Coffee drinking is a serious business in Portugal. There’s no way you can come here and not have to order a coffee at some point, so here is some essential information.
These are general guidelines. No two cups of coffee will ever be identical no matter what words you use. Relax, it’s just a drink.
I’m sorry, tugas. I apologise, it’s just a sacred drink. Please go easy on me, I’m just a beginner, a humble student if you please. And please if you have some corrections, additions or some anecdotal contribution to make, be my guest.
The most popular coffee is an espresso. In Lisbon you would order um bica (oong beekuh) and in Porto um cimbalinho (oong simbalEENyo). Elsewhere um café (oong kaFEY).
There are infinite variations on how it comes, so don’t be shy about being specific about your needs. Cheia (shayuh) is a full espresso cup, tres- quartas (tresh kwartas) 3/4 full, a ristretto is called um italiano (small, strong, the first few seconds of the machine’s coffee). You could ask for it não quente (nowng kent; not hot;) and they’ll put a dash of cold water in it for you.
In this pic (below) there is um italiano (top), um bica (right) and um cortado (left). In Portugal a cortado is a standard measure from the ’small cup’ button on the machine, not to be confused with a spanish cortado (cut with milk, see below).
Staying with the small cup theme, your poison may be um pingo (oong pingoo) also called um pingado (oong pingardoo); an espresso with a drop of milk (sometimes hot milk, sometimes not). Um garoto (below, left) has more milk; about 50/50 coffee-to-milk ratio but still in a small cup. In Spain this is known as a corto or a cortado. In Australia it’s a piccolo caffe latte. Uma carioca (below, right) is the opposite of a ristretto – a full small cup minus the strongest first two seconds of an espresso.
For a long black, or a large black coffee, you would order um abatanado. This could be also called um café americano, but ordering an americano may get you an instant coffee in some places. If that’s what you want then order um nescafe. If you’d like a double espresso, order um café duplo (oong kafEY DOOploo)
Going the milky way, um galão (oong galowng) is served in a tall glass and is about 3/4 milk. Traditionally a galão is made with a second passing of coffee from the machine and is very weak. If you want something more like a caffe latte than coffee flavoured milk, order a um galão directo (deeretoo). You can also ask for a dark one escuro (eshkooroo) or a light one claro (klaroo). Ordering a galão after midday will provoke funny looks, unless you’re over 80. It’s either for breakfast or it’s a nanna’s drink. You might save face by ordering uma meia de leite (maya de late) which is half milk in a regular cup, like a flat white in Australia. But like my half-Australian buddy, you could try ordering a layer de mate, mate 
Special thanks to frogdropping for her impeccable production assistance in the rain and everything.
Some things that travellers are meant to encounter have always eluded me. “Cultural differences” and “culture shock”, for example, are two concepts that I have never really had a grasp of while on the road.
But now that I am settled and my mind is no longer occupied with train timetables and food poisoning, I have had time to ponder these issues.
I know that many of the comparisons I make on a daily basis are city/country comparisons, rather than being particularly Portuguese/Australian. The problem is with the generalisation. So, permit me instead to illustrate some examples of the more unexpected, curious and/or seriously annoying old life/new life differences I have encountered.
Do not take medications with alcohol
Elsewhere we understand that alcohol interferes with some prescription drugs, and can also exacerbate any side-effects like drowsiness that may occur. But here in my village, this code of practice is taken literally; I.E. you should not use a liquid containing alcohol to swallow your pills.
To counter this village logic, I have drawn up my own personal guidelines:
All illegal drugs should to be consumed with alcohol, although ecstasy should only be drunk with a trendy spring water.
All pain medication should be taken with an espresso to bring it on super fast.
Any sedative should be taken with a glass of milk, preferably malted.
Bex powders are of course taken with a cup of tea, followed by a lie-down.
Antidepressants, if taken in the morning, should be drunk with a neat scotch, or if in the evening with a swig of vodka straight from the bottle, for that desperate housewives type of style.
Any heart, circulation, or blood pressure treatments should be quaffed with a glass of red wine.
Antibiotics, logically, with a liquid yoghurt.
Ritalin, lithium, dopamine and anything containing pseudoephedrine should be drunk with a large glass of unnaturally-intense coloured cordial or soft drink.
