Walking in Portugal

Açorda and Migas

In this post I will be talking about regional Portuguese cooking.

Before I explain what an açorda or a migas are I will start by saying that they are two Portuguse regional dishes that, by an unknown reason, most of Portuguese people confuse  them with the exception of the alentejanos, of course.

Alentejo is the region south of the River Tagus.

In Portuguese, Alentejo means beyond the Tagus and that was what the ancients knew much time before Portugal was born as an independent country, before the VIII century AD.

During the Moorish invasion (VIII AD) the Moorish started to call “al gharb” to the southern part of Portugal.  “al gharb” means “the west” and, in fact, that territory was their western land.

With the Moorish occupation Alentejo was confined to the land between the river Tagus and the “al gharb”, the actual Algarve.

In Alentejo the cereal fields are quite abundant. And you will find the largest Portuguese lowland area, excellent to grow cereals such as wheat. Consequently bread became an important element in the local gastronomy along History.

It has always been a poor and sparsely populated region so, bread is a valuable food resource being both abundant and inexpensive. Still today you will find several dishes in which bread is present such as migas and açorda.

The bread from Alentejo is extraordinarily good, heavy and you can preserve it for a quite some time.

Migas

Imagine a dish where you will have hard bread soaked in hot water, mixed with meat’s sauce and fried up until it becomes roll like an omelet.

The meat was seasoned with ground pepper and garlic on the day before than you will take it to the pan adding some water to don’t stick. From here you will get some sauce you will use to  fried up the migas like was said before.

Serve the migas together with the meat and some orange and VOILá :) ready to be appreciated at your table :)

Açorda

It’s a soup made with bread, coriander, garlic, salt, water, poached egg and olive oil.

Some people would prefer the bread in small pieces and some people will prefer to wait until the bread gets softer.

Now that you know what migas and açorda are I will be waiting for you com come to Portugal to taste them or cook them with me :) it will be fun.

David Monteiro

During the XVII century the British were importing huge quantities of Portuguese wine that were transported until the UK by sea.

Unfortunately, due to the severe conditions of shipping at that time, the wine often soured. So they started to add alcohol to keep the wine in good conditions until arriving to its destination.

By that time the sailors realize that besides increasing the alcoholic grade, which was already very appreciated by them, the alcohol enhanced the wine flavor and aroma and that was allegedly the beginning of the Porto Wine.

Well … if we believe in this story so the Bristish was right in claiming they was the “inventors” of the Porto Wine.

However … yes, there is always an “however” in every story ehehehe … however, we know that this method of add alcohol to the wine during the shipping is much older than that. The Portuguese navigators of the XV century were already using it. So, what can we say?

The first record we have about a “Vinho do Porto”, or Porto Wine, being shipped from Portugal is dated from 1678.

The wine was growing and being produced in the Douro Valley and transported to Vila Nova de Gaia in wooden boats called “Rabelo”. Vila Nova de Gaia is the city in front of Porto, on the other river bank. Finally the wine was shipped from Porto area and that is why was known by the name of Porto Wine.

As you can imagine the amount of business originated by the wine selling to the UK was quite important for Portugal. The Portuguese are/were not different from the rest of the humans worldwide and they started to decrease the quality of the wine and increasing the profit … not very clever nor original at all … and that happened until a point that the business was at stake.

By mid-eighteenth century the Portuguese king D. José I was ruling the country and his Prime Minister was a man called Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, known as Marquis de Pombal.

Marquis de Pombal was a very tough man, after the Lisbon 1755 earthquake he punished quite severely who was caught stilling from the city wreckage and he had his reputation from many other similar situations.  With the objective of protecting the Porto Wine business, which was very important for the country, in between many other measures he established the Demarcated Wine Region of the Douro in 1756.

That is how was born the oldest demarcated wine region in the world and until today it stays more or less with the same configuration, with some modifications of corse.

In 2001 UNESCO recognized the Douro Valley as a World Heritage Site:

“Criterion iii The Alto Douro Region has been producing wine for nearly two thousand years and its landscape has been moulded by human activities. Criterion iv The components of the Alto Douro landscape are representative of the full range of activities association with winemaking – terraces, quintas (wine-producing farm complexes), villages, chapels, and roads. Criterion v The cultural landscape of the Alto Douro is an outstanding example of a traditional European wine-producing region, reflecting the evolution of this human activity over time.”

Douro Valley photos at Flickr, clic here

If you want to tour and know the Douro Valley contact me: david.jose.monteiro@gmail.com

Drink a glass of Porto Wine with your friends and have fun.

David Monteiro

Some important links if you want to know more about this subject:

Região Vinhateira do Alto Douro (Wine Region of High Douro) - http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regi%C3%A3o_Vinhateira_do_Alto_Douro#Divis.C3.A3o_Geogr.C3.A1fica

Alto Douro Wine Region, UNESCO World Heritage Site –http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1046

Douro DOC – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douro_DOC