It's good to talk about fasting around Easter, Ash Wednesday is already over, and then Holy Friday starts so that by Sunday there will be an abundance of roasted lamb and giblets.
It's good to talk about fasting around Easter, Ash Wednesday is already over, and then Holy Friday starts so that by Sunday there will be an abundance of roasted lamb and giblets. Fasting is synonymous with hunger - which we impose on ourselves, but hunger nonetheless. And if revolutions have been made because of famines imposed by others, what can we say about these times in which we forgo freedom?

It is certain and known, from appearing in the great classics of literature such as One Thousand Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, or even in those that later came to be considered manuals of political science, such as The Prince by Nicolaus Machiavelli, that fear is a condition of governability. "Love and fear can hardly coexist. And if we had to choose, it is safer to be feared than loved," the latter said, along with one or another little thing that earned him eternity because, since his writings, anyone who is maliciously cunning, rogue, demonic, cunning and terrible is simply "Machiavellian." From love relationships (or ones that aren't even that anymore) to employment, from eminent economic crises to more or less pandemic deadly viruses, from terrorism to conventional warfare, fear makes us meek, individually or as a herd, shepherding fears with our eyes to the ground. At home, fear ends arguments about the toilet seat. At work, fear suppresses demands. In society? Ah in society... It's not just the end of contestation. It is the further castration of the libertarian spirit and the dream for a better world. Without a single intervention, police officers have to take to the streets, fear crushes individual freedoms that have cost so much blood and, without a handcuff being used, imprison men. And no, I am not even talking about the pandemic and how we were robbed, in fact, of privileges that we took for granted, in the name of a greater good, trampling on what is the ultimate document that governs our democracy. This democracy is at serious risk in a Europe that has not learned from its past and is now metastasized in the most abominable way. It was enough to instill fear in us. Fear of immigration, fear of minorities, fear of "those who don't want to work" (in Salazar's time it was the Alentejans, jokes are still told about this, although only in the latitudes of the Beiras and Transmontanas), fear of that terrible socialism that inspired all the governments of Europe to pursue an egalitarian ideal of free health care and education, sick leave, breastfeeding leave or parity in employment. All it takes is one squawk of hatred distilled into a pasty, viscous mixture of no proposals, and the intolerable is normalized. Thus, dictatorships are born. Which fortunately always leads to revolutions. Because, in the last analysis, we are what we fight for. Just as we are what we eat, remember? And in that respect, I consider myself an insurgent. One day I will lead a rebellion. I can start by transmitting some subversive ideas. You see, right away.
In one of the episodes of what was, for me, the best gastronomic documentary series ever, entitled No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain strokes a pig's head that is on the counter, sometimes in a friendly way and other times with a more energetic slap. He explains that it is by far his favorite meat and that this is why he went to the doctor one day to be presented with an ultimatum: "Either you never eat pork again or you will have to take these cholesterol pills for the rest of your life." He tapes the camera and then a montage of several frames filmed in markets and street food stands (which he loved) with kebabs, strips, chunks, tails, and ears, always with that caramelized apple look that only Asian cuisine can lend to the shiny coir of our pig friend, and then the late chef tapes the lens again, in a closer shot. He exclaims, "The decision was made right there, in less than two seconds." It will be minimally important to mention that we are talking about a man who learned early on, through a life made of excesses and subsequent cures from various addictions, unresolved loves, failed restaurants, and a stormy relationship with fame, that is, he was used to extreme "diets". But how could he go on with his work, which consisted of traveling around the world tasting delicacies in the most obscure places, being forbidden to eat the meat of the animal that ensured, except for the Muslim and Jewish world, the survival of so many millions of humans? And how could he endure yet another of the many privations to which he was obliged and which, perhaps, in a cocktail that we may never come to understand, led him to end his own life? Where is the freedom to be able to eat everything we like, even if we know it is bad for us? In health? Or in the overthrow of this fascism that dictates that we are obliged to have a body like this and like that, because we might hurt the eyes of those who share the beach sand with us and are obliged to watch our rants, just as we are obliged to listen to the funk dance on portable speakers that are the new singer of the 80s because someone back then thought that others also had to listen to the Scorpions and Bryan Adams?
I have an uncle who is fast-tracking his way to 92. He has been fed fatty cuts of cod all his life. Except for the grilled fish during the summer season (which for him goes from May to October), spent in the house in Vila Nova de Milfontes (on the same street as the famous Tasca do Celso, which I remember as a "real tasca", including the sawdust on the floor to "soak" the spilled wine), which he consumes profusely, but only at lunch, lamb at Christmas and Easter, a roast chicken from the Churrasqueira Moçambicana once in a while, pork is king. Bifanas? No way! Entrecosto? Not really. It's bacon on top, rind on the bottom, cheek (the "mantle" that goes from the "chin" to the front legs) in the oven, chorizos roasted on clay, and a lot, but a lot, of bread. Assiduous analysis, because age requires it, and the result persists: the cholesterol of an athlete, the blood pressure of a young man, the triglycerides of a dietitian. Who would have thought it? I did! I have known him for too many years not to know he is frugal. It is a quality (or defect?) of almost all the Alentejans I know since they were born until 1970. All the misery they have seen and that almost all of them have felt has put such a weight on their shoulders that they almost feel guilty when it comes to being "lambaruças", in their language, "lambão" further north, "voraz" in the more colloquial form.
