TO: Carys Marderosian and Ms. Adair's 1st grade class
Henry Barnard School, Providence RI
Dear Carys and Miss Adair’s class:
Eating food in Portugal has been an adventure. As you know I am a vegetarian, but I have tried many different kinds of dishes and sweets. I have also taken some notes about the interesting food I encountered in Portugal.
TASCA FOOD I have seen some Portuguese food made in RI and MA by Portuguese migrants who live there and at Portuguese restaurants. They are New England's version of a Portuguese tasca—neighborhood restaurants, usually mostly frequented by the people who live and work nearby.
Lisbon tascas have their own unique and interesting culture. People go to them weekly or on holidays, and their most faithful clients are those who live in close walking distance. Usually, the waiters at a tasca will work there for decades, and people in the community grow up with the owners and workers in a tasca. Its like having dinner with your own friendly family whenever you go. All of the Lisbon tascas serve pretty much the same kinds of meat and fish plates, and vegetables (and desserts), although most specialize in one or a few dishes, so they can stand out from all of the other tascas.
Whole grilled or spit roasted chickens is a Lisbon specialty. It is usually served with french fries and hot sauce. That is Sr. Pedroso who makes the Chickens at Restaurante Quionga.
Another tasca near where I am visiting is a marisqueira, a tasca that has a specialty in seafood. We went here to sit at the balcão, the counter, to have dinner. This tasca makes a steak sandwich called a prego no pão. You also eat this with hot sauce. The other dish is a salada de polvo, octopus salad.
This tasca also makes carapauzinhos, small fried fish.
They are so small you eat them whole from the head right down to the tail!
Luckily the served the dishes was some vegetables, and I was happy to nibble the salsa (fresh parsley) on the açorda (a wet stuffing) in the silver platter and ate all the carrots on the plate!
On the way back from hiking in Estremadura (to the north west of Lisbon) we stopped in the town of Negrais for roast suckling pig sandwiches, which are a specialty in that town. They ate them cold with a hot pepper sauce.
There are many desserts here at tascas including rice pudding, flan, bolo de bolacha (cookie cake) and baba de camelo. This means camel spit. Don't worry though, its not really camel spit, that's just a name for a yummy dessert made with sweet milk and eggs. My favorite desserts were a quiejada de feijão (bean tarte) and a jelly filled black and white cookie. Also bolo de Rainha, (Queen's cake) a kind of coffee cake.
Tia Jes also took me to her job. She works with many international colleagues including people with connections to Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, and many other European countries. Once a week, one of her colleagues makes breakfast for everyone else. The day I visited her at work was German breakfast day. German breakfast has lots of vegetables and I was very full afterwards. I even tried a little bit of hazelnut spread, which tastes much better than the one's I have had in Rhode Island.
