Festivities and Pilgrimages

How time flies! When I started to write this post , in July, the subject was very up-to-date but now…

Every Spring we see the swallows returning to their nests and in the Summer another phenomena occurs in Portugal – the return of the immigrants to their homeland. Most of them arrive by car, train and airplane and they are responsible for a series of events: life comes back to many small villages, the algarve region gets packed full, the festivities and festivals explode all over the country. Every small village will: honor their saint with a procession,  a band playing along, a bullfight in a wood made arena and some popular music concert closed with fireworks at the end of the night. Different languages can be heard in the streets, the youngsters will speak no other but the one they learned in their new nation, the older, a mix of portuguese and almost the native language of their host country. They stay for a couple of weeks, enough to ease their yearn (matar as saudades) see all the family (at least the ones with whom they still speak) hit the beach for another week and then drive back to the 2nd homeplace somewhere in one of the four corners of the world, where they, most of the times, live a life of work and loneliness. After this few weeks, after they leave, the village streets return to their normal – empty of people, empty of live and laughter… the winter will be coming soon…

The tradition is no longer what it was…

I will start this post by apologizing to all of my readers since I’m not a good writer and english is not my 1st language. I’m afraid that I might fail when trying to make you understand what alentejo is and what does it really mean. Taking this is in consideration I want you all to know that I will give my best to spread my passion, all critics and opinions are welcome in the form of comments, direct email or twitter. So let’s get started!

In alentejo we had many good old traditions passed by generation to generation. Unfortunately modern days are not friendly with old traditions, but we still keep some alive or at least we try. On the upcoming posts I will talk a little about these traditions, past and present.

To start I will talk about an old tradition that EU laws are killing – the pig slaughter. Remember that in my post about the “Açorda – A meal made of hard work” I mentioned that some lucky alentejan folks would have an animal at home to provide milk and/or meat for special occasions.

Usually the killing of the pig in alentejo takes place from December to January, when the family gathers for the festivities like Xmas and or New Year. It all starts in the piggery when a man or two grab the pig and take it to the slaughter table, there, at least four men grab the pig and put it on a sturdy wood table and tie the animal mouth and legs. A fifth element, the professional killer steps into the scene with a slaughter knife in his hands and drives it directly to the heart, a woman with a bowl kneels and retrieves the blood coming out of the wound.

All of this might sound a little brutal, but it happens every day in municipal slaughters but away from our eyes and heart. When the animal gives its last breathe the woman steps back stirring the blood for quite a long time to keep it liquid if she stops it won’t be good for making the blood sausage. Meanwhile the men will use a modern blowtorch to clean the pigs hair and outer skin layer (the very dark and dirty outer skin) using some clay tiles and sometimes small pieces of cork.

After that the animal is quartered in pieces and put to dry on an empty room cleaned and emptied for the occasion. It will dry for a couple of hours, meanwhile some flesh will be taken from the best part of the pork and grilled on live charcoal and eaten with a glass or two of red wine. It’s the payoff of such hard work.

The fresh meat will be divided by the family and nowadays they will keep it in a deep freezer, but in the good old days the meat would end up in some clay recipient and covered with salt for conservation.

But better than words, is a video, please don’t be shocked! Its life as it is!

Alentejo – People that sings cannot die…

I won’t say much more than this and will let the images and songs talk for it selves. The 1st song you hear is between two men is kind of a defying conversation while they work the fields. The 2nd song talks about passion until the death takes us apart. A beautiful work of Isaurinda Brissos and Michel Giacometti.

A meal made of hard work

Alentejo was for many year the Celeiro da Nação (granary of the nation), where the predominance of rainfed crops led it  to be one of Europe’s poorest regions. The people got used to live with low wages or no wages at all, since their bosses would pay them with grain, bacon, salt, olives, olive oil and bread. It was a time when a sardine was a luxury to be divided by four. The luckiest’ s ones would have a small plot of land to grow some vegetables and would have some animals, like chickens, turkeys, sheep, goats, pigs or a cow or two.

Men and women worked in the fields from sunrise to dusk and they would eat the little they had at home, saving the bigger slice for their children. That was how the Alentejan housewife became a master in household economy and created some recipes that make use of very little to make a full meal. And that’s how this recipe was born! They called it Açorda Alentejana!

Ingridients for 4:

400 grams of Alentejan bread (wheat) 2 or 3 days old – (it will be very difficult to find outside Portugal… sorry);

1 good bunch of coriander;

2 to 4 garlic cloves;

1 tablespoon full of thick salt;

4 tablespoon of olive oil;

1.5 liters of boiling water;

Boil the water and the eggs until you get poached eggs. Wash and the slice the coriander, smash the garlic (you can use a spoon or a knife) together with the salt and put them all inside of a glass tureen. Add the olive oil and then the boiled water. Use one slice of the bread to mix the olive oil with the water and the other ingredients, use this slice of bread to taste the soup, add salt, to your taste, if needed. Add the sliced bread one by one in such a way that they all get wet.

The eggs can be served on the tureen or separated into the individual plates.

Lunch is served bon appetit…

Of course that with time some variations raised up to a more sophisticated meal. To this you can now add Codfish (boil it at the same time of the eggs and the water, careful with the salt) you can also have some grilled sardines or horse mackerel or even a simple canned tuna… hmmm delicious and simple and above all cheap!

Enjoy it with a full bodied Regional Alentejano Tinto

In Alentejo we sing with our heart!

Under a blazing sun that can reach, in the summer, temperatures from 35ºC (95 F) up to 45ºC (113 F) we can hear voices raising into the skies singing songs about work, life, love and sorrow.

Men and women, hardened by the hard work, with their faces sculpted by the rough weather, sing mostly about their hard lives in a tone that always sounds sad. Until 1974, Alentejo was the poorest and the most undeveloped region in the country. The people worked for big farmers and received almost nothing for their work, 35 years have gone by and Alentejo is now a better place but still the poorest region in Portugal.

On one hand that kept it safe from industrialization, so nature stills rules in most of the region, on the other it explains why Alentejan people are humble and sad, their future is a life of work with no perspective of getting better, at least working honestly. All the songs reflect that sadness but it doesn’t affect the way they welcome people to their homes and share the little they have.

Just as a final note, Alentejo, with its wide plains and sparse population, is the region with the highest incidence rate of suicide, which might come from the loneliness this people have faced their entire life.

But listen to this group and decide by yourself. The group name is Ceifeiros de Cuba (Harvesters of Cuba) and they are singing about the daybreak (Ao romper da bela aurora – The birth of the beautiful dawn). Notice that there are no instruments and they use their voices to create the melody.

I’ll stop now with the bla…bla and let you listen to it.

My very 1st post

Welcome to my humble B log!

Image via Wikipedia

My name is José Eduardo, I’m 43 years old and I live in a small town called Beja, that is in fact the capital of the province called Baixo Alentejo - Lower Alentejo (alentejo means beyond the Tagus river). If you take a look at a map you will find the city in the deep heart of the region. It’s a beautiful region full of more than XX centuries of culture, customs, food and wine. Breath-taking landscapes, that give us a true sensation of how small we are, plains swept by the wind, the color of the sky and the brightness of an amazing sun.

I would like to take you all on a fabulous journey into the soul of Alentejo and into the heart of its people.

That journey begins now with this 1st step that they called post.