PORTUGAL PARSED - A QUICK REGIONAL GASTRONOMIC TOUR

Portugal has been called a lot of things—diminutive, minuscule, a pipsqueak even—but one thing it’s never been called is insignificant. About the size of the state of Indiana, it measures a meager 349 miles from north to south, a trip ambitious travelers can pull off in a day. Yet its major historical provinces offer wild extremes of temperature, weather, and terrain that for centuries have resulted in an amazing variety of some of the finest foods on the Iberian Peninsula. Distinctive and artisanal, these foods have shaped local diets, customs, and traditions, many of which have remained virtually unchanged for generations. Anyone with good sense and a better palate would do right to reserve at least a month to make that 349-mile trek.

Despite its size, Portugal has contributed mightily to world cuisine. During the Age of Discovery (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries), under the watchful eye of Henry the Navigator and, later, the explorers Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama, and others, Portugal forged expeditions along the African coast and, eventually, to the East. The result? Formerly exotic spices such as cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, and cloves were brought back to European kitchens and filled Portuguese coffers with unparalleled wealth. At about the same time, Pedro Álvares Cabral sailed westward, reaching Brazil, and opened up routes that introduced the continent, and the world, to many New World ingredients that have become hallmarks of Portuguese cooking, including chile peppers and potatoes.

But to appreciate the contemporary Portuguese table, it’s necessary to understand the new Portuguese Paradox: since joining the European Community in 1986, Portugal has found itself straddling two eras, nearly one hundred years apart. New ingredients, techniques, and chefs have flooded into the country while the old guard continues to march on, oftentimes oblivious to the radical changes occuring around it. Case in point: Grab a table at the tony 100 Maneiras, a waterfront restaurant just west of Lisbon praised for its Portuguese-inspired fusion menu crowded with foie gras, black pig carpaccio, and all types of seafood risottos, then glance out at the water. Chugging by are small, dilapidated fishing boats, weighted down with the day’s catch. Onboard are living anachronisms: some men mending heaps of nets by hand, others gutting fish, and still others, with caps drawn, catching a few moments of sleep before reaching home—as if they’ve somehow willed away the past one hundred years.

At the same time, cooks are using the country’s iconic ingredients—fish right off the boat, vegetables picked from backyard gardens, and deeply smoked meats—in innovative ways. And it’s this dichotomy that’s redefining the cuisine of Portugal, a delicious frisson that’s felt differently throughout the land. Although classic dishes still hold sway over much of rural Portugal, many of them are being tweaked and reinterpreted in metropolitan areas, as well as sharing menu space with new dishes that build upon tradition to bring exciting modern cooking to the fore. There has never been a more thrilling time to eat and drink one’s way through Portugal.

So here’s a peripatetic look at the eleven historical provinces, from north to south, plus Madeira and the Azores, along with just some of their traditional specialties—without which there wouldn’t be a modern Portuguese cuisine.

ATENÇÃO  Portugal’s historical provinces and wine regions don’t overlap perfectly; some of the wine regions spill over into several provinces. In order to give you concise information as you travel through the country, I’ve grouped the most important wine producers by provinces. This way you can learn about and enjoy the food and wine of each area.

MINHO (meen-yoo)

If Portugal ever had an emerald province, it’s the Minho. Tucked inconspicuously between the Minho River, which marks the northernmost border between Portugal and Spain, and the Douro River to the south, the region benefits from idyllic temperatures (55° to 75°F), warm Atlantic breezes, and a good amount of rain. The result is commercial farms and home gardens bursting with vegetation, as well as a prodigious amount of vineyards that produce the famous vinho verde, or green wine. Perhaps because of its distance from any major metropolitan center, the Minho is considered Portugal’s most traditional region: a place where men with ox-drawn carts still work the field and unattended herds of cattle leisurely cross pencil-thin roads at will, tossing half-lidded glances at any impatient driver cheeky enough to lean on his horn. In the distance, backdrops of burnished granite mountains, a haven to many endangered animal and plant species, silently preside over the region.

