I grew up in the mountains between the Serra da Estrela (the tallest mountain in Continental Portugal at just a few metres under 2000 – they built two small towers on top to make up for it) and Coimbra the third biggest city.
It’s a beautiful remote area and although there is an ever growing community of foreigners it still has very strong ties to Portuguese tradition.
When we first turned up in early 2000s you hardly even saw a tv, god knows what they thought when we rocked up in a truck!
I had originally planned to stay for two weeks or so but circumstances changed and I ended up with six whirlwind days instead.
After three years it was amazing being back where I grew up, especially when I recognised the new bread lady from my primary school!
As there are so many tiny villages in the area many of them don’t have shops or bakeries so there are vans instead! The village we lived close to consists of about fourteen houses and perhaps half the number of habitants at the time. We had a bread van, a fish van (which comes directly from the sea a few hours away), a general groceries van and there must have been a meat one but I can’t remember it. They would drive up the road beeping their heads off and mum would send one of us down the one hundred and thirty six steps which zig zagged down the terraces to the village, by which time all the little old ladies would be out picking bread and pastries in their blacks.
Now there are four people living there and the bread van goes up there twice a month. They freeze their bread, my old school friend told me.
They don’t make all the breads they used to either and only have pastries at the weekends, just stick with the traditional ones that people want on a daily basis she says. I had been hoping to find the bread van because I wanted to buy pão de batata, a potato bread which is cakey, mum used to get it occasionally as a treat, its delicious toasted with butter, but they don’t make it anymore. I couldn’t find it in any other bakeries either.
It’s a shame that things like this will eventually totally disappear as more and more people drive to the nearest town to shop in the supermarket and then it will be the few people who don’t have transport that suffer.
Another sad change is health and safety banning frango assado in the markets! I couldn’t believe it when I heard. For those that don’t know, good old Nandos is an attempt at the wonderful piri piri chicken that used to be barbecued at most, if not all the local farmers markets.
Big rows of tables would be set up, under a tarpaulin, covered in flowery plastic table cloths. You’d pick a seat, normally with all your family and friends that happen to be at the market too and chat to whoever was already there. Next to you huge barbecues fashioned out of barrels cut lengthwise sizzle dozens of chickens dripping in piri piri sauce. The smell is intoxicating. You look forward to it all week, and certainly all morning at the market, especially if you have a stall there! First big plates of chips and salad arrive, then the chcikens, cut into quarters and towering on their platers. Get in there quick for the best bits!
I suppose Nandos does do a good job at replicating it, but it’ll never be the same.
At the moment the only market that I know of that goes on barbecuing on a thursday is in Avô so get in there quick before they get caught!
I missed it, but then again I don’t eat meat anymore anyway – it still would have been nice for the atmosphere though, I could have risked giving someone a heart attack and turned up with a courgette or something to be piri piried! Ha!
At the same market there used to also be a butcher’s van that sold meat that you could take across to the chicken stool to get cooked too. I don’t know if he is still there or not…
Unfortunately I have no photos, probably for the best seeing as they are rapidly disappearing so I can’t tempt you more…
Traveling Bugs and other Animals 