When we were shopping in our favorite mega grocery store Continente last Friday we did a double-take at a completely autonomous floor cleaning Zamboni-like machine, busily cleaning the floor in the midst of a crowd of Friday shoppers. There were straps across the seat entries to make sure nobody would be at the controls. This big contraption, bigger than a riding lawnmower, was carefully and accurately avoiding people and other obstacles, cleaning the floor automatically. It was like a king-size Roomba in the middle of a crowded grocery store, an amazing sight.
There in the bread department Pat found a bin of wrapped-up chunks of a dense brown bread called
broa de Avintes. We picked up a piece to try with dinner that night and it was delicious! It's a dense and chewy bread made with rye and corn flour plus malt for a touch of sweetness. Here is a photo, with a bit of butter on it. It turns out that Avintes is a district of
Vila Nova de Gaia where we live, and this bread has been made right here since the 13th century. To quote Wikipedia: "King Dinis of Portugal awarded the village [of Avintes] with the exclusive right of production and supply [of broa] to the population in
Porto." Just imagine: for eight hundred years they've been making this unique and delicious bread just a few kilometers away from where we are now.
Pat saw this chart roll by on the Porto People chat she monitors which shows that the Portuguese consume the least amount of "ultra-processed" food in Europe. They should tweak the number down a speck now that we're here and consuming as little ultra-processed food as possible.
On Saturday Gerrit put together a dinner concoction he's calling "Gerrit's Portuguese Hash". It's made with grated sweet potato browned in olive oil, cubes of salpicão de Lamego (wine-marinated and smoked pork loin from the Beira region in central Portugal, with an intense flavor), salt, pepper, and cinnamon. It looks like plain old hash but it has a great flavor and it at least seems like it might be Portuguese.
Then on Sunday, today, we took a car trip south to
Lagoa de Coadiçais, a park and wetland lake about an hour south of us. The weather was excellent, clear and cool. On our way out of Vila Nova de Gaia we saw this beautiful aqueduct just sitting there next to the road. It is the
Aqueduto do Sardão, built in 1720 to bring water from a spring to a mansion called
Quinta do Sardã. We have driven by it several times, and never noticed it. The history just staring out at you all around here is unbelievable.
We got to the lake, which was beautiful, but there were very few birds to be seen. We walked out to an island via a boardwalk, but we guess the birds had mostly flown south for the winter. Pat did see a few though, and snapped a couple photos.
On the way to the lake we had stopped for a quick lunch of ham & cheese sandwiches and a beer at a padaria (bakery). We discovered a little while ago that padarias (found all over) with their fresh rolls can usually make sandwiches and serve drinks too, so it's not necessary to find a café or restaurant for just a quick bite. We hustled back on the road after lunch as Gerrit thought vaguely about a cup of espresso, drove to the lake as the longing increased, and then there on the little island in the middle of the lake was a café playing Brazilian music with a big beautiful espresso machine. Nobody was there but the waitress, and Gerrit got his espresso, for € 0.80. The gods were smiling on him.
Today was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception here in Portugal, which is a major religious holiday. The village of
Pedreira is right adjacent to the park, and we watched as some village women spread small boughs and bouquets along the margins of the main street. It looked like they were preparing for a parade, or maybe just dressing up the town. If we would have been able to understand the reply we would have asked what they were doing, but instead we just took their picture.
(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.)
