Monte Gordo, Portugal – Fresh Sea Food – by Catherine Kolar. The North Star Reports: Global Citizenship and Digital Literacy, at NorthStarReports.org and facebook.com/NorthStarReports
It was late February and even though classes had only started a week or so earlier I was ready for a break. Sevilla is beautiful and all, and my classes were interesting, but I needed an adventure– and then out of nowhere an adventure fell into my lap. A friend of mine had found a super cheap hotel deal in Monte Gordo, a little coastal town in Portugal, and wanted to know if I’d like to go on a little expedition. The decision to go was simple because I love Portugal, and after such a long time without seeing Lake Superior, the ocean sounded quite wonderful.
We set off Friday afternoon on a short drive over the border to the oldest country in Europe. In my travels to and from Portugal the parts of every trip that stick with me the most are those involving food, and this trip was no exception.
When we had just been seated at a table on the deck of a restaurant overlooking the seashore and were waiting for our drinks, I noticed a fisherman on the beach gathering up his rods, tackle, and bucket full of fish before walking towards us. He took his bucket to the back of the restaurant and left a few minutes later with a much lighter bucket and a smile on his face. When the waiter returned to our table with our drinks he asked if we were interested in the fish of the day, and when we replied yes he told us to wait just one second and ran inside to return with a tub of fish. “He just brought these to us,” the waiter grinned, pointing at the retreating fisherman. “It’s the freshest fish in all of Portugal!”
I had never been presented my menu in such a way. The waiter then went on to explain about each fish but it all went over my head as the majority of my fish vocabulary at that time consisted of the words “salmon” and “tuna.” I was a bit overwhelmed by the experience and didn’t know what to choose so I played it safe and ordered coquinas, a variety of tiny clam.
My food arrived and I dug into the tender, sweet, and briny itty-bitty mollusks, savoring every bite and being careful not to grind my teeth on the little bits of sand that had evaded the chef’s careful cleaning. I’d never noticed before how something cooked simply in olive oil could be a million times better than if it had been cooked in butter. All of a sudden, I saw something hiding on my plate that could have gotten me a free meal in the states or have been cause for a lawsuit.
“Look, Daniel! I got a rock!”
“Well,” he said, not fazed in the least, “he said they were fresh. There is the proof.”
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Hong-Ming Liang, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, The North Star Reports; Chief Editor, The Middle Ground Journal; Associate Professor of History and Politics, The College of St. Scholastica.
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