Anti-inflammatories, which should never be taken on an empty stomach, should be taken with a smoothie made from chops, potatoes and peas, or whatever you’re eating put into the blender. Mmm. spag bol smoothie, now we’re talking…
In this same “village logic/cultural difference” category one may also include “don’t drink hot things with cold things” (thankyou waitress now get me my coffee and orange juice) and “you can’t toast bread with fruit in it” (thankyou waitress now go toast my merendeira quicksmart thanks).
Being fat and being skinny
Despite the alarming growth of my girth and the persistence of a vulgar muffin top, my neighbours are insisting that I am puny and weak and need fattening up. It’s sweet of them to ignore the disintegration of my used-to-be physique, but really, I’m already rolling down Heartattack Road, and I don’t need a push.
You see, here, if you’re not as big as a house then people take pity on you. They describe fat people as “strong” people. What’s interesting is that their attitude is just as scientifically flawed as our perception of thinness being attractive. We might be starving ourselves to ill health, but they are meanwhile eating their way to heart disease and diabetes…
Pets
There isn’t even a proper word for “pet” in Portuguese. The best they can do is ‘animal of esteem’ which echoes nicely the dubious attitudes Portuguese have for companion animals. I should say, some, perhaps even many Portuguese do get it – just no one here in my village. Just how many times do the neighbours have to say that I have to keep my dog chained up EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF ITS MISERABLE LIFE. Just how many “pet” dogs will the neighbours dump in the forest five minutes after their fun use-by date? How many domestic cats do we need who are hungry, diseased and petrified of human contact? What the hell is the point in having them around? I mean, if they were eating them, it might just make sense…
However, it seems their respect for animal rights is diverted to other species. The goats, sheep and one rooster are permitted to walk the streets like the holy cows of India. Which is all nice and utopian except for the backing soundtrack of the howling dogs, imprisoned for life.
At the café, it’s just incredible how many people are terrified of dogs. And Wookie is not exactly scary. Maybe I should take Mao out when he’s in a bad mood, and then we’ll see.
Stuff beside the road
Where I come from, if you make a pile of things outside your house, in any way adjacent to the roadside, you are sending a message that this is stuff you no longer want and that the general public is most welcome to come along and take it away.
This is not the case in here in Cú de Judas. A pile of anything anywhere still belongs to someone and will be doggedly protected should you attempt to reclaim it. I have stumbled over this cultural mogul when I was sprung liberating junk from a junk pile, which was unfortunately considered by the other party to be valuable personal property. “If so”, I queried, “why was it not secured?” Why was it not inside out of the rain, for example, or even behind a fence, or why didn’t it have a little handwritten sign saying “my shit – don’t take”? It’s charming, in a way, that Portugal (or Cú de Judas, anyway) is still so innocent that unprotected belongings left for days, weeks or months in full view of passing traffic in an open field, should not be mistaken for abandoned or be considered vulnerable to repossession.
Indeed, even in areas without houses to indicate private property, you should be careful about what you lift from the footpath. I have been told that collecting kindling by the roadside puts me in a suspect moral position. Certainly I now understand that seemingly ancient stacks of tidied branches may be someone far away’s sensitively aging wood pile. Even random arrangements of tree waste might be precious treasure to someone somewhere, and not just nature providing for the freelance hunter-gatherers’ benefit.
So now when I’m feeling nervous and guilty while gathering pine cones, (I don’t actually stop doing it) I just reassure myself with the wise words of a neighbour: stealing to eat isn’t stealing. I presume this includes stealing to cook, to eat, isn’t stealing.
1. you don’t have to be at the office at 9.
(To be honest I think ‘you don’t have to be at the office at all, ever’ but some people do like work. sick. freaks.)
2. you can eat out of your own garden
4. you have a hammock and you use it
5. your pancakes come out with smilies on them
6. you spend very little money and create very little garbage
7. you drink champagne on wednesdays
8. you make stuff, with your hands, just for fun, just ‘cos you can
9. the chickens roam free on the streets (wookie suggested this one)
10. there are no queues, no traffic jams, and no parking tickets
So, what are your signs? 
Those that know me well will be sick with dread after reading that. Houseminding. Horror. I have a history with houseminding. A dark, violent history. A history filled with shame, blame, guilt and tears.
Something happens to me when I am left alone in possession of property. I become possessed by the devil; a domestic bitch who leaves dirty footprints and a trail of broken appliances in her wake. I don’t mind the house, so much as contaminate it.
