Food!

Written February 25. The past week it has rained everyday here. We have to take a different road to school because the road we usually take has over 3 feet of water on it. It is normal for the fields to flood during the winter, but usually it doesn’t rain for a week straight like it has this week. One village, near where I live, is completely surrounded by water and the only way to get to access the town is by boat. Firefighters bring supplies and food to the village everyday via motorboat.

I went to the movies here last weekend with my host family. The movies at the cinema are all Hollywood films so they are in English with Portuguese subtitles. Halfway through the movie, the movie stopped and the screen flashed “Interval”. In their theaters, they have a ten-minute intermission break. After ten minutes the movie resumes right where it left off. My friends and I are excited for Alice in Wonderland so when it comes out March 4 we will hopefully get to see it. After the film, we went to a sushi restaurant for dinner. Yes they have sushi in Portugal! I hadn’t had sushi for a very long time and I forgot how good it was. I think we need a sushi restaurant in Lowville…

Speaking of food… Portuguese food is very rich, but it’s all fantastic. My family buys fresh bread every other day at least. For breakfast I usually have a roll or a croissant. We always have thick white bread for lunch with a very hard crust and soft center. My family has a cheese platter they set out during lunch with at least 5 different cheeses at a time on it. I really like a type of soft goat cheese they eat. They also buy lots of Italian cheeses. My family has their own cook, a little woman who is shorter than me and probably around 70 years old. She tells my host mother what to buy every week and she prepares lunch and dinner everyday except Sunday and Saturday night. A traditional Portuguese fish is codfish. At the supermarket, the salted and dried codfish is laid out in huge piles. They have hundreds of ways to cook it. A common way is to boil the fresh codfish and serve it with hardboiled eggs and potatoes. Salt is used a lot in cooking. The cook has a huge container of salt by the stove and she reaches in and sprinkles in on everything. Instead of salad dressing, we have olive oil and three different types of salt on the lettuce. The Portuguese know how to cook pork. Every Monday, we have pork cooked about 6 different ways for lunch. They eat the ear and the brain of the pig too (I have politely declined those parts). In some instances, I have found that the policy of “Don’t ask Don’t tell” works well when trying new food. For example, I have had goose liver and pig kidney and they were much easier to try when I didn’t know what I was trying. The goose liver was in a creamed and put in a mold so it was easy to spread on bread. It was okay at first, but the after taste had me scrambling for a piece of plain bread. Pig kidney has a weird texture (like a mushroom) and a different taste. The first time I had it I had to concentrate on chewing and swallowing. The cook makes the most delicious sauces to put on all the meat she prepares. Her pot roast is par to none. For dinner we always start off with a soup, have a main meal, then have fruit for dessert. I never realized how delicious mangos were until I had a ripe one here. Portuguese pastries are mouth watering! They have a traditional pastry that has a crust of phyllo dough and is filled with sweet custard. The Pasteleria’s display their pastries in their front windows and they make me drool just to pass them. They sell cakes and sugared rolls, filled donuts and much more. In Portugal, all their stores are very specialized. The supermarkets have all different types of food and basic necessities like shampoo, toilet paper and some makeup. All the pharmacies in Portugal are exactly the same. They all have a green sign shaped in a cross that lights up outside each store. To get my contact solution, instead of just going to the supermarket like I would at home, I had to go to an eyeglasses store to purchase it.

I go to Leiria tomorrow for an AFS orientation. Leiria is about an hour North of Santarem and right on the coast. It will be great to see the other American exchange students that I came over with. We have been keeping in contact with each other through email and facebook comparing our schools and new life. I can’t wait to speak English fast again when I’m there! We are staying right on the beach, but I don’t think we will go swimming. We are supposed to bring a dish from our country, but we can’t cook anything there so I’m going to make some chocolate chip cookies today. The other Americans and I were trying to come up with American dishes and all we could think of were desserts like brownies and apple pie. One of the guys can’t cook so he’s making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I joked that I should just go to McDonalds and buy some cheeseburgers.