But that doesn't mean they don't take immense pleasure in food. Or, especially, in the act of eating. They indulge in little, but they don't cut themselves off from anything. It would even be discourteous to do so. The Alentejo tavern, the one that women considered to be the disgrace of their villages and men considered to be their refuge and altar, can be recognized not only by the little dog waiting for its owner at the door. At the counter, each man deposits his "contribution." It can be a pear (you don't say "apple"), a tangerine, a quarter of goat cheese, a piece of bread, or a handful of olives. It's all there, at the disposal of the guests who, glass in, glass out, take out their knives and help themselves to something. Frugally, but they serve. Because drinking without eating is a no-no. But try telling them that no, they can no longer go to the tavern to drink with their friends. There will be a revolution.
On these and other intricacies, one of the most underrated Portuguese authors of all time. While a few months ago the social networks were bending like bells in well-deserved elegies to Maria de Lourdes Modesto, author of what is perhaps the bible of Tugas' delicacies (and which immediately reached prohibitive prices in the bookshops), the Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa (Traditional Portuguese Cooking), the 25th of May 2008, which brought us, Alfredo Saramago, was of an atrocious silence. When this was perhaps the greatest scholar of what is, perhaps, one of our greatest riches. An anthropologist from Freiburg and historian from Oxford, he even took a degree in the History of Food at the Collège de France in Paris. Jean-Pierre Frandan, one of his professors on that course, wrote in the preface to the book O Vinho do Porto na Cozinha - História e Gastronomia (Port Wine in the Kitchen - History and Gastronomy), authored by his student: "With two degrees already, I studied as if I were a young university student, and with such insight and interest I did so, that during my undergraduate orientation, I learned as much as I taught."
Alfredo Saramago was, at the time of his death, the director of Epicur magazine, where he embraced polemics in his editorials as he embraced, above all, life. He was not just a bon vivant. He was the very definition of a sybarite (referring to the ancient Sibaris, a Calabrian city where people were given to indolence and physical pleasures, like the Alentejans, therefore). He lived all his life in the sweet indolence of doing what he loved most. Born in Arronches, he was much more than a citizen of the world. He was the Michel Giacometti of our eateries. And this is the only way he could leave us his vast body of work. Beira Litoral Cuisine, Beira Interior Cuisine, Transmontane Cuisine, Minho Cuisine, Algarve Cuisine, Alentejo Conventual Sweets, Northern Conventual Sweets, For a History of the Cuisine of Lisbon and its Outskirts, Cuisine for Men - the Honest Voluptuousness, A Caça - Perspectiva Histórica e Receitas tradicionais, Fé e Grandeza - A Boa Vida de uma Casa Monástica, and Livro-Guia do Alentejo, all published long after the long-gone Guia das Tabernas de Grândola, are just a few of his works, all of them of an unprecedented rigor. He brought together written sources and those he obtained, in loco, from oral tradition, to leave us a true heritage. The recipes are of incredible accuracy and none escape his contextualization, as if all of them were an episode in our history and a pillar of our culture. He has thus become our greatest anthropologist of the knowledge that leads to flavors. How did he do it? By traveling, spending long periods in places, and, above all, socializing. At the table, but not only. How can this eating and drinking a lot and of everything, at any time or whenever possible, be enriching? Not only can it but it also should. It is the ultimate act of freedom. Or as Alfredo Saramago would say: "There are two essential functions: eating and reproduction. But man, however much it costs him, can do without reproducing. But not without eating."
The word diet precedes, in good Portuguese, an adjective. It can be Mediterranean, deficient, or "based on." But much can be said about the current state of things when, at present, "diet" is synonymous with deprivation. Which in turn is synonymous with imposed suppression. Like when we are imprisoned. Deprived of our freedom, therefore. In the name of health, which is little due to several factors, ranging from a sedentary lifestyle (for which our body is not prepared) to the dubious origin of the food we consume, to the dictatorship of appearance that forces us, to feel good, to various types of food indigence, the entry into the 21st century brought with it the birth of countless minimalities, copies, omissions, and pouquities (to use "diet" synonyms), that is, voluntary starvation. I remember an aunt who only ate pineapples.
To the point where, at the end of every meal, I would get blood on every taste bud. Or people who only ingested bananas and milk (which invariably resulted in constipation that only ended, a week later, in pleas for an epidural when it was time to evacuate). The voluntary starvation with the most adherents was paleo (from the Paleolithic, that time when humans, or hominids, were nomadic and had not yet discovered the cultivation of cereals), by which the body found itself without carbohydrates, that source of energy. It was like a scene from The Walking Dead. On the street, in public transportation, and at work, people were dead tired and very sleepy, dragging themselves flaccidly through the day, dreaming of a chicken steak, which could even be a whole chicken as long as you didn't eat rice, potatoes, and, especially, bread. After some time on this "regimen," they discovered, by reintroducing what was missing, that they put on weight again. Sometimes much more than they had lost. There was only one option... Paleo, with the very modern low-carb label, would have to become a lifestyle. I was the most annoying person in restaurants, right after the vegans: "Bring me a portion of turkey steaks with some sautéed vegetables" and the waiter frowning while he wrote with his Bic Cristal a note that, read by the chef, would lead him to use some broccoli that he had cooked to accompany the filet of Nile Perch that was on the menu as Sea Bass. More recently, we have reached exaggeration. Fasting, intermittent or not, is people playing at being poor. It is saying to all the children in Afghanistan and Yemen, "Oh, you don't eat because you don't have to? I don't eat because I can!" It's regressing to the time of "one sardine for six," of barefoot children on the Lisbon sidewalk, of tired horse soups. It's not fasting, it's starving. Indians do it for religious reasons, not for the love of bikinis. It is of an atrocious superficiality. Sit at the table, take your time, and eat your soup, your plate, and your dessert. Repeat, if you feel like it. And drink with avidity. Enjoy one of the greatest pleasures in life and feel, with it, the sweet breath of freedom. That would be the real revolution, to cut the chains that are only in your heads.
Originally translated from The Revolution Issue, published April 2023.Full stories and credits on the print issue.
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