What to Eat

Caldo verde (puréed potato-onion soup swimming with slivers of kale and slices of sausage); rojões (cubes of pork or pork belly fried with cloves and cumin until crisp); broa de milho (hearty corn bread); the Carnival specialty cozido à Portuguesa (a boiled dinner of pork, chicken, beef, potatoes, blood sausage, chouriço, and cabbage); sopa dourada (in this region, at least, layers of delicate sponge cake covered with ovos moles, or thickened sweetened egg yolks).

What to Drink

Vinho verde (literally, “green wine”) is the go-to drink. This crisp, slightly effervescent wine, which comes in red, rosé, and primarily, white, is meant to be drunk while still young, or green, hence the name. Producers: Adega de Monção, Anselmo Mendes, António Esteves Ferreira, Casa de Vila Verde, Quinta da Aveleda, and Quinta de Serrade.

TRÁS-OS-MONTES (trahzh oozh mawn-tizh) and ALTO DOURO (ahl-too doh-roo)

Hidden in the northeast corner beyond the Marão, Gerês, and Alvão mountain ranges, Trás-os-Montes (“behind the mountains”) is brutally cut off from the warmer Atlantic winds that favor the neighboring Minho. In place of lush green vegetation and undulating hills of vineyards, this desolate and punishingly un-tamed region is blanketed by moors of heather, dense forest, and scraggy brush, suitable for hardy herds of sheep, goats, and pigs. This is meat country.

The Alto Douro, in the south, near the mighty Douro River, is less forbidding, as the peaks slope down to the river and are dotted with wealthy quintas, or large estates. The reason? Cut into the hills, ziggurat-style, are what some say is the most expensive real estate in Portugal: hectares upon hectares of land that produce the finest grapes that go into the country’s liquid gold—port wine. So important is this area that in 1756 it became the first wine region in the world to be demarcated, or defined, serving as a model for the wine industry.

What to Eat

Presunto (smoked ham, especially from the towns of Chaves and Lamego); creamy Monte cheese; feijoada (stew of kidney beans plus nearly every part of the region’s pigs fattened on sweet chestnuts); sopa de castanhas piladas (chestnut soup); and, arguably, the most confusing Portuguese dessert: toucinho do céu (literally “bacon from heaven”). This sweet has nary a pork product in it, although some claim it had some originally. A dense flan, it’s rich with egg yolks, pumpkin, and ground almonds.

What to Drink

Wines from CARM, Casa Ferreirinha, Lemos & Van Zeller, Niepoort, Quinta da Carolina, Quinta do Crasto, Quinta do Noval, Quinta do Sobreiro de Cima, Quinta do Vale Meão, and Quinta do Vallado.

DOURO LITORAL (doh-roo lee-too-rahl)

The heart of the Douro Litoral is Portugal’s second-largest city, Porto. As the name implies, everything—from the colorful boats that bob in the Douro River outside the port lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia to the economy to the food served to both hungry vineyard workers and elegant tourists—is fueled by port wine and the busy harbor from which it’s shipped.

Although the weather is favorable to many crops, if it weren’t for the ingenuity and backbreaking work of generations of Portuguese, little would grow. The solid schist slopes of the inland valley, as in the Alto Douro, are so steep and impassable that everything from small whitewashed cottages and their tiny gardens to immense terraced vineyards are carved into the mountains. Still, trees bowed heavy with peaches, plums, quince, apples, almonds, pears, and figs—the stuff that preserve dreams are made of—manage to flourish.

What to Eat

Tripas à moda do Porto (slow-cooked casserole of tripe, pigs’ feet, chicken, sausages, navy beans, vegetables, and a good dose of cumin); bacalhau à Gomes de Sá (casserole of potatoes, sautéed onions, and salt cod garnished with slices of hard-boiled eggs and black olives); pastéis de bacalhau (salt cod fritters); and bolo de amêndoa (almond cake made from flour, sugar, eggs, and blanched almonds).