Fortunately my current hosts and friends, Derek and Inés, are in far off Australia where where the internet cannot reach, or so they tell me. They will not worry because they will not know, unless of course they call, as they have done, but then I will do as I never ever do normally. I will lie. And later I will plead temporary insanity.
barragem do castelo do bode
I suppose I could blame my parents for leaving me alone to “mind the house” when I was 15 and somewhat irresponsible. I took being left alone as an open invitation to drive the family wagon to school, or to not go school, to invite friends over for parties, and/or stay out all night for several nights in a row. As a result of the last activity I lost my father’s beloved siamese cat in the first 48 hours of their inaugural post-retirement 6 week European adventure. Thus, I spent the next 6 weeks having to lie, and tell them she was ‘justfine’ every time they rang, or else ruin their holiday. I also crashed the family car, but it was just the first time of many for that and it’s really the cat running away that scarred me psychologically.
ribatejo light
I’ve now come to regard losing the pet cat as de rigeur for any houseminding episode. And it’s not all about me. Running away is the well-bred cat’s logical reaction to being abandoned by its owner. Perfectly natural. My sister’s cat always runs away whenever she goes on holidays. Actually all she does is hide inside the house (for several days), until she is satisfied with the level of response and the subsequent angst of both the houseminder and her owner (if the houseminder is stupid enough to have told her about it. I never do. Very unprofessional.).
Also par for the course is the breaking of appliances. My record was set at a dear friend’s place when in one two-week period I broke the dishwasher and coffee machine, melted the juice extracter and the food processor exploded, causing minor injuries. I took photos of the wounds I sustained and the shrapnel from the machine which was splattered in every corner of the kitchen and used the photos to emotionally blackmail the owner. Once I had their sympathy, I then told them about the other appliances. That is professional modus operandus.
scandanavian style cabins at aldeia do mato
My real strengths lie in destroying large-scale travelling souvenirs or family heirlooms. That Morrocan rug you bought on your honeymoon? Well, it’s a long story. I’m not sure what the bottle of turps was doing in the lounge room anyway, or why I thought an entire box of laundry detergent should be employed in the clean-up. As for the lampshade that was the single memento from your childhood summers at granny’s… Sorry about that. That’s as bad as it gets, isn’t it? It’s perfectly understandable if I’m never allowed in the house ever again. And that the 20 year friendship would be finished does seem justified.
a holiday favourite; chocolate pikelets
So, how’s my form this time around? On the first day here I tripped the power (no biggie in general, but in a new house the culprit can be a bit mysterious) requiring discussions with neighbours, and then unplugging everything… etc etc. The washing machine and kettle weren’t a problem on their own, but when you add the pie warmer and the bubble-bath frother… blah blah blah… The fun really started when I was preparing lunch. I’d just added the oil to the pan when the doorbell rang. Neighbour with stray cat: in a turn-up for the books, instead of losing a cat I was adopting one. But Wookie had other ideas about the new kitten and in the ruckus I shut the front door – locking myself out. With a hot pan of oil on the stove. Located another neighbour who showed us the way in, and I only had to break down one interior door to stop the kitchen fire from spreading throughout the house. No worries. Only one ruined pan. (Probably belonging Great-Auntie Amalia, may she rest in peace).
sweet little recent arrival
What really got my heart going was the oven exploding when I tried to light it, and the force of the blast throwing me across the kitchen floor in a cloud of fluffy insulation.
Things have calmed down somewhat since then, with only three trips to the vet and a great deal of vomit, piss, blood, shit and frothing-at-the-mouth mopping up, (but none of my own so far). I’ve got locking-myself-out down to a manageable once-daily routine.
wookie's new best friend
This morning’s pre-breakfast rampage could just be called ‘exercise’. Wookie took a liking to next-door’s sheep and chased them around the paddock for half an hour. One unruly little one thought it would be funny to shove its head through the fence and get stuck, so I had to carry it home didn’t I? And now there’s the fence mending to do this afternoon. Luckily it’s the first time and the neighbours still think it’s funny. That won’t last.
I have a sneaking suspicion that my reputation preceded me because Derek and Inés seem very well prepared. I’m sure I saw a rice-cooker and an electric wok here on previous visits, and now they are nowhere to be found. I’ve tried to use the dishwasher. But it was already like that, surely. I can’t break it just by looking at it, can I? So there’s nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about, yet.
