When in Europe, you can take a snapshot dining experience from just about any of its storied countries, and one that stands out as a cultural mecca of fine foods is the Iberian country of Portugal.

It’s a 2,000 year old country that historically began as a nation in the 12th century after the Battle of Ourique but extends far back to the 1st century BC when Rome annexed the entire Iberian Peninsula to its empire.  The 14th to the 16th century saw Portugal as a mighty naval presence that brought home a wealth of culinary traditions from the regions its explorers conquered and occupied from the Africa, Southeast Asia to South America.

Olives and Wines

The best of Portugal starts with its olives and wines.  The country’s warm Mediterranean microclimate favours abundant cultivation of olive groves and grapes in many of the country’s provincial regions like the Douro, Madeira and Algarve regions. Olives are now considered the healthiest edible cooking oil while its Port and Madeira wines are imitated in all the wine producing countries in the world but never equaled.

Pine Nut

Used to flavour many Mediterranean cuisines, the pine nut takes Portuguese culinary art to another level of gastronomic uniqueness. Also called umbrella pine, the Portuguese pine nuts are harvested from stone pines that are abundant in the forested regions of the country. It is used in preparing the various food dishes over the centuries, long before the exotic spices from other countries were brought in by its conquistadors in the 14th – 16th centuries.

Seafoods

As a country bordered by the mighty Atlantic to its west and south, Portugal has one of the highest seafood consumption in the continent.  Its signature codfish recipe Bacalhau figures in all Portuguese restaurants everywhere, no two of which taste the same. Its sardines are second only to the Spanish sardines in popularity.

Its other culinary concoctions from the sea include gambas or spicy prawns and various dishes for horse mackerel, goose barnacles, lamprey fish, rayfish, sea bass, scabbard fish and a wide assortment of shellfishes like clams, oysters and scallops.  The Calderaida stew is one noted dish consisting of various fishes and shellfish.

Portuguese Cheese

While cheese products from Amsterdam may be more popular, Portuguese chesses are among the most flavorful.  You have the Queijo de Serra, made from sheep milk which rivals the Brie cheese. The Cabereiro, Serpa, Azeitao chesses come from goat milk and processed in the same Portuguese regions that produce some of the finest wines like Algarve, Alentejo and Madeira regions.  GP