It’s Sunday morning and mouth-watering smells are already coming from the kitchen.
Family filters in, coats come off, o vinhowine gets poured (earlier than anyone will admit).
You grab a handful of amêndoasalmonds (sugar-coated in pastel colours or covered in milk chocolate), as if you haven’t been snacking on them for weeks already.
Someone has brought o folara sweet bread eaten during Easter in Portugal . It might be sweet, enriched bread with a boiled egg pressed into the top. Or it could be savoury and stuffed with cured meats.
Lunch is long. O bacalhaucodfish comes out: salt cod prepared in whichever of Portugal’s supposed 365 recipes this family swears by. In some homes, o cabrito assado (roast goat) shares the table too. More wine is poured. Plates are refilled.
Eventually it’s time for o pão de lósponge cake : a light egg-rich sponge cake. “Já não consigo comer mais,” someone says. Nobody is hungry, but everyone has uma fatiaa slice .
Hours later, nobody has moved and somehow there is still more to talk about.
But the food is only half the story. (Well, that’s highly debatable… 😏) To dig a little deeper into Easter in Portugal, here’s a Learning Note we put together.
Boa Páscoa a todos!