Ahhh… so much for a quiet life in the country…
OMG Portugal on BBC World Service! Just when I’ve been saying it’s like the New Zealand of Europe here, all quiet and inoffensive, there she goes all crazy and radical and free loving! The Parliament here voted on Friday to permit gay marriage in Portugal. Thank god they avoided the embarrassment of a public referendum, where the idea surely would’ve sunk like towels at a Sydney sauna. The economy certainly doesn’t need any ‘no’ votes at this point and a bit of garage tourism (gay+marriage = garage. Good eh?) could be just the sport. Them gay peeps with their disposible incomes and their gayness – mixing it up here in wouldn’t-know-the-difference, and golly-we-need-cheering-up Portugal. Yay. Just don’t try kissing in front of the police, advise Teresa & Lena, the lezzos who started it all. What kind of cops don’t like watching girls kiss? What the?
Speaking of puckering up – here’s Zézito. The too-cute-for-his-own-good prime minister, José Socrates (who wouldn’t vote for guy called Socrates?) is the man behind this radically democratic idea of letting people do what they want so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody. The bill still has to be reviewed by a committee, avoid veto by the super conservative party-pooping president and face another round of votes in the parliament. The papers are saying maybe a rainbow-coloured dance party in April. Standby for Dykes on Bikes on the Avenida da Liberdade. Vroom.
Back when my neighbour and I were more neighbourly we shared the following exchange on the subject.
Him: Same sex marriage blah blah. What I’d like to know is: who does it benefit?
Me: Them. Just them. No one else. 10% of the population. Two people in this village. That’s all. Practically noone.
Him: Huh?
Me: Well, here in this village it’s only 10%, in Sydney it’s more like 50%!
Him: Huh? Who?
Me: Yeah, anyway, I think should they say no. No to all marriage. Seriously, there should be more government control over who can get married. It just shouldn’t be allowed.
Him: Huh?
Me: Well look at the murder rate! Another one dead yesterday …”violençia domestica”.
Him: Er, yeah, ha, ha. I just think marriage should be just for one purpose.
Me: Yeah, like, for sex.
Him: No, no, we have sex outside marriage in Portugal. I mean for children.
Me: Oh, yeah, if a couple don’t have children they should get divorced. And no one over 45 should be allowed to get married. And those couples with fertility issues… Divorced. The government should make sure that everyone has children. Lots of children.
Him: Erm, no, I mean…I don’t know why we are discussing same sex marriage when there are so many important things they should be arguing about.
Me: I agree! What with the “Threat From Al-Qaeda” they must be more important issues on the agenda. Some people want to marry each other! Do we really need to even hear about it?
Him: Yeah! I don’t even want to hear about it!
Me: That’s right, they should just pass the bill and get onto more important things.
Him: Huh?
Me: They should just pass the bill and let us all get on with our lives.
Him: Yeah, pass the bill and let us get on with our lives. Right!
Me: Yeah!
Him: Yeah!
Discussing the issue with the Women’s Group Neighbours (plus one silent husband, he doesn’t count apparently) I pointed out that it was not about Gay marriage, but Same Sex marriage, as it is called in the Prtgse media.
WGN: Oh yeah?
Me: You know, for people like me.
WGN: Huh?
Me: You wouldn’t mind if I got married, would you? I need a wife over there. Someone to keep the place clean, do the cooking, warm up the bed…
WGN: Yeah that’s true.
Me: So if this bill gets passed I could just get married to a friend and she could come and stay. It would be great. She’d inherit everything, if I died…
WGN: Well, if you don’t have kids…
Me: Exactly. You wouldn’t want everything going to my terrible cousins…
WGN: No, of course, it’s good that you give it to your friend then.
Me: And she could sleep in my bed, and…
WGN: Woooah there… steady on… giggle giggle…
Me: But I sleep with the cat and you don’t mind. What’s the difference? Why can’t I marry one of the pets? That’s what will be next here you know. Like in America.
WGN: Huh? What?
Me: …and Australia, and England. Everyone marrying their own dog and stuff.
Silent Husband: Yeah I saw that on the TV. Yeah. It’s true, they do that over there…
I try to amuse myself. God help me if they ever learn English… or how to use the internet… I’m a dead man/girl/person!
