Winter brings out the best that Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro have to offer. The people there learned to transform things using the excellence of nature, making tasty food cooked in the pot and served really hot.

This is the time to enjoy the main sausages made after the killing the pig. There are several fairs that sell smoked food. I congratulate those that won prizes for the best products presented in the contests. We should all be grateful to the Organizations that guarantee the continuity of the products that are part of the Trás-os-Montes heritage. I consider the “Salpicão de Vinhais” as the king sausage in Portugal, or at least the most noble one.

I insist on considering myself fortunate to have been educated with my mother´s home made food which molded me in a continuous and gradual way, to form my taste – the references of growing up. Now I feel homesick for those tastes, smells and other emotions associated to that tasty food. According to Alice Viera, out o the seven capital sins, “gluttony is the most pleasant one of them all”

During the killing of the pig, all the knowledge accumulated during generations, is concentrated there. The killing of the pig should not be viewed as an isolated event. The prospect of the killing begins when you start fattening the pigs and selecting their feed. I remember when I was a young boy; the biandas (food leftovers) would be collected from house to house to feed the pigs that were to be killed at home. These pigs were fed not only on the leftovers from the homes, but also other products like pumpkins and fruit.  They would eat anything there was to eat from the ground. That was one of the reasons that they were considered impure and banned from some religions. Gone are the days where to show your friendship and relationship with old Christian families you would make a point of eating pork and bacon. In Spain, the more you ate pork publicly, “the more pure your blood was”. Pork was used as a differentiating element in religion and it was so important that the term Marrano at one stage referred to new-Christians.

Due to this or maybe for economical purposes, these people learned to make the maximum use of the pig. They eat the whole pig, from the tip of it snout to the tip of its tail, including the innards.

Recently, there have been some protests, sometimes a little unclear, accusing the authorities for wanting to do away with traditions that are rooted in the population. I would like to make clear that it is not ASAE (Health and Food Inspectors) that want to do away with the killing of the pigs. The killings can continue, only measures have to be improved and abide by the law. Why is there a demand for more hygiene-sanitary control? Could it be to safeguard public health? Emotions sometimes overwhelm reason. We all know that it is easier to criticize than to analyze the problems from the root.

When we accuse ASAE , half the time we do not know what is being said. I would like to recall the case of the lawyer who came in all the news programs because he wanted to sue the State and ASAE on behalf of various restaurants, for destroying the Portuguese food heritage. Poor Portuguese gastronomy! The only example presented in the newspapers was the prohibition of wooden spoons! There is no ban on wooden spoons being used in the kitchens “as long as they are in perfect conservation state”. What the ASAE agents did was to advise using plastic utensils or silicon that helps to minimize the risk of contamination of food products. This has already been in practice for several years, in many restaurants and hotel management schools that saw the advantages for doing so.

Many silly things have been said and written concerning this subject. ASAE, to me, is nothing more than a Government agent to carry out the Law (which perhaps was not very well elaborated). This law has been in force since 1996 and possibly our government deputies did not bother to pass a law that would adapt o our gastronomic tradition and simply translated laws of other countries without any type of gastronomic tradition and such strong regional roots. It was the deputies and other politicians that failed to come up with a legislation that would defend our cultural heritage. They only classified previously, and not very efficiently and long lastingly, gastronomy as heritage. They soon did away with the organism called National Commission of Gastronomy. This could have helped matters, but we still have no alternative.

However, even more serious than this carrying out of the law, that mainly guarantees hygiene and public health issues, is the current trend of forgetting our regional gastronomy. The way you and I act and are dragged into a process o change in mentality, without us even being aware of it.

Why do we not give our children soup as part of their meals?

Why do we continuously let our children go to “fast food” places?

Why do we quickly teach them the pizza delivery place phone number?

Why do we no longer cook with Carolina rice?

The list of questions would be very long if I were to mention all the recent changes in our behavior patterns.

Let us go back to the thinking exercise. At least on weekends we could go back to regional flavors and remember the food made by our Mothers and Grandmothers.

Bon Apetit!

©Virgílio Nogueiro Gomes

Illustration by Graça Morais