English Version | To each their own, dish included.

The other day I was talking to a racist. It wasn't really a “conversation”. Let's call it a debate. It took me the next few days, until this very moment, to ask myself “Why”? I don't know. I know I did. I don't remember all the details, just how it ended. He told me that the Arabs, Pakistanis, Indians and Africans are a long way behind because they still eat with their hands. I asked him if he ate his very American hamburgers, hot dogs, deep-dish pizzas, chicken wings, ribs and french fries with a knife and fork or if, following the example set by such an advanced civilization on Lisbon's terraces, he also ordered fries to accompany his sardines. He wisely explained that all this was because the United States has a large African-American community and I, with your permission and his, told him that I had clothes to pick up from the rack or something else more offensive. So that we understand each other, gastronomy is a top cultural expression. It reflects, first and foremost, the socio-economic framework of a given moment in the history of a people. Alheira de Mirandela, for example, which is a poultry sausage, was “invented” by Jews who also had a smokehouse at home (usually dedicated to pork sausages), so they passed the Inquisition's “inspection”. Migas or Açorda are a reflection of the extreme poverty in which the Alentejo has almost always been plunged, rice is king in Portugal (we consume three times more than the rest of Europe put together) because, when Garcia de Orta discovered that this cereal yielded three harvests a year, he brought it from Asia to make up for the famine, and the legendary red chilli pepper, the greatest symbol of India's fearsome gastronomy, was brought from Angola by the Portuguese. Even Carne de Porco à Alentejana is, according to the Book of Pantagruel, Algarvian. The Algarveans used to feed their pigs leftover fish and shellfish, which is precisely what pigs can't eat because it makes the meat taste bad. Now, faced with complaints from tourists in the 1960s, menus began to state that it was Carne de Porco Alentejano and the rest was misrepresented by word of mouth. Then you have to take into account other factors such as geographical location (the black pig couldn't survive in the north, where the cork oaks and holm oaks are more sparse) and its natural resources (after all, how could the people of Beja in the last century mix clams with pork? ); the rituals and traditions (not everyone loves the Espírito Santo soups in the Azores, but those tables where everyone eats together are irresistible, just as not everyone likes the pig slaughter but everyone is there for the first febra with a glass of wine in hand); or even the cultural fusion, which always reminds me of my childhood and the charisma of the community of returnees from Mozambique, a country that had already been influenced by the Portuguese who moved there after the decolonization of India, and the sauce thickened with king apples, in the absence of coconut. All this to say that, culturally, the “problem” with American cuisine is that the country itself doesn't even have a quarter of a millennium of history. It's as if Portugal still eats chestnut bread or acorns because we're waiting for the Romans to come here and promote the cultivation of wheat.