What to Drink

Port, of course. Some producers: A. A. Ferreira, Calem e Filho, Croft, Delaforce, Fonseca, Graham, Niepoort, Quinta do Noval, Ramos Pinto, Taylor-Fladgate, Sandeman, and Warre.


PORT PRIMER

Legends abound regarding the creation of port wine—from acts of god to the efforts of mercenary Liverpudlian merchants trying to find a replacement for the fine wine in Britain that disappeared because of a French embargo. But the fortified wine, which is the dictionary definition of a postprandial drink, was in reality the product of good business and better weather. British merchants were regularly adding brandy to Portuguese wine to prevent spoilage while in transit to England. Then in 1820, particularly favorable conditions made for a superb, naturally sweet wine, one that Britain couldn’t resist. Seeing an opportunity, Portuguese producers began adding more brandy to their wines earlier in the fermentation process to mimic the sweeter, higher alcohol content of that blessed year. Eventually they refined the process, creating a wine similar to what we know as port.

VINTAGE PORT
The finest and rarest of all ports. Vintage ports make up a mere 2 to 3 percent of all port production. The wines are made only in extraordinary years, called “declared” years (hence the term “vintage”) when the growing season has all the conditions for making an exquisite and lasting wine. When that happens, grapes from only that year and from only the finest vineyards can be used by producers to make the port. The wines are aged in barrels for two years and then bottle-aged for as long as several decades, giving the port its defining depth, richness, and character. Vintage ports are never filtered, so they need to be decanted.

LATE-BOTTLED VINTAGE PORT (LBV)
The name is a bit misleading. LBVs aren’t as tony as they sound, for they don’t have the same complexity as vintage ports. Although they are made from grapes from a single vintage, LBVs are produced in a “nondeclared” year. These delicious, plummy-tasting wines are barrel-aged for four to six years and then are ready to be drunk.

TAWNY PORT
Hands-down the world’s bestselling ports. Blending finely aged superb ports from different years, some a century old, is what lends tawny port its nutty flavor with overtones of vanilla, butterscotch, and caramel. And the name? Because of long barrel-aging, the wine’s color lightens from a deep red to an orange brown. Tawny ports are designated on the bottle as ten, twenty, thirty, and more than forty years old. Colheita is the Portuguese term for an extraordinary rare tawny port made from a single vintage.

RUBY PORT
This is a good entry-level port. It’s a blend of good but not stellar ports from different years that are barrel- or tank-aged for no more than three years and receive little bottle aging. Therefore, it has a straightforward character with spicy, red-fruit flavors.

WHITE PORT
These dry or sweet wines, made from white grapes, are aged briefly in wood and have a mild nutty, slightly sweet taste. Served chilled with a twist of lemon or a splash of soda, they make an excellent aperitif.

BEIRA LITORAL (bay-rduh lee-too-rahl), BEIRA BAIXA (bay-rduh buy-shuh), and BEIRA ALTA (bay-rduh ahl-tuh)

Beira Litoral, Beira Baixa, and Beira Alta—collectively known as the Beiras—cut a huge swath through central Portugal. Second in size only to the vast Alentejo, the Beiras run from the mountains abutting Spain in the east to the Atlantic in the west. The provinces got their respective names because, as you travel east, the region rises precipitously like half of a giant bell curve, from balmy sea (litoral means “coast”) to squat hills (baixa means “low”) to soaring, thickly forested mountains (alta translates as “high”). But, more important, the provinces act as a curtain between the lush green regions to the north and the summer-parched provinces to the south. And because of their sheer size, they offer perhaps the wildest changes in topography (including Serra da Estrela, the highest point on the mainland, topping out at 6,532 feet), the greatest differences in culture, and the widest variety of food.

What to Eat

Cheese, including queijo da Serra (unctuous runny sheep’s-milk cheese), Requeijão (soft and ricotta-like), Castelo Branco (similar to Serra), and peppery Rabaçal; cabrito assado (roast kid rubbed with plenty of garlic, then doused in rich brandy before cooking); chanfana de cabrito (red wine–based kid stew); leitão (roast suckling pig); and torresmos (here, pork cracklings).

