Getting Stuffed

‘Would you like cozido?’

‘What else is there?’

‘Nothing.’

‘We’ll have the cozido.’

Taking the only menu option is still a choice, even if the choice is made by the restaurant. We shouldn’t have been surprised. It was Carnival Sunday, after all, and cozido à portuguesa is what you eat on Carnival Sunday. It is being true to one of the possible origins of the word, perhaps coming from the Latin ‘carne vale‘ – farewell to the flesh. By farewell they mean ‘let’s cram as much of it down our necks as we can, while we can’.

I have to admit that I had suggested that we paid another visit to a favourite local restaurant, Casa Bastos, because I had previously fallen in love with their roast lamb, slowly cooked whole in glowing wood embers. I had forgotten the date on which cozido was obligatory. We were lucky to get the table because someone had just cancelled five minutes before we phoned, otherwise they were full to the rafters.

It’s 4.5 kilometres as the eagle flies and 11 by slippery slidey flood-washed road but there’s never an eagle handy when you want one. The car park was, as expected, full and we parked further into the farm than usual, on the edge of a quagmire once known as a field. Senhor Bastos greeted us with his usual cheerfulness, seemingly picking up a conversation as if we’d just popped out for moment instead of having been AWOL for a number of months, but that’s the way he is and he slips into easy chat with any passing stranger. We were placed at the only table for two in the room and most of the other tables were crammed with large families already chomping into vast platters of cozido. That is to say, the adults were mostly chomping - or shouting at each other in that cheerful way that the Portuguese do - while the kids were staring at screens, of course. Except for one girl, I’d guess around 13, who wasn’t clutching a phone and was looking at her parents in the eyes and smiling at them as a result and was fully engaged in the family outing. How sad that she stood out as the exception. But I digress.

Our waiter was ten years old. Well, alright then, he was the son of our waiter, which made him the grandson of Senhor Bastos, and he was helping out/learning the trade. He took my order for a bottle of water and brought it promptly then went to help clear a table across the room after which he settled behind the bar with his hands behind his back, rocking gently on his heels and looking just like the patrão he would surely one day become. His dad served us an enormous steaming pile of food and though we had been prepared to witness the arrival of an obscene amount of food on our table, this did rather make us boggle. Put it this way, if we had been at home and serving a meal for four, we would have considered that amount as being very generous indeed.

One of the reasons that cozido is the favoured carne vale meal is because of the sheer quantity of meat. Even the more modest cozido as prepared by members of the missus’ family contains a lot but this had the full complement: beef, pig’s trotters, pig’s ears, smoked pig’s belly, spare ribs, chicken legs, two kinds of chouriço and some black pudding. Added to this was the supporting cast of potatoes, cabbage, carrots and, of course, the obligatory rice to fill up those corners of the belly untouched by the foregoing. As usual, we rued not bringing a tupperware to carry back all that which we would not be able to eat and, as usual, we ate the lot. Well, to be honest, I did draw the line at the pig’s ear.

It is one of the truly classic meals of Portuguese traditional cuisine and the example that we had for lunch was truly memorable. We could tell from the very first bite that it was going to be an exceptional experience. As we progressed through the meal and went from eating because we were hungry to eating because there was still something left to eat, we were being reminded of flavours that we had nearly forgotten about until that moment when our taste buds made contact and memories of a nearly forgotten age awoke. Purfick, as Pop Larkin would undoubtedly have drooled.

Senhor Bastos confirmed that everything we’d eaten had been reared or grown, prepared and cooked on the premises. They raised their own animals, grew their own vegetables, prepared their own chouriço and blood pudding and made their own wine from their own vines. Even the rice? Well, no, but we looked out of the window to the flooded fields. Perhaps soon.

We briefly considered walking back home to work off the calories but luckily it was raining again so that silly idea was soon put to bed. We climbed into the car and I’m sure that the suspension actually groaned.