Don't say I didn't warn you, I'm going to touch on a sensitive subject. Anyone who knows me (not very well) will tell you that I have a thing about Francesinha. Not that I have to justify it, but it's not even a mere dislike. It's an aversion. The same I have for a Big Mac, a KFC bucket, or a Salmon Steak. The fact that the people of Porto embrace such a “gastronomic” outrage to the point of suggesting it to tourists or visitors, thus relegating to the background what are true treasures of Porto's gastronomy which range from the various codfish (not just À Gomes de Sá or À Rosa do Adro) to Caldo Verde, including the Tripas, the Escabeches, the Fígado de Cebolada, the Fillets of Octopus, the redenhos and buchos and orelheiras and rojões and sarrabulhos, is their problem. Not least because they (whether Porto or Lisbon) have had enough time to realize that the “quality” of the tourist is closely linked to the nature of the offer, the subsequent distancing from the roots, and then, of course, it's places like Livraria Latina or Casa Madureira that suffer. Lest you think this has something to do with regionalism (not least because I'm from the South Bank, which means I'm even more Moorish than the Moors of Lisbon), I'll give you the example of a southern aberration, the “Costeleta à Salsicheiro”... Which is as typical as the Nobre or Izidoro buildings, since before them it was unthinkable that any Portuguese could eat a pink cylinder stuffed with who knows what and smelling of barbecue sauce. By the same token, it would never cross the mind of a chef (or cook) born and bred in Portugal, who saw his grandmother and mother cook according to the Tug-of-Portugal rule (even if he went to study “abroad” afterward), to mix slices of hypermarket bread, steak, sausage, ham, cheese, cover it with molhanga, top it with a fried egg and surround it with fries. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that we're already so overwhelmed by all the marketing when we saw a photo of a Francesinha for the first time today, we'd say that you could only find that in a late-night trailer. We all go there. Or to a fast food chain, ramen or tandoori. In other words, there's nothing wrong with liking Francesinha. Nor is there anything wrong with going to a restaurant that makes it the way you like it best. To call it “Typical” or “Traditional” food is heresy. And to relegate Porto to a “little place” that you visit like someone who goes to Óbidos to drink sour cherry or to the Medieval Fair in I don't know where because it has good mead. Try saying on any social network “Today I'm going to Porto”... In five minutes, you'll have thirty “Don't forget to go to Francesinha at X place” and not one “Woe betide you if you don't eat Cabidela at Adega Vigário” or even one “Buy a sausage at the butcher, roast it in clay and eat it with Broa de Avintes”. And this isn't the fault of anyone who isn't from Porto. In the same way that the only typical Lisbon dish is Iscas, served in “casas de iscas” and “casas de pasto” after the municipal slaughterhouse was built in Picoas (livers and other bovine organs became cheap due to the abundance) and which, over time, gave way to bifanas, served in the same “three versions”: with “them” (the potatoes), on bread and, for the less well-off, just the bread dipped in the sauce from the huge enamel frying pan (sertã). But in the meantime, “the legend” of Velho Brás, who only had cod, eggs, onions, potatoes, olives and parsley in his house (homessa, to have “only” this in your house was to be “only” rich), emerged to Romanize a recipe invented to please the horde of Spanish tourists in search of atoalhados in the Baixa during Easter, people who love cod and, above all, huevos revueltos. And yet Lisbon has let the Bife à Marrare die, that classic of the 19th century cafés in Lisbon, a very high piece of meat served with a cream-based sauce that paid homage to the Italian Antonio Marrare, owner of countless grazing houses in the capital. Trindade or Portugália are a shadow of what this Lisbon icon used to be. Yes, it was.

Taking on board what was said earlier, typical dishes are such a sacred subject for their people that we should add gastronomy to taboo subjects like politics and religion. Try telling someone from Trás-os-Montes that “Botelo” has too many bones, or someone from Aveiro that “berbigão” (not “cricos”) without coriander is not acceptable. Or to an Alentejano that Açorda is a porridge with prawns. Or to a Setubalense that red mullet has too many bones. I can assure you that the atmosphere sours faster than soup in summer. A while ago, with the leftover grilled meats cut into small pieces, the guys drizzled olive oil on them, chopped up some garlic and, of course, Erva Sagrada a Sul. Then a woman from Braga comes into the kitchen and exclaims: “What's that smell? Coriander? That's disgusting! Disgusting? I'll tell you what disgust is. If you wander the streets of Bangkok, you can eat fried grasshoppers (as well as cockroaches, ants and cocoons). But that's also eaten in Mexico and we don't call it a fig, we call it chapulines. In the Alentejo, lamb's heads are an appetizer that goes with stools at the tavern counter. But in North Africa, too, people will pelt themselves for a good pair of eyes, brains and tongue of this delicacy. In other words, no matter how repulsive we find a certain dish, there is always someone, somewhere in the world, who enjoys it. But I can assure you that there is one dish that is so much ours that its mere description will make any non-Portuguese earthling vomit immediately. Try telling an Italian, a Burkinabé, a Mongolian, a Pole or even a Greenlander that, around here, we put fish in boiling water and serve it with potatoes, boiled egg and a little carrot. It's a very useful exercise to put into perspective what we find delicious or, on the other hand, nauseating. Because even the fishmonger gave me a reality check when I asked why the hell they don't sell forkbeards anymore and the answer was: “They're actually there at the fish market, but the old people are dying and I don't have anyone to sell them to”... So, I got the message, I'm getting old, I accepted it, I ordered and the next day I went to pick up the forkbeards. Almost three kilos of that taste we hate when we're kids and, as we get older, we return to it in an exercise of pure nostalgia. Or because it is, in fact, cultural. I've been trying to avoid, however, carrying out the truly tuga cooking technique... Fish (or shellfish) is cooked in seawater. And if it's near me... Especially when I buy the fish directly from the fishermen of Fonte da Telha, because everything is an excuse to eat a fried cuttlefish (yes, the typical dish of the South Bank and not just Setúbal) at the counter while I wait for the boats to arrive, laden with sea bream, sea bass, sole, horse mackerel, turbot, bream and cuttlefish, all for grilling. And well-informed tourists know that grilled fish is the gastronomic icon of this Portugal of ours.

