Lamprey season is in full swing, and nowhere is it more celebrated in Portugal than the northern rivers such as Rio Minho, where it is considered a delicacy. We were invited by our neighbours two weekends ago to join their merry band of lamprey-eaters at Braseirão do Minho in Vila Nova de Cerveira for a feast of many courses. It was an invitation we couldn’t pass up since both Paulo and I are complete lamprey newbies.
Plus, we’d been to Braseirão do Minho before — twice on the same press trip in late 2014. See Part 1 and Part 2. We’d just adopted Ice the Dog, but we couldn’t bring him along. This time, Ice stayed in the car and we took turns taking him for walks in the gardens. The meal had so many courses that we were eating for more than two and a half hours!
Included in that timeframe was the lengthy discussion about whether lampreys are fish or not… this went around and around for a while, because apparently even the taxonomists don’t agree on how to classify them, and thus exist differing opinions on the internet. I can’t tell you what they’re not, though: they’re definitely not eels, despite the common practice of referring to them as “lamprey eels”. There are many different types of lamprey, some of which are parasitic. The ones that end up on plates around here are likely sea lampreys — the parasitic kind. The link will give you the unappetizing details of how they feed, which may or may not kill your appetite for them.
For this post, I was stuck trying to decide what to use as the lead photo: would it be the “terrifying river creature” or the “non-traditional but aesthetically-pleasing” photo? In the end, I decided on the non-traditional photo. The next picture will tell you why.
This picture is quite tame, as the mouth is only partly open. When it’s alive it looks like some prehistoric carnivorous river beast (click only if you’re sure it won’t give you nightmares), which begs the question: does it taste better than it looks? Well, that’s for you to decide… when it’s in season (February/March), there are signs on the restaurant doors in Portugal announcing “Há Lampreia” and it seems to be quite popular. It’s also rather pricey, because the season is quite short. We were told this wasn’t a good season for lamprey — not for the quality, but the quantity.
The most traditional ways to prepare lamprey: arroz de lampreia (in rice), and à bordalesa (cooked in wine and spices, served with bread). At Braseirão do Minho, we were served lampreia four different ways: in rissois, inside pastry (the top photo), then the two traditional ways, shown below:
arroz de lampreia
arroz de lampreia
arroz de lampreia
lampreia da bordalesa
lampreia da bordalesa
Verdict
Paulo was much more disciplined than I was when it came to consuming the many appetizers. He left room for lampreia, while I did not pace myself. He said the lampreia was like tuna. For me, it wasn’t. The texture may have started out fish-like, but it was denser and richer (lampreys don’t have bones). I imagined it to be closer to what snake would be like, although I haven’t eaten snake. I have eaten my fair share of barbecued eel, though, but it didn’t have the same texture. You’d think we were eating different things, that’s how much of a chasm there was between our perspectives. The closest I can come to a verdict is “divided”. Knowing the taxonomists are divided, too, suggests that lamprey is just one of those oddball creatures of evolutionary wonder.
Many thanks to Chef Jose Vinagre for letting me loose in his kitchen, and the rest of the team at Braseirão do Minho for their hospitality… and of course our neighbours for the invitation! You can find the dessert pictures and more in the album.
March 4, 2017
Album: Lampreia @ Braseirão do Minho
Album: Minho, Portugal
