Get the Portuguese Jews history in our favorite sausage.
The unlikely sausage that saved lives
Now one of Portugal’s seven gastronomic wonders, this sausage likely saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of souls during the Spanish Inquisition.
Every dish can tell a million stories, if only there’s someone to hear them. Yet Portugal’s cuisine is more narrative-heavy than most, a complex tapestry of invasions and colonisation that slips and slides between continents and religions.
Every dish can tell a million stories, if only there’s someone to hear them. Yet Portugal’s cuisine is more narrative-heavy than most, a complex tapestry of invasions and colonisation that slips and slides between continents and religions.
The story behind the Alheria - one of our favorite Portuguese dishes
In Trás-os-Montes every home preserved pork sausages to see the family through the winter, hanging them from the rafters in meaty coils. Jews – who did not eat pork – were conspicuous for their missing sausages. So they developed a bread sausage that could fool informers and local zealots who denounced them to the Inquisition for not eating pork.
Most people mention fish and seafood when they talk about their encounter with the Portuguese kitchen. We love seafood – and eat it a lot. But quite frankly – you get delicious fish and seafood in France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand, South Korea and all other countries with coastlines.
To us he Portuguese cuisine is something completely different.
I was actually planning a story about what we consider being the local kitchen. But starting up our own kitchen here at Tings Lisbon is taking mst of my time.
Yesterday our dear Portuguese friend Rosario send me a link to a BBC Travel story about one of our absolute favorite dishes – with an absolutely fantastic story.
So why wait sharing it 🙂
Shalom & Bon Appetit
Thomas
