Disclaimer: a food stylist I am not. There’s a reason why I chuck all my food photos into Instagram, besides convenience.
But I usually take more care in the presentation of food before I take a picture, and I lament making the salad before the photo because the plate looked so much better when I first dished it up, freshly glazed.
What is it, you ask?
It’s a slab of pork — very Portuguese — with chestnuts picked recently in the family’s home village of Penela da Beira, and mushrooms. (I was sick and stayed home the weekend it was picked, so I can’t take any credit for the chestnuts.) The glaze is made with Canadian maple syrup from New Brunswick, a gift from some visiting Canadians this past summer. The soy is about as Oriental a flavor as it gets, and the combination of maple and soy is divine. I grew up on soy sauce — it was a staple in our cupboard — but most times I have it in Portugal is when I cook with it myself.
Somehow, this combination of ingredients that reminds me of different parts of the world is extra-satisfying. There’s little that evokes such immediate warmth towards a culture than its food; just ask anyone living abroad what they miss the most besides people and they’ll probably start talking about flavours. Just in this blog, I’ve talked about maple syrup four times since I moved to Portugal. Before that? Just twice, and this blog is 14 years old.
November 14, 2016
Album: Portugal [Autumn 2016]
