LOCAL TRADITIONS AT WORK
Fundamentally Fundão
As well as enjoying lavishly prepared gourmet delights in some of the country’s best Michelin starred restaurants, the Taste Portugal press trippers were treated to a tour of Fundão, where they visited local producers and saw the produce in its fresh state
‘The area directly around the city boasts some of the most fertile land in the region’
FUNDÃO IS A city and a municipality in the Castelo Branco District in Portugal, situated in a large valley at the point where the slopes of the Gardunha an Estrela ranges meets the Cova da Beira plains, and where the Zêzere River starts its way towards the Tagus, 500 metres above sea level. The area directly around the city boasts some of the most fertile land in the region and is renowned for its cherries, peaches, olive oil, wine, wood pulp and vegetables.
The TASTE PORTUGAL 2014/15 press tour visited the city and enjoyed the following highlights:
The Railway Station Tavern
A typical tasca where workers pop in for quick snacks, including a battered codfish or pork steak (beifana) sandwich for €1,30, with a glass of wine for 70c. After starting work in the fields at 6am, their first snack – and drink – might be as early as 8am. Our first wine intake was at 11am. Not bad going!
The Market
Selling clothes throughout the week, the market stalls are taken over on Saturdays by locals selling their own fresh produce, ranging through all kinds of vegetables – potatoes, pumpkins, peppers, aubergines, onions on strings, parsnips, mushrooms – to fruit – both fresh and dried – and medicinal herbs. All products are fresh, local and seasonal and the hall is alive with colour and variety.
Upstairs are the butchers and fishmongers. Outside, in the streets, stalls – or blankets spread out on the pavements – offer a range of antiques and flea market items.
Pastelaria Formica
Manuel Matias Formiga’s bakery offered us a variety of different sweet and savoury cookies – including fofinhos de amendoa (sweet almond cookie) and bolo azeite (olive oil cookie) – served with sweet wine. Some cookies are even made with schnapps for special occasions, including Christmas, Easter and weddings.
Sabores da Gardunha
A traditional jam factory which – despite its tiny size – exports to the UK, where its products are sold in Harrods and Fortnum and Mason and its Rose Honey is sold by appointment to the Queen. Specialities include the cherry jam, fig jam, pumpkin and walnut jam and orange and chocolate jam. The owner, Luís, also produces the only kosher jam in Portugal.
Hermínia Restaurante
Once a tavern, this restaurant is now in the Michelin guide and its owner, Carlos, proudly serves traditional food from the region, including queijo amarelo (yellow cheese), which won the best cheese award in a recent competition in New York; chenovia (a lightly battered regional parsnip); migas de bacalhau (codfish and bread stew); farinheira com ovo (Jewish inspired scrambled eggs with chicken sausages); panela no fonno (meat and rice cooked together, first boiled, then roasted); arroz de carqueja (rice with sausage); arroz de míscares à lavrador (rice with mushrooms); chouriço; morcela (blood sausage); queijo de ovelha (a creamy cheese served with a spoon) and super fresh breaded sardines. Desserts include tigelada da Beira (made with eggs, milk and cinnamon); arroz doce (sweet, al dente rice pudding) and a semolina like recipe, made with cornflour, milk and sugar, and known only in Fundão, called papas de canolo.
Laden with jars of jam, bags of vegetables and handfuls of dried fruit, well fed, and happy for having seen something of the local traditions at work, the Taste Portugal 2014/15 press trippers left Fundão in their cavalcade of BMWs, heading south to Lisbon.
With thanks to our guides, Julio and Patricia.
