English Version | À La Mode means with ice cream

It’s not really like I’m getting old for this. It’s more like getting like this as I’m old. This thing of trying to make people understand how much of a Lisboner Lisbon was. Just the other day, in the middle of what used to be the Pombalina Downtown, before it became the Pantomina Downtown, I bumped into a tourist who, after drinking so many glasses of wine, confessed that he would stay for about half the time he had planned. He had come in the 90s as a young student, with his money saved, and fell in love with the city. In the meantime, he got married, had children and his wife could no longer listen to him and his declared love for Lisbon. Finally, he brought her (she was by his side, looking very unfriendly after the frozen-for-three-days grilled bream) and he himself was unable to justify why he adored it so much. Because it was impossible for him to recover anything of what he had once carried in his memory: “I can’t find the Lisbon I knew. In any corner. Last year we went to Magalufe, in Mallorca, and it was so bad that it precipitated the decision to come here this year. Enough of plastic places, I said. It feels like a punishment. I came to find a Portuguese Magalufe in a place that was once a paradise of authenticity.” Like it or not, no matter who it hurts, to me, at least, it feels like someone is ripping my lungs out with a fork when I hear these things, but the man is right. And because attributing blame to politicians and mayors is a circumlocution that will be left to others more versed in these matters than I am, let me say bluntly, by using that famous phrase from a North American president - “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” - that we are to blame. Our love for exoticism could even be poetic, if it weren’t hypocritical. The Portuguese have always loved everything that comes from abroad, embrace it fervently, imitate its mannerisms and, later, when things become too real and too close, despise it. Only this explains why Brazilian soap operas have entertained one generation and almost educated the next, why Brazilian Popular Music has inspired so many, why Roupa Nova has been an excuse for so much slow dancing, why Sangalo has filled so many festivals and, after all, when so many Brazilians seek our country for a better life, we are the worst kind of prejudiced people. Save for exceptions. Because only they can save us.

All this would be meaningless if we thought it was meaningless to, while declaring our love for what is exotic, reject what is intrinsically ours. But it is not in our blood to love what runs through our veins. At least not when we are young. It is part of being Portuguese to go through a phase in which we are “very modern”. Long before we truly appreciate a sardine bbq, some broad beans with much more than just chorizo, a feijoada without “putting aside its fat” on the border of the plate, a ray with plenty of garlic in it while chewing the cartilage, some seared mackerel or even the essential and obligatory fish stew, we are sponges ready to absorb everything that acculturates us. The Portuguese generation that was a teenager in the eighties had hamburgers, hot dogs and American pizza as fashionable food. All those stars they yearned for, from Michael J. Fox to Eddie Murphy, were directly introduced to their bloodstream and through the cinema screen, nibbling on minced meat sandwiches at diners, a sausage in a bun they bought from a cart in Downtown Manhattan or the unforgettable opening scene in which all the friends wait for the pizza while Elliot comes face to face with ET in the cornfield. Supply gradually met demand and the first burger joints appeared (the first was the Sandwich Bar in Caparica). The hot dog was no longer that dry toasted bun spread with butter that held two Izidoro sausages cut in half, fried and then covered in Savora mustard. It gave way to the carts that people would flock to at the end of the night to cover their sausage with sauerkraut, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise and any other sauces they had. In the 90s, with grunge or Britpop music in their ears and Walkmans on their belts, Chinese restaurants arrived. Even cheaper than the Portuguese, where you could eat a full meal for 500$00 (five hundred escudos, the equivalent of €2.50), we became oriental gourmands, knowing where to eat the best chop soy, the least greasy crepe, the tastiest chicken with almonds, and where to watch the best show provided by fried ice cream burning in rum and a series of other dishes that had nothing Chinese about them, apart from Peking duck. There were many “group dinners” that ended with shots served from a bottle containing a lizard. About a decade and a half after this boom, there was a boom in sushi or, as they say in the area, pexe crrú. Things were so intense that the truly Japanese restaurants, such as Kamikaze, on Rua Filipe Folque, owned by Mr. Chimoto (the first to open in Portugal, in 1985), took a back seat, and almost all of the Chinese restaurants that used to delight us became Sushi All You Can Eat, charging for leftovers to avoid waste. The chefs who used to sauté beef in oyster sauce became pseudo-sushi masters in their eagerness to roll makis and salmon California rolls (which would make any Japanese person slit their wrists), and we all took advantage of the fact that we had learned to eat with chopsticks in Chinese to now pick up nigiris, which, funny enough, should be eaten with your hands. Still in this Asian current, at the turn of the millennium, clandestine restaurants appeared, often set up in the homes of the couple who cooked (always the man, because the woman waited on tables and, with her baby of just a few months on her back, sometimes distracted herself with a kind of soap opera in mandarin that was shown on the tiny TV on top of the fridge from which the customers themselves took their Tsingtao beers). This made it possible for the first time to have access to real Chinese cuisine, including Sichuan cuisine, known for being the spiciest in the world. Chicken feet as a starter (I even saw a bowl of them in the shower of the restaurant's bathroom, which was also the guest bathroom, or watched the process of having their nails cut at the next table), caramelized pig intestines, duck tongues and the best Singapore-style sautéed noodles, orders and bills written in Chinese characters on a post-it note and a ridiculous price satisfied the desire for exoticism without "living beyond our means", something we would be accused of a few years later. Meanwhile, globalization and the consequent expansion of the range of offerings and, therefore, of mentalities and interests, brought us the fantastic world of Anime and Manga. And just as it was once "very modern" to bite into cheeseburgers, the ambiances that are part of the imagination of today's young people, which go far beyond the classics of Studio Ghibli and its "ringleader" Hayao Miyazaki, are inseparable from steaming ramen. The result is a flood of restaurants in Lisbon that delight Instagrammers and TikTokers, both national and foreign, and that go so far as to know that this is the most accessible street food in the world (taking into account Japanese purchasing power), that they decorate their establishments in such a way that it looks like we have entered a narrow alley in Tokyo, without the dozens of hours of flying. None of this is, therefore, new when it comes to the Portuguese surrender to exoticism. The problem is that there is a shortage of places where we can eat, on Mondays, a piece of cod with chickpeas, instead of a piece of salmon. When we should already know, because we are Portuguese and there is no one in the world who knows more about seafood than we do, that there is no fresh fish on Mondays.