OK here goes. 2010, post 1.
Strike me pink if it’s not impossible to be inspired/enthusiastic/full of heartfelt resolutions when it is still raining. Take a look at this:
It may as well be a graphic illustration of my biorhythm chart for how it reflects my attitude to the new year.
Resolutions huh? Well I say the world had better be making some resolutions about treating ME better this year. Because, hello, I have been putting in a hefty effort and all I get is RAIN and a headache or TEN.
Actually I can’t go on like this because my default setting is, actually, optimistic. I can’t help it. I know it’s not rational but it’s not my fault. I was made that way.
Take today, for example. It was good. Today I met someone in the medical profession who knows what she’s doing. Today, suddenly, I found out that I do not have breast cancer. This is a big achievement seeing as I’ve been banging on about this lump under my arm since, like, last February FODER-SE PORRA FILHO DA PUTA. Sorry, bad words, just slipped out.
Yeah, it’s amazing when the system works – you tell a doctor in the morning “I gotta lump” she sends you off to people with machines who take a look and they say “You gotta lump”, then even to someone else with another machine who says “yep, really gotta lump, you know?”. I say, yeah, I KNOW that’s what I’VE BEEN SAYING FOR ALMOST A YEAR NOW (and then I start telling the story about getting bitten by a mole, and their eyes glaze over… I really should have never said a word about the mole. I think that’s where it all went wrong. Retrospect. Don’tcha hate it). Anyway my lump has now received the recognition it has always wanted and it’s not breast cancer, and that’s the end of that. Yay.
Now there’s just the brain tumour to get sorted. See if I can get that done tomorrow…
I’m feeling better already, and lo! Is that the sun?
If only I could write something… but while I am not making resolutions I have decided, maybe, I should stop eating so many pastries this year. It’s not healthy. It’s not attractive. Other people are cutting the lard, so can I.
But strike me pink again if you can’t see the link between these ideas. No pastries = No words! And my other (not) resolution is to do five posts a month. It’s a conflict of interest! Something’s got to give!
Speaking of giving, here’s resolution #3 (I give in, looks like I am making resolutions after all): Earning a Living. There may still be some hope of achieving this through writing, especially if my dearest readers use the support button below. Look, down there, on the bottom right hand frame of the window – support. I promise not to spend it all on pastries.
Seeing as tinyartdirector is on holidays the pictures on these first few posts will not be up to the usual standard. Sorry. But at least, because she’s away, I can get away with calling her tinyartdirector, because I’m sure the owner of that intellectual property won’t mind so long as you visit his blog. Just don’t tell him that his 4-yr-old is working for me now.
And now for resolution #4. Building a house. If I can keep writing, earn a living, not spend it on pastries, get fit and healthy, I can then build a house. And if I’m building a house, it gives me something to write about. It’s a self -watering system. An automatic feeder. Recycling my renewable resources.
I don’t want you to worry that my posts will be this lame all year… There are lots of tasty things to look forward to like How to Order Coffee (with pics at the best cafes in Lisbon). There will be a Five Favourite: Museums. And lots of Day Trips… nice not-so-famous places to visit. There will be the usual gossip about the neighbours and the complaints about Portuguese beaurocracy. And building! Yes there will be building! So stick with me, dear reader, I can’t do it without you…
I’d like to finish with a shout-out to some of the great people I’ve met this year. Especially to the Other Emma in Portugal who introduced me to the life-saving doctor. And to Little Wolf, and the Other Australian in Portugal, it’s great to know you. Let’s build it!
I’ve been a Christmas fugitive for most of my life. For many years I was quite happy to go travelling at this time of year and I’ve spent many Christmases in unusual places and in a very un-christmassy way.
Once I spent the whole day on trains from Austria to Holland. That was a true refugee’s Christmas, watching and meeting other people who have disconnected with tradition.
Having an entrenched routine with your with family at home you can easily forget how many people don’t actually celebrate Christmas at all. However, you’d be mistaken to think that in Non-Christian countries it’s business as usual. My Christmases in Egypt and Thailand, while not being normal, were not completely tinsel free.
But now, after three cold Christmases in a row I’m having saudades for home. For the heat, for the beach, for the sun, for the champagne of Christmas in Sydney. And of course, for my family and friends. Perhaps that’s the purpose of this winter solstice holiday – the deprivation of the cold makes you need the feasting and family hearth.
