Custard Tarts From Heaven

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Pictured, the box from the pastel de nata - Portuguese custard tarts - brought back for us on Friday by Leo, on returning from visiting his brother in Portugal. They had been bought freshly baked that day, and I ate most of them on Friday evening [they don't keep]. Portugal has many, many great things to offer: music, food, climate and its people: they even better the Italians when it comes to Espresso - um café - [just don't tell the Italians]: like the musical culture of Fado, and pastel de nata [practically a religion there] - it is a central part of Portuguese southern urban society.

One delight I would add to these may not please those of a vegetarian or vegan persuasion, but once tasted it is never forgotten: roast suckling pig, which I was introduced to as Negrais, the place famous for the method of cooking it. As I think I've mentioned before, I was staying in Lisbon for a three-day conference, some twenty-ish years ago, and whilst I was there, frequented a local bar every evening for café, rough red wine, strong cigarettes, and a bite to eat: choosing the pork on the last evening I was there. Never tasted the like since. Utterly sublime, just like the pastel de nata. It's about time our just-pre-covid aborted trip to Lisbon finally took place, methinks...

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