A community cookbook from Portugal
There is no order or logic in the postings for the next two weeks. I’ll post something about the food of a country or the food history of a country or a book that is relevant to either of these two things, or maybe my personal memories, or maybe…. Maybe anything, as long as I can link it to food history and the country of the day.
Today’s country is easy as pie. It’s Portugal. I had a book at the top of a pile and lo, that book concerned Portugal.
I don’t own the book because of the glories of Portuguese cuisine (though it definitely has those glories), but because it’s part of my slowly-growing collection of distinctive and interesting cookbooks. It’s called Cooking in Portugal and was published in 1963 by the American Women of Lisbon.
It’s bilingual and the editors point out that the Portuguese versions of the recipes have been tested for cooking in Portugal and the English versions are likewise suitable for the US. It also has an interesting history. This is the revised edition and there were 1350 copies of the first (from 1953), before 2000 copies of this edition were published.
Because of its bilingual target audience it has over thirty pages of useful vocabulary for cooking and buying ingredients and household supplies. I now know that waxed paper is papel vegetal and that pot holders are pegas para panelas. More importantly, if I need a corkscrew, it’s a saca-rolhas. (My sister is winemaking in Portugal right now, so it’s good I know what a corkscrew is.)
More importantly, the herb and spice vocabulary has annotations on how to use the spice (nutmeg must be grated, for instance) and some of the Portuguese use of them (horseradish is hard to find and garlic and onion salt cannot be found at all). These notes and the notations on the fruit and vegetable vocabularies about when each comes into season really make this a special book. It gives unintentional guidance on the difference of two sets of foodways and how the US side negotiated its way through the Portuguese side. Even the different meat cuts are documented (porterhouse steak is alcatra).
Apart from these things (and the fact that it’s a hardback) it is a very familiar book. The names of the donors are given and recipes are surprisingly varied, rather than being purely US or Portuguese.
If you want recipes, just ask. I’ve run out of steam tonight, but I’m happy to do another post on the book; this one containing recipes.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Hi - this sounds a really interesting book. My friend bought me a Portuguese cook book last Xmas and I’ve tried out a couple of recipes from it. I still need to have a go at making pasteis de nata (Portuguese custard tarts) which are absolutely delicious!
August 18th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I love those tarts. I’m very carefully not learning how to make them, since i fear their influence on my waistline.