There are good things about Christmas over here, of course. Snow would be one consolation; Portuguese food traditions like leitão (suckling pig) and all the sweet things are good… and this: I love the christmas lighting in Portuguese tiny towns. Sydney’s bling, trees, santas and sprayed-on-snow never did a thing for me. Maybe because it’s light until 10pm there, and dark at 5pm here that some pretty supplementary light is welcome and charming. Maybe it’s the combination of old buildings and the slightly retro-looking motifs that suck me in. It helps put some cheer in my christmas gloom, anyway.
Most elevating of all are the funky recycled decorations in Figueiro Dos Vinhos. Sometimes recycled art just looks like a pile of rubbish. But someone has put some thought into these. They twinkle, glitter and shine just as they should. Or maybe it’s the spirit of the concept that gives them life.
From my point of view they are giving the finger to the climate change skeptics I’ve been tolerating this week. I realise they are stupid, illogical or simply deranged, but they still get my goat, because it’s my planet that they are advocating we ignore.
And here is this tiny little council, in the middle of an antiquated unfamous country, showing that they are enlightened, proactive and they care. And then it seems to me that the war on skepticism is already won.
I first fell in love with the olive tree in Greece. On the Peloponnesian plains thousands of orderly planted cool grey-green trees, punctuated by lines of stone walls, provide much appreciated shade for goats and sheep. The still landscape is silent except for the throbbing of heat and insects. It is a biblical, olympian and everlasting scene.
For some people, palm trees are the symbol of holiday and escape, but for me, olive trees are the sign that I’m deep in foreign lands, far away from home. So when I first saw my house, with its view of an olive grove, I was well persuaded. It pushed my magic button, so to speak.
Although I’m not so passionate about eating olives, last year I was still pretty happy about picking my own fruit, and then preparing and marinating my very own olives. Especially as this variety isn’t usually for the table, it’s for making oil for cooking.
This year I got into the process of making olive oil. It’s a perfectly simple and unadulterated process. You pick the olives at the same time as pruning of the vertical and central branches of the trees. With these fruit-yielding branches on the ground, they are stripped or beaten of fruit, which collect on a massive tarp.
The olives are separated from the leaf refuse and bagged – the bags are a standard size which are bought beforehand from the lagar, the co-op olive press or factory. At the lagar, your consignment is counted and given a place in the queue. At some lagars you can immediately exchange your crop for the fixed rate of exchange for oil. You can reserve a time for your crop to be put through the press exclusively and not mixed with anyone’s else’s olives. Ideal if you’d like to keep your olives away from chemicals, different varieties or olives of lesser quality. At this lagar, exclusive pressing is the standard procedure. Everyone receives the oil from their own olives.
washing
The olives are first washed then mashed. The mashed mix is then heated to about 32-35 degrees, and the warm pulp is spread over circular mats which are stacked onto the press’ bobbin. The bobbin is put into the press, where it is raised, and pressed. The oil/water mix that is released from the olives is then siphoned through a gravity separator and filtered through a centrifuge which separates the oil from the water. The oil is poured out into jugs, then poured into drums that you’ve provided. Our crop of 524 kilos of olives was converted to 59 litres of pure, chemical free, extra virgin, cold pressed, liquid gold. (Yes, punters, it is organic – my neighbours don’t waste any more labour or cash spraying chemicals around.)
pressing mats
59 litres should last Tia Maria a year, feeding her crew of nine. Sounds ok, so long as you don’t put a cash value on the family’s labour: it took 3 people about 2 weeks to bring in this amount. At minimum wage that’s about €675 in labour: and even at the lager retail price of €5 per litre, it’s a poor peasant’s business.
the separation process
However, because this oil is the real deal, a true premium product, direct, micro-production and cloudy – this type of oil is currently at the forefront of a wave and is sold to quality produce-oriented London restaurants for £16/litre or more, and that’s where things start to make sense. If only Australia wasn’t so far away…
the read deal
marinated fresh black olives
There are a thousand variations for preparing olives. Here’s what I did last year, and they were delicious! The preparation recipe is from stephanie alexander’s the cook’s companion, and the marinade is my own.
