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Portugal: O Continente
| Article
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11179 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1993 |
2,734 Words |
| Author
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Judith Bell
Judith Bell is an art historian and novelist based in
Arlington, Virginia. |
In The Portuguese, photojournalist Marion Kaplan's incisive study of Portugal and its people, the author tells how a foreign film producer searching for the perfect symbol for Portugal found it in a Lisbon bar: a clock on the wall that ticked its own way--backwards. Here as perhaps nowhere else in Europe, the past is an integral part of the present--something to be cultivated, encouraged. An old-world elegance and charm is evident not only in the abundance of monasteries, churches, and manor houses--icons of the past centuries rooted like elements of the landscape--but in the language of the people with its drawn-out consonants and swallowed vowels, sounding as gentle as the swishing waves of the ocean.
"This is where we built our caravels, the sailing vessels of our age of exploration," a guide said to us as we drove along the shore of Lisbon's Tagus River (called the Straw Sea for its golden reflection of the warm light peculiar to Portugal). In the days that followed I was to hear intimate and affectionate possession of the past repeated again and again in the voices guiding my explorations of Portugal.
Portugal is at once a land of highlands and green valleys, and in the Alentejo region, a broad expanse of plains. The Atlantic determines Portugal as much as the Pacific does California, making the country brooding and contemplative and delightfully out of step with other Mediterranean countries that seem almost too demonstrative by comparison. Conifers and chestnuts overshadow the palm trees and cypresses in Portugal's forests.
The food, a balm against the cold ocean, is sustaining and comforting. Soups thickened with potato are laden with garlic and cabbage; sausage, pork, and beef, or sole simmered in cream with spinach and cheese, appear at nearly every meal. Even clam dishes are fortified with pork. Bacalhau, the salted cod once eaten out of necessity, is now consumed with nostalgic affection. Delightfully indifferent to the threat of soaring cholesterol levels, the Portuguese adore eggs, particularly the yolk, and they use them whenever possible. Soup Alentejana, for example, is a combination of broth plus bread plus fried egg. Order an omelette with your soup and you will still get your fried egg. Their custards and frothy soufflés are particularly eggy and rich. Strands of egg yolk spun with sugar garnish many desserts. Children are treated to confections of sugared egg yolk that have the caramelized taste of cotton candy.
A small country, less than three-quarters of the size of England at 350 miles long and 150 miles
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