What to Drink

Wines from Adega Cooperativa de Cantanhede, Adega Cooperativa de Mealhada, Álvaro Castro, Campolargo, Casa de Santar, Caves São João, Companhia das Quintas, Filipa Pato, Luís Pato, Quinta de Cabriz, Quinta do Encontro, Quinta dos Carvalhais, and Quinta dos Roques.

ESTREMADURA (ess-treh-muh-doo-ruh)

Literally translated as “boundary,” Estremadura was once the extreme southern border of Christendom. The rest of the country was at the time under the hands of the Moors, from the eighth to the eleventh century. But even with their endless occupation, the Moors were unable to conquer this long and sinuous coastal province, etched by sandy beaches to the west and rugged cliffs to the south, all bisected by the languid Tejo River, on which Lisbon sits. Estremadura’s name could just as easily be translated as “seafood”: it has a rich history of classic fish dishes and specialties that fed the bodies and spirit of the Portuguese even before they had to defend themselves against the Moors.

What to Eat

Sopa de mariscos and caldeirada de peixe (shellfish stew and fish stew, respectively); bacalhau à Brás (clouds of softly scrambled eggs encasing bits of salt cod and crispy matchstick potatoes); açorda de marisco (hearty seafood bread soup studded with plenty of shrimp, clams, scallops, and, sometimes, lobster); frango com piri-piri (grilled chicken doused with Portugal’s incendiary hot sauce); pastéis de Belém (luscious custards in crisp pastry cups served warm with a generous sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon); and queijo de Azeitão (semi-soft cheese with buttery overtones and a slight bite).

What to Drink

Wines from Casa Santos Lima, Caves Velhas, Companhia Agricola do Sanguinhal, DFJ Vinhos, José Maria da Fonseca, Quinta de Chocapalha, Quinta da Cortezia, Quinta de Pancas, and Quinta da Romeira.

RIBATEJO (rib-eh-tay-zhoo)

Lying square in the middle of the country, northeast of Lisbon, is the flat, fertile province of the Ribatejo. Its name is a conflation of riba de Tejo, meaning “banks of the Tejo,” and it spreads out north and south of the river. The Tejo cleaves the region’s terrain and agriculture. To the north are low hills that are intensely cultivated with huge swaths of olive groves. The oil produced is so extraordinary it qualifies for Denominação de Origem Protegida (DOP) demarcation, guaranteeing it was produced and processed in this region using local traditions and techniques. The northern region boasts vast vegetable farms of beans, corn, tomatoes, and green peppers plus orchards of apples and lemons. To the south, the land opens up into wide fields of bluegrass and lezírias, or marshes, where Arabian horses and black bulls graze freely. Farther south grow long rows of irregularly spaced olive and cork trees, looking at first glance like combs with missing teeth. In the spring, the river overflows its banks, creating an alluvial plain, where rice—a staple of the Portuguese diet—is tended.

What to Eat

Sopa de pedra (“stone soup,” filled with pork ribs, sausage, beans, root vegetables, and cabbage); enguias (eels—stewed, fried, or grilled), açorda de sável (here, a bread soup made with shad roe); ovas de sável à pescador (grilled shad roe); arroz de tomate (tomato rice); lebrada (hare stewed in red wine); and pão-de-ló (here, an ethereally light sponge cake moistened with flavored syrups).

What to Drink

Wines from Casa Cadaval, Falua Sociedade de Vinhos S.A., João Portugal Ramos, Quinta da Casal Branco, Quinta do Falcão, Quinta da Lagoalva, and Pinhal da Torre.

ALTO ALENTEJO (ahl-too ah-len-tay-zhoo) and BAIXO ALENTEJO (buy-shoo ah-len-tay-zhoo)

This immense region regally commands almost a third of the country, and its undulating hills are dotted with gorgeous whitewashed villages that have for centuries attracted admirers from around the world.

