TRADITIONAL GASTRONOMY OF PENAFIEL,

by Maria José Mendes Costa Ferreira dos Santos

Speaking in terms of traditional gastronomy of course we have to mention a set of regional influences that mark the local gastronomy in an unequivocal way. On the other hand, when we speak of typical flavors and dishes we are also speaking of evolutionary passages, of diachronic transformations that go on uniting tradition and innovation, along with the learning processes, because the taste is also educated, since innate gourmets do not exist...

Food habits are deeply influenced by the agricultural and the religious calendars, because the festivities, fairs and pilgrimages influence the local cuisine. Therefore, the cooking, the ingredients and the flavours differ according to the seasons, and more elaborated dishes and the richer palates are saved for the year's main religious festivities.

In Penafiel the most typical dishes are the lamb or mutton baked with rice in the oven, the stew, the fried or "escabeche" (preserve made with vinegar, onion and spices) alewife, and the lamprey a la bordalesa or in blood rice, all accompanied by the excellent regional green wine.

As for desserts, the fair's sweets are the most consumed ones, especially the "bolinhos de amor", the "pão-de-ló", the "rotten bread", the "rosquilhos", the "toys" or Saint Gonçalo's sweets. Penafiel's original sweets are, however, best represented by the "dry soup", the "sweet sarrabulho" and Saint Martinho pies, exquisite delicacies to locals and visitors alike, the latter exclusive to Penafiel.

Along the year the menus and the diet differ according to season. In the first religious festivity, Christmas, whose eve befalls upon a fasting period, the local preference goes to the cooked cod, accompanied by potato, eggs, carrot, cabbage and fresh season sprouts. This menu is also the one prepared for the eve of the Twelfth Night.

Nevertheless, on Christmas day, two or more dishes are made. The meats and sausages composing the traditional stew rule, from ham and ear to pork and meat sausages, pork and beef, along with rice in the oven and sprouts. The water from the stewed meats is used to cook the vegetables, as well as the rice, providing a special taste to the sausages; it gives it a fine touch, especially if cooked in a firewood oven. As a second course we have the capon, chosen and castrated in late September, or baked pork with potato and sprouts in olive oil, not forgetting the customary rice in the oven. The meal is complete with the traditional desserts, common to the Northern part of the country: the "rabanadas" (sweet french toasts with water, milk or wine), the "bolina" cookies, the custard creme, the scrambles, the "aletria" (sweet made with fine strings of dough and cinnamon)...

Upon Carnival, the stew returns to the table and, the following day, white beans with ear, pork and meat sausages, pork ribs and larded meat, very typical of Urrô; the dessert is usually custard creme or "aletria".

The beginning of Spring and Passover's arrival change the menus of the festivity days, considering two factors: the meat abstinence and the alewife and lamprey's spawning season, the latter characteristic in the Douro and Tâmega river banks, mainly in Entre-os-Rios and Rio Mau.

The alewife is particularly sought after if prepared in "escabeche", but is also eaten fried or grilled. The lamprey, however, is stewed, also to be served with rice and vinegary blood. Nowadays it is already very hard to find alewife and lamprey due to the construction of damns, namely Crestuma's, which prevents these two species' river ascent. That's why they sometimes reach very high prices, and most of it is imported from other parts of the country, as the Lima river, for example, and even sent from abroad.

The bread itself reflects the current religious festivity, for it is during Easter that the well-known "pitinhas" (in wheat bread) the godfathers offer to their godsons are baked.

Around April, before the lamb or heifer baked with potatoes and rice in the oven, as if to prepare the appetite for Corpus Christi, comes a chestnut soup prepared with ham and white beans, all well cooked and creamy, with a mint leaf as a final touch.

The desserts complete the paschal menu, especially the "rotten bread" and "pão-de-ló", which can be dry as they make it in Margaride, or spongy, as it is still done in Penafiel, Entre-os-Rios or Rio-de-Moinhos.

Towards the end of Spring, Penafiel is teeming with the Corpus Christi festivity, also the sheep festivity, which is a compulsory menu for Corpus Christi day. The importance of eating lamb during this period is certified by the news we have from the 19th century of a sheep's fair been carried through in the eve, where hundreds were slaughtered and flaid to supply the city's houses and taverns.

Also around this time the tradition of the Bull or Little Lamb Festivity, kept to this day, according to which the students must offer a lamb to their teacher, garnished and lead in a showy procession.

At the peak of Summer, the city rejoices itself with the festivity of Saint Bartolomeu and the onion fair, where the population supplies itself for some months not only of onions but also of cantaloupes. As it is tomato season, it also takes part at the table, whether in rice or flour with sardines.

And it is grape harvest time, so around October we sample one of the municipality's most typical sweets: the "dry soup", consisting of slices of bread soaked in sugared water, cinnamon and Port wine, entwined with mint leaves and powdered with sugar and cinnamon, later taken to the oven to gratiné in a clay bowl. The dry soup is the traditional dessert signaling the end of the grape harvest, although it is also a compulsory Christmas dessert. There is even the Dry Soup Feast in Duas Igrejas, for Our Lady of the Rosary day (1st Sunday of October). Other parishes celebrate the holy days with this treat, such as Marecos in the day of Saint André, or Lagares in the day of Our Lady of the Lapa.

The great fair of Saint Martinho is the example of late Autumn's abundance. It is here that the new wine and the chestnuts are tasted, and where the most sweets are sold since the 16th century in our cities' several fairs.

In all fairs and festivities these treats were sold, covered in a thick layer of white sugar, under various shapes and formats: the "bolinhos de amor", the "rosquilhos", the "cavacas" and others, some animal shaped, as lizards and birds, or the phallic sweets of Saint Gonçalo, which contained explicit messages exchanged between lovers. To these itinerant sweets we add the "rotten bread", the sweet of Teixeira, the "fogaça" (sort of bread) and other regional sweets to be tasted almost everywhere in the country, but especially in the North.

The end of November and the month of December also signal the slaughter of the pig, the "rojões" and the "sarrabulho", the preparation of the smoker for the Winter, especially for Christmas, and the mashed pumpkin and fresh marmalade.

A sweet of a particular flavor, whose tradition sadly begins to wane, is also prepared during this season: the "sweet sarrabulho", consisting of a sort of scrambles made with pig's blood and butter, baked with bread, honey, cinnamon, lemon and Port wine.

Anyway, what most describes this time of the great fairs and the main festivity of the municipality are the well-known Saint Martinho Pies, or Pies of Basto, maintaining the 17th century taste for the bittersweet which still defines, many centuries later, these pies, made with fine dough stuffed with minced meat, seasoned with nutmeg and powdered with sugar and cinnamon, which we invite you to savour and taste accompanied by an equally genuine wine.