As I explained above concerning the francesinha, as soon as we tell our friends that we're going to London we're inundated with suggestions of the best place to eat Fish n' Chips, that British icon. And it's comparable to the example of invicta because, yes, it's true that it has become widely consumed due to convenience (in the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution took away the time to be at the table and socialize), and fresh cod (what a waste) deep fried and accompanied by pea puree and salt & vinegar (or curry sauce for those more surrendered to the aromas of the British Empire to the east) would come in handy. But the truly iconic English dish is eaten as soon as you get out of bed, it's called Full English and comes with eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and toast or fried bread. Then, at the weekend, there's Shepherd's Pie (a kind of pie but with lamb) or Cottage Pie if it's with veal. On Sunday, with the family, the Sunday Roast is a must, accompanied by roast potatoes and Yorkshire Pudding. If you're given to preciosity, there are the dishes we love when we go to an Indian restaurant, such as Tikka Masala, Balti, Vindaloo and Madras, which were actually created by the English settlers in order to withstand the characteristic spiciness of the subcontinent. We don't have to go that far. In neighboring Spain, the first thing we look for is Paella. But this is characteristic of Valencia, not Andalusia, so we should remember this when we sit on a Sevillian terrace enjoying this dish, with some cañas to accompany it. From this point of view, even the Portuguese are more precise when they call their rice Arroz à Valenciana. The next time we're among nuestros hermanos, we should try a Cocido Madrileño, a Gazpacho, a Tortilla de Patatas or, to the north, Pulpo à la Gallega. Likewise, don't think that you can go to Italy and eat a quality pizza in any city. Only in Naples. In Rome, you should eat Carbonara, Cacio e Pepe and Saltimbocca, in Florence you should look for Bistecca and Lampredotto (folded sandwiches), Milan is the ideal place for Risotto or Ossobuco, Bologna is the birthplace of lasagna (Bolognese, of course), in Venice you should try Sarde in Saor (sardines with onions, pine nuts and raisins) and Tiramisù, Genoa is the place for Focaccia and Turin offers the characteristic Vitello Tonnato, veal served cold with tuna sauce, capers and mayonnaise. Meanwhile, we skipped France and its diversity. In Paris, the Croque-Monsieur reigns (yes, the Francesinha, but without the sauce, fries or eggs) and the Soupe à l'Oignon (onion soup, from the time of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables), because the famous Ratatouille that Disney immortalized is from Nice (where what we call Russian Salad also comes from), Bouillabaisse is from Marseille, Cassoulet (and Duck Magret) from Toulouse, Duck with Orange from Nantes, Brandade from Montpellier, Gratin Dauphinois from Grenoble, Moules-Frites from Lille and the famous Escargots (as well as Boeuf Bourguignon) are from Dijon. A lot of ground could be covered on this subject, from tacos that have nothing Mexican about them and everything from Los Angeles, to the spiciest food in the world, which is not Indian but from the province of Sichuan in China. But we'll stop at this humble attempt to prove that the dishes most people consider to be iconic of a city or country aren't always the ones that define a culture. Poor Brits, who, despite having some of the best comfort food dishes (hats off to Oxtail, the best version of oxtail in the world), are reputed to have the worst gastronomy in the world. I don't know who started spreading this “myth”. But I'm sure you've never been to Holland. Sorry, the Netherlands. 

Translated from the original in Vogue Portugal's The Icons Issue, published November 2024. Full story and credits in the print issue.