Put the fresh olives in a covered bucket of water for 40 days, changing the water every two days. Drain the olives and then completely cover them in rock salt for two days. Rinse and then pack into sterilised jars. I made a variety of different flavours using balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, garlic, chilli, lemon, dried oregano, herbs de provence and olive oil, using half/half oil/vinegar mix. I left them in the marinade for a least a month before eating them.
This year, I put the olives in a 1/3 salt water (brine) solution for 5 weeks, changing the brine once a week. It helps to use a lot of solution so the olives are well covered and to weigh them down with a plate so they are always under the water. I stored them in the dark, covered. Then I rinsed them for two days, changing the water a few times each day. I made two batches, one with red wine vinegar and garlic and the other with balsamic and piri-piri, with half olive oil.
my final product
The distilling of wine is an ancient practice which continues to be popular across South America, Spain and here in Portugal. Maybe the most well known wine-spirit is the Italian digestive grappa, which Portuguese aguardente tastes most like.
You can make aguardente from sugar cane, fruit, potatoes, grains and even honey. In that case we would call it rum (sugar cane), vodka (sometimes potatoes), whisky (grains), or gin (juniper berries). A wide variety of herbs and spices are often added as flavourings, and the distilled spirit may be aged in wood which alters its colour and flavour, but essentially all spirits start life in the same way. In my region aguardente is specifically made from the crushed grapes and juice of the morangueiro vine.
If you are lucky, you’ve inherited or bought a house with a still, or alambique in Portuguese. If I’ve learnt something from the wine making experience, if you have an old set-up, then you’ve got the technology; keep it. And use it! My neighbour’s alambique is more than 100 years old which indicates it’s been thoroughly tried and tested and it still works. My neighbour’s son has heard stories from his grandfather about his grandfather using this very still. He was the master. But it could have gone much further back than that. Nobody knows.
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The still is made up of 4 parts. First below, the fireplace at floor level, and above it the copper still. From the top of the still, a copper pipe descends through a cooling bath, and out the other side carrying the condensation of the heated wine, into a bottle. This clear liquid has about 20-25% alcohol and can be drunk now ‘raw’ or aged either in bottles or in oak barrels. As it ages, the spirit gradually changes from clear to honey-brown, and its flavour and alcohol content will develop. Some aguardentes have an alcoholic potency of 60 or 70%.
Getting to that is a very simple process. Pick your grapes. Squash them and leave to to ferment for a week. Pour off some of the wine.
Clean out your still by lighting the fire and running vinegar & water solution through the system. Then you gather the leaves of a shrub called carquejo and line the bottom of the still with it – this is to stop the wine/grapes from burning the bottom of the copper pot.
Next, in his 80 litre still, my neighbour first puts in 10 litres of wine, or the first juice from the pressed grapes. Then 60 litres of pomace and then 10 more litres of wine.
Then he sits and watches it until the condensation starts trickling out the spout, at that point it’s important to watch the level of the fire, not to raise it, but not to let the temperature drop so that the distilling is interrupted. During this period many neighbours will drop by for a chinwag, to share a roasted sausage or chestnut and sample a drop of the goodstuff. It will take all weekend to make about 8 litres of aguardente. And then it will take all year to drink it.
The preferred Portuguese way to drink aguardente is to add it to an espresso. In some areas it’s traditional for breakfast, which makes me wonder what they’ll have for lunch. Throughout Portugal it’s a winter warmer, but me myself when I’m at home, I like it on crepes suzette.
Everyone in my village makes their own wine. My house has a 500 litre vat downstairs and most of the ground floor space is dedicated to wine making. Most of the old houses around here have an adegga. In the old world economy, if you don’t drink it, you can barter it for something else you need.
When I first moved in and I still had my wits, I decided that my time would be best spent building rather than winemaking. I gave away some four oak barrels, about 100 bottles and a bunch of other stuff to make some space for my hardware.
Two years on, and somewhat less sane and sensible, I have decided to give this wine caper a go.
At the end of the vindima I picked my own grapes. I have two varieties at my place. One is the very typical ‘morangueiro’ also known as ‘vinho americano’ named after the hybrid imported from North America to combat the Phylloxera plague which decimated European vines in the late 19th century.
