Portugal

Haute gastronomie

Posted on by MELewis

Presentation on a plate

France is known for its gastronomy and one cannot live here without indulging from time to time in ‘un bon gueuleton’ – a familiar French expression for a feast or a bit of a blowout.

While I love to eat, I am not a foodie. I don’t follow the latest culinary trends or keep a bucket list of famous chefs whose cuisine I simply must sample before I die. Still, over the years we have celebrated various occasions with something a little special. Having tried a few Michelin star restaurants of the ‘haute gastronomie’ variety, I must confess that most of these establishments fall short of their promise.

Back in the day when ‘nouvelle cuisine’ was still relatively new, I remember my Belle-mère making a comment along the lines of: “Ça coute la peau des fesses* et tu n’as rien dans l’assiette!” (It costs a fortune and there’s hardly anything in your plate!)

Haute gastronomie

It is certainly true that when it comes to la haute gastronomie, the size of the portion tends to diminish in reverse proportion to the prices on the menu.

That said, I am fine with small portions of very good food, as the mere number of courses and accompanying wines means that you cannot leave the table without feeling full. If not entirely satisfied.

Our latest venture into one of these temples of grande cuisine was last week on holiday in Porto, where there are a number of Michelin-starred chefs. Why Portugal produces so many culinary stars is often explained by the quality of fresh produce, especially from the sea, the variety and richness of their wines and a longstanding tradition of fine food.

It begins with a bit of a show. The room with its perfectly toned-down décor, the greeting and introduction by the maitre d’hôtel, the prolific wait staff wearing black gloves. There is no menu, just a choice of 8 or 12 courses. You balk at this prodigy and go for the modest menu, then realize that the thimble-sized servings are really not going to go a long way towards filling you up.

I chose the menu with wine pairings and regretted it. Each course came with a different vino, and by the time I’d imbibed various glasses of sparkling, port, white and red wines, my palate if not my head was spinning. And while the food was very good, I would have preferred a bit more of one or two things, but overall fewer courses of many tastes and tidbits.

Porto wine porto

What it comes down to for me is a preference for real food cooked with flair and a dash of originality, not so much the molecular gastronomy with its emulsions and foams of intense flavours. Just simple, hearty food of excellent quality cooked with loving care.

Presentation matters to me and the French do it very well. You eat with your eyes as well as your senses of taste and smell. But when the show upstages the food, when the presence of servers overly intrudes upon the experience, and when the final bill is several times what you would have paid for just a very good restaurant meal…perhaps I’ve had my fill.

How about you? Do you enjoy ‘haute’ gastronomy?

*Why ‘la peau des fesses’ or the skin of one’s rear end should represent a large amount of money is a mystery that perhaps our friend Phildange can explain?

Uncorked in Portugal

Posted on by MELewis

Cork oakIt is surely the world’s most reassuring sound. Whether eased from its niche with a gentle sigh or resoundingly and explosively popped, there is no other sound so associated with happiness than the uncorking of a wine bottle.

I speak from a certain, ahem, experience. No neophyte with the corkscrew, I am rather familiar with le bouchon as it’s called in French. It wasn’t always so. It’s taken years of nightly uncorking with my trusty tire-bouchon to master this skill. Now, I pop like a pro: 30 seconds max, zero to glass.

Imagine my surprise and delight in discovering that I was holidaying in the world capital of cork. Portugal. Who knew?

Let me explain that neither husband nor I are history buffs. Sure, he knows his world politics and has a much more precise mental geography of what happened when than I. But when we travel, we do not visit historical sites with anything more than a passing interest. I enjoy some of the stories but retain none of the details. Dates, names….I can always google it. More than once we’ve been shamed to admit that we visited a place without seeing (nay, noticing!) its world famous castle with the UNESCO heritage moat.

Instead, we like to wander around like free spirits and get a sense of a place, a feeling. This time in Sintra, near Lisbon, we decided to explore the area with the aid of e-bikes, and a guide to make sure we didn’t get lost. I’d never felt the need for such aids before, but heck, there were a lot of hills. And for once, I thought we could enjoy a holiday without arguing over which way to go. It was a brilliant plan.

Our guide showed us around the park and surroundings, stopping at key points to give us snippets of information about its various castles but without forcing us to take into too much detail. When he saw how interested we were in the subject, he told us all about the cork tree.

Cork treeThe cork oak is a wonderful thing. In Portugal, the bark is harvested every nine years. It is literally peeled away from the tree trunk, upon which the cork farmer paints the last number of the year in which it was harvested. Then, it regenerates before being harvested again. It is native to Portugal and a few other places but not that many. Oh well, if you want more detail you can always Wiki it.

Cork is used for many things. I love how light and airy it is, yet so strong. It makes a great coaster and is also used for flooring. I even bought a pair of cork sandals. Extremely comfortable and only a little nerdy looking. Mostly, though, it is used as a stopper for wine.

Wine producers have been using synthetic corks increasingly of late, so I had thought cork was an endangered species. But apparently it is a matter of cost. Now I make it a policy to prefer wines with the real thing and although it is hard to know before you open it, those that are ‘mise en bouteille à la propriété’ or bottled by the wine grower are more likely to use real cork.

For years, I have been troubled by one question: what to do with all the leftover corks? It seemed a shame to throw them away but there is no recycling program for cork. Last year, however, I discovered they make a wonderful natural fire starter, Soak them in rubbing alcohol* for a day or two then put a couple in with your kindling and voilà! Une belle flambée!

*Do be careful, though, that stuff is highly inflammable.

Have you ever been to Portugal? Any thoughts on the wonders of cork?