Portugal has one of the richest cuisines you can find. Being a long stripe of land by the sea, it has, thanks to its islands, the largest territorial water area in the world. Fresh fish and seafood abound and full nets can be seen reaching the Atlantic coast on many of Portugal's beautiful beaches.
Therefore Portugal has a very rich and healthy mediterranean cuisine.
All this diversity of high quality fish that can be found in any market in the country would be already good in itself, but Portuguese cuisine has even much more to offer.
Barrosã beef and Iberian Pork, which lives of the acorns under the oak trees, complete the animal protein found in Portugal in terms of excellence.
The sun and the mild temperatures of the Alentejo plains combine to the production of the wheat from which they make still handmade bread in antique ovens. It may seem a little simplistic to talk about bread, but hot with a bit of salted butter on top, it’s one of the wonders of Portugal.
And the wines?
Not very well known, but the Portuguese wines regularly convince wine experts and win the biggest prizes in the world. From the ideal green wines, the “vinho verde”, for summer days, to table wines and it ends up with fortified wines where Port and Madeira stand out. There are plenty of good wines, at low prices, to enjoy.
But, for a Portuguese, no meal is complete without a slice of cheese or a sweet. And in this chapter Portugal exceeds itself. Anyone who loves cheeses will discover a multitude of them. From the butteriest to the most cured, there is a whole range of delights waiting for the connoisseurs. And at the end the sweets! If in Germany the friars were dedicated to brewing beer, in Portugal the nuns invested their knowledge in sweets. And there were many convents in Portugal, what to say?…
With this we gave an overview of Portuguese gastronomy?
No! We have not yet been talking about the Portuguese epic across the seas that brought spices and a whole set of ingredients to the table of this people. We have not yet been talking about the poverty of the people of Alentejo, who hid poor food with aromatic herbs and that had led to a transformation of the simplest ingredients into delicacies worthy of the gods. There is so much to talk about food, but we hope we gave you enough reasons to come yourself and find out.