— Zapata —
~$20 / December 2023
Taste in food is an individual thing. Just because a ton of individuals like cheeseburgers or pizza doesn’t make it less personal, it just means a lot of people are predisposed toward them.
Destination travel is much the same. There’s a difference, however: Most people who like cheeseburgers or pizza have probably always liked them, maybe grew up eating them multiple times a week. On the other hand, many travel destinations that are super-popular now were completely ignored in the last century, in fact, they are more enticing now precisely because no one visited them back in the day. The thrill of discovery and all that.
Portugal would be one of these places. In 1988, my first trip there, Americans were scarce at best. Not that you couldn’t hear English, you most certainly could. But it was a different accent. Nowadays, well, if you are reading this, there’s a decent chance you’ve either been or you’re planning to go, or you at least know a half-dozen people who have or are. You can’t escape Americans in Portugal these days. Many arrived there on one-way tickets, work-from-home expats and retirees, enjoying great weather and, heck yeah, the food.
Speaking of, for a country the size of Indiana, Portugal offers a wide variety of regions and regional cuisines. Sitting south, east and southeast of Lisbon, the Alentejo features rolling terrain and batches of cork trees, a setting reminiscent of an Andrew Wyeth painting if it were set out West, like, in Colorado. Pigs matter. The Algarve, meanwhile, is due south of the Alentejo, a beach-and-seafood-forward region along the Atlantic as the ocean nears Spain, Africa and the Strait of Gibraltar.
The two Portuguese regions marry in Carne de Porco a Alentejana, which takes the name of the Alentejo but is said to come from the Algarve. Myth? Perhaps, but I’m guessing not, given the cubes of pork loin marinated in red-pepper paste and wine, then browned and finally braised, with the tiniest of clams added to the bubbling broth late in the game, all to be served on the same plate with fried potatoes somewhere in the general vicinity. At Zapata in Lisbon, cauliflower takes a place in the formal plate. The tang of the clams pulls out the kindred spirits in the pork’s marinade, the potatoes soak it all up. More, please. The cauliflower? Not so much. It’s an individual thing.