The province is a continuum of color because of its agriculture. In spring, the wide plains in the south are caught up in blizzards of almond blossoms, while the long roads that connect the great halves of the region—alto (upper) and baixo (lower)—are lined with brilliant yellow broom. Beyond, vast fields of wheat, rye, oats, and barley stretch to the horizon, for this is the center of Portugal’s grain industry. Here, too, are endless groves of luscious sweet oranges, greengage plums, and apricots.

In the summer, the punishing sun, which can blast well over 100°F at midday, mutes the colors. It’s then that the silvery-green olive trees and the much darker cork oaks, which produce two thirds of the world’s supply, stand out in stark contrast to the now-straw-colored fields. Into these groves farmers let loose their famous porco preto, or black pigs, encouraging them to gorge on the oaks’ fallen acorns to fatten them up before the winter matança, or slaughter.

What to Eat

Gaspacho (Portuguese version of the cold soup, filled with chopped sweet red or green peppers, garlic, cucumbers, and dense bread softened with a tomato-vinegar broth); açorda Alentejana (intensely flavored cilantro and garlic broth, poured over day-old bread and topped with a poached egg); empadas de galinha (savory chicken pies); carne de porco à Alentejana (pork cubes and clams served over fried potatoes); and migas (literally “bread crumbs,” moistened day-old bread suffused, for example, with pork drippings or mixed with spinach, molded into ovals, and pan-fried).

What to Drink

Wines from Adega Cooperativa de Borba, Caves Aliança, Cortes de Cima, Eugénio de Almeida, Francisco Nunes Garcia, Herdade da Calada, Herdade da Malhadinha Nova, Herdade do Esporão, João Portugal Ramos, Margarida Cabaço, Monte do Trevo, Paulo Laureano, Quinta Dona Maria (Júlio Tassara Bastos), Quinta do Carmo, Quinta do Mouro, and Tapada de Coelheiros.

ALGARVE (ahl-garv)

Nearly one hundred miles of white-sand beaches, secret caves, and year-round mild weather are what draws tourists to the Algarve. Most crowd along the shoreline in the resort towns of Faro, Lagos, and Albufeira, with their world-class golf courses and world-class (read: international) food. But world-class natural beauty refuses to be elbowed out of the way: not far from Faro is the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa lagoon, a barrier-islands system that’s a beloved national park. Praia da Marinha, with its ocean-carved cliffs and hidden grottos filled with azure water, has often been named one of the most beautiful and best-preserved beaches in the world.

In the still-pristine and underdeveloped western areas as well as along the lagoons east of Faro, it’s easy to find restaurants that staunchly refuse to cave to the whims of the estrangeiros, or foreigners. What, then, are the culinary muses of these establishments? Local crops of rice, almonds, oranges, lemons, figs, and, of course, any creature from the sea.

What to Eat

Sardinhas assadas (grilled sardines); polvo frito (fried octopus); lulas recheadas (squid stuffed with cured meats and cooked in a tomato-onion sauce); búzios com feijão (clam, oyster, snail, and bean stew); amêijoas na cataplana (clams and spicy sausage cooked in the eponymous cataplana—a hinged clam-shaped pan, a kind of spiritual ancestor of the pressure cooker); caldeirada (stew brimming with local fish, including fresh tuna, sardines, and scorpion fish, as well as potatoes, onions, and garlic); and figos cheios (dried figs stuffed with almonds).

MADEIRA (muh-thay-rduh) and THE AZORES (uh-soar-ridz)

An entire book could be written about these jaw-droppingly beautiful volcanic islands, strewn across the Atlantic like a handful of green marbles. Madeira, discovered circa 1424, has a subtropical climate, so on the south side, which is favored by warm ocean breezes, everything from bananas and orchids to mangoes and sugarcane grows. Traveling north, into the staggering peaks covered in dense forests (madeira means “wood”), the lush volcanic landscape is cut by waterfalls hundreds of feet high. Like the Algarve, the island is a hotbed for tourists, but most stay in and around the capital city of Funchal, named for funcho, or fennel, a prolific crop that greeted the early settlers.

