Portugal

28
PORTUGAL IN DEPTH
2
EATING & DRINKING IN PORTUGAL
accompany both the meat and fish platters.
In many restaurants, the chef features
at least one prato do dia (plate of the day).
These dishes are prepared fresh that day
and often are cheaper than the regular
offerings.
CUISINE Couverts are little appetizers,
often brought to your table the moment
you sit down. These can include bread,
cheese, and olives. In many restaurants
they are free; in others you are charged
extra. It’s a good idea to ask your waiter
about extra costs. In many places, the
charge for these extras is per person.
Remember: Not everything served at the
beginning of the meal is free.
Another way to begin your meal is to
select from acepipes variados (hors
d’oeuvres), which might include everything
from swordfish to olives and tuna.
From the soup kitchen, the most popular
selection is caldo verde (green broth).
Made from cabbage, sausage, potatoes,
and olive oil, it’s common in the north.
Another ubiquitous soup is sopa alentejana,
simmered with garlic and bread,
among other ingredients. Portuguese
cooks wring every last morsel of nutrition
from their fish, meat, and vegetables. The
fishers make sopa de mariscos by boiling the
shells of various shellfish and then richly
flavoring the stock and lacing it with white
wine.
The first main dish you’re likely to
encounter on any menu is bacalhau (salted
codfish), faithful friend of the Portuguese.
As you drive through fishing villages in the
north, you’ll see racks and racks of the fish
drying in the sun. Foreigners might not
wax rhapsodic about bacalhau, although
it’s prepared in imaginative ways. Common
ways of serving it include bacalhau
cozido (boiled with such vegetables as carrots,
cabbage, and spinach, and then
baked), bacalhau à Bras (fried in olive oil
with onions and potatoes, and flavored
with garlic), bacalhau à Gomes de Sá
(stewed with black olives, potatoes, and
onions, and then baked and topped with a
sliced boiled egg), and bacalhau no
churrasco (barbecued).
Aside from codfish, the classic national
dish is caldeirada, the Portuguese version
of bouillabaisse. Prepared at home, it’s a
pungent stew containing bits and pieces of
the latest catch.
Next on the platter is the Portuguese
sardine. Found off the Atlantic coasts of
Iberia as well as France, the country’s 6- to
8-inch-long sardines also come from
Setúbal. As you stroll through the alleys of
the Alfama or pass the main streets of
small villages throughout Portugal, you’ll
sometimes see women kneeling in front of
braziers on their front doorsteps grilling
the large sardines. Grilled, they’re called
sardinhas assadas.
Shellfish is one of the great delicacies of
the Portuguese table. Its scarcity and the
demand of foreign markets, however, have
led to astronomical price tags. The price of
lobsters and crabs changes every day,
depending on the market. On menus,
you’ll see the abbreviation Preço V., meaning
“variable price.” When the waiter
brings a shellfish dish to your table, always
ask the price.
Many of these creatures from the deep,
such as king-size crabs, are cooked and
then displayed in restaurant windows. If
you do decide to splurge, demand that you
be served only fresh shellfish. You can be
deceived, as can even the experts, but at
least you’ll have demanded that your fish
be fresh and not left over from the previous
day’s window display. When fresh,
santola (crab) is a delicacy. Santola recheada
(stuffed crab) might be too pungent for
unaccustomed Western palates, though;
amêijoas (baby clams) are a safer choice.
Lagosta is translated as “lobster” but is, in
fact, crayfish; it’s best when served without
adornment.
The variety of good-tasting, inexpensive
fish served here includes salmonette (red
mullet) from Setúbal, robalo (bass),