfection has people lining up around the block at the end of the season, buying containers and containers to stock up and see them through the long winter without fresh gelato.
A winery on its 6th generation, with brands that have been perfected and made famous, like periquita, over hundreds of years. When they used to ship wine in barrels, sometimes they would get paid in Brazilian mahogany – no longer legal to harvest – but makes them the most unique and special wines. The sense of history, heritage and superstition is tangible and seems to give them an edge (E.g. the spider webs stay on the casks just in case they add to the flavor). They were the first in the country to bottle wine, to put their customers minds at ease that the product was not counterfeit, and they have a sweet wine that only tastes the way it does because it travels on actual ships and absorbs actual salt air. There are no short cuts. They only years they didn’t make wine were 3-4 years during the world wars.
The examples are endless of passionate people, with rich heritage, doing their damndest to do the best they can to leave a legacy behind. It was inspiring, it was fulfilling (and filling) and I’m ready to go back home and do the same. What else do we have to leave behind but the fruits of our labors? Work, love, wisdom, relationships, successes, family, something you have built and created, whatever that looks like for you.