One thing is Trends, in which we still haven't talked about Korean Cuisine, arriving in style after the success of the Squid Game series and the film Parasite (Bong Joon Ho, 2019), another is The Trends. It may seem like the same thing, but it's not. In this world of restaurants, the Portuguese public (and not the national performers) are also a little behind their time. And it's only when a Trend, which has been around for some time in the hands of wise people who often get exasperated by making itself known, becomes widespread knowledge that it becomes a Fashion. Gastronomic trends are movements that emerge and adapt according to the changes that occur in the societies in which they are inserted, reflecting, much more than the flavors and ingredients used in their respective cuisine (where is that going?), the way people relate to food. As a mere example, which we never like to remember, the pandemic gave rise to new habits and demands. Far beyond making us all bakers who used sourdough, it created trends that prioritize, first and foremost, safety, local produce and the sustainability of the cuisine practiced. Yes, it was not only take-away and home delivery by courier (of invariably cold food) that came to stay. Gastronomy is one of the reflections of our culture and, like other cultural expressions and even the language itself, it is constantly evolving. Portuguese cuisine is one of the most progressive in the world. Because, precisely on the subject that was discussed here a little while ago, the love of exoticism and the fact that we embrace everything that comes from abroad made us perhaps one of the first fusion cuisines in the world. Opening a fusion cuisine restaurant in Portugal is pure pleonasm. Just ask Doçaria Conventual when, five hundred years ago, it witnessed the arrival of cinnamon and coconut. Even so, the rest of the world continues with the current trend of combining two or more cuisines or incorporating elements from other places, no matter how seemingly divergent, into their cuisine, as we did, in such a revolutionary way, by introducing cumin into black pudding. This is always better than destroying a product that has already reached perfection, like those chefs who cut the sausage into pieces, make little balls and fry them, when it should be whole, grilled and accompanied by turnip greens, never with a fried egg and chips. We therefore believe that the most current trend is sustainability. When the whole world is committed to leaving the planet in the best possible condition for future generations, it is urgent that one of our most important physiological needs, the act of eating, plays a decisive role. The role of chefs is crucial and, fortunately, the search for local and seasonal products is almost universal. Saying no to raw materials that have to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles, using fossil fuels to do so, and at the same time using products that, due to their proximity, arrive at the kitchen at their freshest by the hands of neighbouring producers, thus boosting the local economy, has beneficial effects in the very short term. Then, of course, there is the trend to reduce food waste... I remember Ljubomir Stanisic being one of the first to serve fried potato skins with a delicious mayonnaise as a snack to accompany a cocktail at the bar until it was time for our reservation. Gourmet? I don't know. But it was incredible. More and more, kitchen managers are living up to the ancient Portuguese tradition of making pork, an animal that is consumed in its entirety, the king of the dish at home, applying the logic to the simplest fruit and vegetable. Which brings us to a subject that, in truth, used to be more delicate than it is: the exponential increase in the number of vegetarians and vegans. Because most of the great chefs have already realized that this trend could dictate the future of gastronomy, they are increasingly modifying their offerings in order to not only satisfy vegans and vegetarians but also show those who are most averse to these “diet”, carnivores through and through, that it is possible to taste delicious things where animal suffering has no place. And when you think about it, anyone who doesn’t like a clay pot with peas and eggs still bubbling is not a fair Portuguese. The great trend in national gastronomy is, therefore, and transcending that age in which it is natural for us to think we own the world and reason, authenticity. So be it!

Translated from the original in Vogue Portugal's The Big Book of Trends, published September 2024. Full stories and credits in the print issue.