The hybrid grape is known as isabella, whose parents are vitis labrusca (whose strong strawberry, morango, scent lends itself to the Portuguese name) and the native European grape vitis vinifera. Unfortunately it looks like isabella might have been the actual carrier of the nymph-fly Phylloxera to Europe from the Americas in the first place, where the native American grapes were immune. Subsequent to the plague, the vinho americano was employed as a disease resistant and hardy variety to be used as a rootstock. In poor and needy early 20th century Portugal, many farmers preferred to cultivate isabella without grafting or restoring the native varieties. In viticulture, not only was it recognised that the grape produced very poor quality wine but the hybrid grapes were considered an aberration on the European wine industry, and a ban was put on the commercialisation of this variety. Hence, you won’t find morangueiro in a bottle. More recently, morangueiro was a suspected cause of white matter lesions in the brain, i.e. brain damage, but the experts now say that it’s falling on your head after drinking morangueiro that’s the culprit. Still, “it would explain a few things” as my brother-in-law put it.
my grapes: tinta on left. morangueiro on right
Farmers today continue to grow isabella /morangueiro/vinho americano, especially in the Azores Islands where all European grapes had died. It’s the predominate backyard grape in this region. It’s prolific and hardy and some people have even become fans of the taste.
My other grape variety they call “tinta”. This could be one of a number of grapes native to Portugal: tinta amarela, tinta barroca, tinta caiada, tinta francisca, tinta miuda, or tinta negra mole. Or it could be that the neighbours don’t know what it is and it’s always just been called ‘red’. Or it could be mean they think it tastes like paint…
OK, less conversation, more action: I picked my grapes, cleaned them from the stem, gave them a wash and put them in two big buckets. I still own a grape masher, but it’s an enormously weighty contraption and I thought it wouldn’t be worth getting it out for only about 80 litres of grapes. Anyway, as foot mashing is traditional somewhere in Portugal I thought I’d give it a whirl. Set up the camera, washed the feet and jumped in.
And immediately fell on my arse, on concrete, causing a bruise as big as a t-bone steak. It’s slippery in a bucket of grapes. DER.
That night, hot feet woke me up, but I didn’t think too much of it. The following night, after another round of foot mashing, my burning, itching feet woke me up again. Not just itchy, I mean itchy bitchy itchy. I had to get up and give them a cold bath and then balm them gently with ointment until they calmed down.
Obviously that put a stop to any more foot-grape shenanigans. As the week continued my feet just got itchier and so shredded up and gory that I looked like I had leprosy.
the moment before falling, expertly captured
I complained to the neighbours. They said of course, idiot tourist, you see us foot mashing? No. DER.
I continued a once-daily mashing of the pomace with, logically, a potato masher. This process is meant to stimulate the fermenting of the grapes, but already I could see that there wasn’t much happening with the ‘tinta’ batch. No bubbles, not much smell. At this point someone more experienced might have added sugar or yeast to get it moving along, but my neighbours use no additives at all, so why would I?
After a week the neighbours told me I had to listen to the wine ingasso (pomace) and if it was quiet, I should drain it off. Indeed, as the wine said nothing, I drained it off, putting one batch in a brand new plastic jerrycan and the other batch into 5L plastic bottles. As I was draining the last of it through a pillowcase, Tia Maria suddenly appeared shaking her head disappointedly. She used some peasant viticulture terms that lay just outside my vocabulary, but I got the gist. It wasn’t looking good.
The method I was using was to follow what the neighbours do, but I was also bearing in mind advice from wine forums where the people are (perhaps) more concerned with the flavour of their labour. I should have done precisely what the neighbours do, but the trouble is, the traditional method is only focussed on saving the crop from souring. I was at crossed purposes, hedging my bets between an amish-like purity and the web-wino’s techno-intelligence.
At this point nothing was going to save this year’s “vintage”. The tinta had never tasted like wine, and was now swinging towards vinegar. The morangueiro at least had some alcoholic quality to it, but I wouldn’t say it was drinkable, exactly.
The one saving grace was that I also made 30 litres of agua pé from the must of the morangueiro. Agua pé is a drink traditionally given to the workers, to children and to the chestnut-eating people on St Martin’s day. It’s water that has been drained through the grape must, with a bucket of sugar added. It is mildly alcoholic, but is basically a nasty cordial… and that’s alright by me.
And there is a final consolation: if your wine turns out complete crap, you can still distill it to make aguardente. Morangueiro makes great aguardente… but for that story you’ll have to read part two…