The subtropical Azorean islands—Santa Maria, São Miguel, Terceira, São Jorge, Graciosa, Pico, Faial, Flores, and Corvo—are happily stranded halfway between the United States and Europe. Life here is simpler, more rustic. Some towns weren’t even hooked up for electricity, gas, and telephone until the 1960s. But the pace of living is changing alarmingly fast. Cell phones and wireless cafés are catching on, much to the consternation of the older generations.

Because the islands are the peaks of ancient volcanoes, the land is impossibly verdant, with soaring summits, huge dormant-craters-turned- lagoons ringed with hydrangeas, and valleys perfect for grazing. Here the prized beast of burden is the cow. The Azores, especially São Jorge, are famous for their cheese. Microclimates are in evidence here, and some of the world’s finest pineapples come from a small, protected valley on the south side of São Miguel, while Europe’s only commercial tea plantation resides on the sloping northern shore. Nearby, in the town of Furnas, bubbly, sulfurous fissures act as ovens, and locals lower pots filled with all types of meats, sausages, and vegetables into them to cook the dish called cozido.

What to Eat

In Madeira, cebolinhas de escabeche (pickled onions); milho frito (fried cornmeal squares); espada (scabbard fish); carne de vinha d’alhos (pork cubes in a wine and garlic sauce served over slices of bread and ringed with oranges); espetada (beef chunks threaded on bay laurel branches and grilled over an open flame); bolo de caco (flat bread rounds made with sweet potato); and bolo de mel (molasses cake).

In the Azores, favas ricas (stew of fava beans seasoned with a bit of cinnamon); lapas grelhadas (grilled limpets in a lemon-butter sauce); sopa do Espírito Santo (a soup rife with beef, cabbage, sausages, bacon, wine, mint, and spices, served on the Feast of the Holy Ghost); sopa de funcho (fennel soup); alcatra (beef rump braised with wine, onions, allspice, bay leaf, and cinnamon); cozido (see description above); massa sovada (a slightly sweet, eggy bread); bolos lêvedos (flat round breads similar to an English muffin); and malassadas (literally “badly baked,” pockmarked, sugar-covered doughnuts).

What to Drink

Madeira is most well known, of course, for its eponymous fortified wines. You can’t go wrong with bottles from Barbeito, Blandy’s, Broadbent, Cossart Gordon, D’Oliveira, Henriques & Henriques, Leacock’s, Justino Henriques, or Quinta do Serrado.

MADEIRA MADNESS

Ever since the region’s fortified wines were accidentally overheated in holds of ships traveling along hot, tropical trade routes and, to everyone’s surprise, vastly improved, the world has had a passion for Madeira. It’s been a celebratory tipple for centuries, the most famous toast being the one at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

No longer set adrift to mature, Madeira is now carefully aged in stifling attics. There are four major types of wine, neatly named after the grape varietals:

MALMSEY (malvasia) is the sweetest, with lovely hints of nuts, caramel, and coffee. Grab a bottle when you’re looking for a postprandial sip or a wine to pair with deeply flavored desserts, such as Chocolate Mousse.

BOAL (aka bual) is the medium-sweet wine of the quartet. It’s rich with toffee and caramel flavors and teams beautifully with cheeses, as well as with custard desserts. Pour some when munching on a Baked Custard Tart.

VERDELHO crosses the line into drier territory. It offers up whispers of fig, spicy orange, and more acidic fruits. Traditionally served with soup and salad courses, it’s a pleasant surprise coupled with White Gazpacho with Crab Salad.

SERCIAL, the driest and spright-liest of the group, has definite insistence of vanilla, almonds, and crisp green apples. It’s an excellent match for most lighter hors d’oeuvres.


Written by David Leite in "The New Portuguese Table - Exciting Flavors From Europe's Western Coast", Clarkson Potter Publishers (an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.), New York, USA, 2009. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.