At the far west of Europe, a land washed by the sea and shaded by mountains is on the brink of becoming the next big culinary destination. As Portugal's ancient, tiled cities become increasingly hip, hot spots such as Lisbon's Bica do Sapato, co-owned by actor John Malkovich, are beginning to feature cutting-edge cooking that rivals any in Europe. Of course, the tradition-minded Portuguese are not about to forsake favorites like caldo verde ("green soup," the national dish). But as old mixes with new, now is the perfect time for a taste of Portugal.
A LAND OF EXPLORERS
To the outsider, Portuguese cooking bears a resemblance to Spanish, but don't let the Portuguese hear you say that. Portugal's ample Atlantic coastline is one major differentiating factor, yielding an abundance of fish and shellfish not found in Mediterranean Spain. Centuries of the spice trade also left lingering notes of cloves, nutmeg, and curry. In fact, Portuguese exploration, launched by the 15th-century Prince Henry the Navigator, brought home a global array of foods, including chiles, tomatoes, and potatoes from Brazil, and bacalhau (salt cod), created to preserve the fish caught off Newfoundland.
Along with native products � earthy sheep's-milk cheeses; acorn-fed pork, sausages, and hams � these ingredients were transformed by local cooks into a homey, flavorful cuisine. The result? Thick soups infused with olive oil, garlic, and cilantro; hearty country bread; and sweet, eggy desserts flavored with almonds, cinnamon, and port.
QUIET REVOLUTIONS
Like its 1974 "Flower Revolution," a nonviolent toppling of the dictatorship by dissidents wearing red flowers, Portugal's recent culinary innovations have been gentle, without the kind of avant-garde, exploding-tomato experimentation associated with modern Spanish cooking. From familiar monkfish reconceived as a stylish carpaccio, to bacalhau risotto with a port and onion marmalade, even the most cutting-edge nova cozinha Portuguesa is, at heart, a celebration of the country's resources and rich traditions. For more on these foodways, we spoke with Jean Anderson, whose seminal The Food of Portugal documents her four-decade-long love affair with this land. Read on for her recipes and cooking tips >.
If I were Shirley MacLaine," says Jean Anderson, "I'd say that I must've been Portuguese in another life." A native of North Carolina, Anderson first visited Lisbon in the mid-1960s as a journalist and photographer for Venture, a travel magazine that she had helped found. She felt instantly at home in the gracious, busy city, with its wide 18th-century boulevards and labyrinthine Moorish quarter. She delighted at the stalls of local farmers selling briny olives, hand-crafted cheeses, and sausages in the bustling Ribeira market. And as she traveled throughout the country, she fell in love with the simple ingredients and unusual flavor combinations of Portuguese cooking.
Over the next two decades, Anderson returned to Portugal at least once a year. In the Atlantic islands of the Azores, she dined on just-caught seafood, followed by ambrosial local pineapples. In the far northeastern region of Tr�s-os-Montes ("Land Beyond the Mountains"), she tasted game and fowl sausages flavored to pass for pork, invented by Jews taking cover as "New Christians" during the Inquisition. She collected recipes from Portugal's major chefs, its eminent television cooking host Maria de Lourdes Modesto, and skilled home cooks.
In 1986, Anderson shared the fruits of her travels in the award-winning The Food of Portugal, which lovingly and exhaustively documents Portuguese cooking, from little tascas (bistros) to sophisticated hotel restaurants. "The Portuguese are unusually creative and imaginative cooks," she says, noting that, though Portugal is about the size of Alabama, its diverse landscape leads to more regional variety than in many larger countries.
In recent years, Anderson has seen remarkable changes in Portuguese dining. The "gloomy" atmosphere that followed the 1974 revolution has lifted, as Portugal has joined the European Union and "whizzed into the 21st century." A movement of young chefs are "shaking up the old traditions, refining and reworking the old recipes, using classic ingredients in unusual ways." She's tasted "blazingly modern" dishes "unlike anything I'd ever had," and has also enjoyed a lot more Goan, Angolan, and Brazilian cooking, brought back from the country's collapsed colonies.
Other changes have been less welcome. Anderson's greatest fear for the cuisine centers around p�o, the traditional Portuguese bread. She's dismayed to see the old-fashioned, chewy loaves losing ground to squishier stuff in rural supermercados. Nonetheless, she notes that "traditions die hard in Portugal." To give us a taste of those flavors that first seduced her, she shared five recipes with Epicurious, including a streamlined yet authentic method for making real p�o. She's sure you'll be equally smitten.
