Flavors

Chestnuts in April and May? In the memory of Maria da Conceição Gonçalves Mouta, they were dried chestnuts that arrived at the table during the cultivation and sowing of corn. The broth, with beans, cabbage and potatoes, closed the first meal, by nine or nine and a half in the morning, after fried cod with bread.

The testimony was collected by Maria de Fátima Carvalho in February 2011, in Pedraça. Maria da Conceição had learned the preparation with her mother-in-law. The chestnuts were previously dried and aired; the baked potato was crushed and returned to the pot. Conservation, texture and working hours are found in this family memory.

Here there are two calendars: that of the fruit and that of the meal. The dried chestnut kept allowed to bring to the spring table a food associated with the harvest of another season. The memory does not only describe ingredients: it explains how the reserves of the house accompanied the time of tilling and sowing. The time of the “lunch” also surprises those who today use this word for the midday meal.

It is a story with voice and place, not a rule for all the houses of Cabeceiras. When talking about a family recipe, it is worth keeping these differences: who taught it, when it was prepared and what changed between the fireplace and the stove. Thus, a list of ingredients becomes a small history of work, learning and domestic life.

In 1758, the vicar of Vila Nune pointed the wine as the most abundant production, but said that almost all the residents bought bread. Olive oil arrived for the population and there was little chestnut left. The table therefore depended on both the crops and the purchases.

In the same memory, the parish priest described a land situated in a small valley and on the descent of mountains. The abundance of a product did not mean producing everything that was eaten. The document allows making this comparison, but does not say where the bread was bought or how much it cost.

In 1758, the parish priest of São Nicolau distinguishes rye, target corn and million among the crops. He adds wine, olive oil, chestnuts and other fruits, describing a production to support the growers. In speaking of the fields on the hills, he highlights mainly rye. The variety of words invites to read the agriculture of the past without reducing all the cereals to a single crop.

The report places the fields in the low areas, among mountains that separated the places. The water entered this organization: mentions mills, dams and levadas that served fields and farms. Cultivating was not only choosing a seed; it also depended on the land and access to water.

For the animals of labor, the farmers turned to the hills for part of the year, for lack of pasture in the fields, collecting them at night. Read together, these passages show fields, mountains, animals and water as parts of the same rural life. They are observations of the parish priest in 1758, not quantities of production or current agricultural rules.

In Rio Douro, the report of 1758 distinguishes the production of the places by the rivers from the places of mount. To the first associates millions, wine, chestnut and acorn; to the second, rye. The landscape also helps to read the pantry.

In describing the shores, the parish priest refers to fields with oaks and vines and, where there were no fields, woods of heather. The same document depicts cold, windy mountains and with snow in winter. They are historical descriptions that allow to relate cultivation and land, without constituting a current agricultural or climatic survey.

Maria da Conceição added broa, beans and sausage to the cabbages. The collection of February 2011 associates the dish to April and May. It is a family testimony, distinct from the cabbages with beans. After the preparation, the broa, garlic and olive oil were added together in an alguidar. The same container went to the table.

The dish accompanies the calendar of the garden: in the memory of Maria da Conceição, April and May brought new and tender cabbages. The recipe also holds gestures — thin cutting, running, involving — and an object of service, the alguidar. Ingredients, time and utensils count different parts of the same memory.

In the crops remembered by Maria da Conceição, the first meal was called lunch and arrived at nine or nine and a half. Fried cod was served with bread, followed by chestnuts broth.

The testimony associates this rhythm to April and May, when tilling and sowing corn. The words of the meals also guard ways of organizing the work. It is the memory collected in this family, not a general time of the municipality.

In this case, the learning of broth came from the mother-in-law, born in Pedraça. The testimony thus distinguishes different people in the transmission of the recipes. The preparation used dried chestnuts, approaching an autumn harvest of spring labor from the fields. The meal recalled gathered preserved food, bread and a concrete agricultural task: to till and sow corn.

The parish priest of 1758 lists target corn, million and rye, saying that they were produced in similar proportions. He also mentions some wine and little chestnut. It is the agricultural portrait he left in writing, not a description of the current crops.

And where were the grains transformed? In the same memory, António Alves Teixeira describes mills in the two water courses of the parish and farmers that carried the cereal there. The document allows to link the list of crops to the milling, although not detail recipes nor the division of each cereal between food and other uses. The date, 22 May 1758, marks the moment of the report: the proportions mentioned are an appreciation of the vicar, not a weighing of a harvest.

The million appears as the most abundant cereal in Alvite’s memory of 1758. But the list continues with rye, target corn, millet, wheat and barley. The parish priest adds beans, hanged wine, olive oil, chestnut, land and fruit.

The enumeration shows a diverse agriculture; it does not give quantities of each harvest. Compare it to Bucos, where the report describes another relationship between cereals. The documents allow to recognize differences without turning impressions of the parish priests into modern statistics.

The same report places part of the parish on the slopes of Senhora da Orada and another part in a more flat zone, accompanying a small course of water. The list of products thus gains a scenario: fields distributed by different positions in the relief. The text does not, however, relate each culture with a concrete portion.

There is also a difference between harvest and meal. Knowing that cereals, beans, wine or olive oil were produced does not reveal the recipe served in a given house. To get to the kitchen, other sources, such as family memories and preparations documented on the site, must be added.

In the collections of the Museum, Maria da Conceição Gonçalves Mouta, a native of Cavez and resident in Recovos, Pedraça, identifies who transmitted the dishes. The cabbages with migas came from the grandmother, from Cavez; the broth of chestnuts, from the mother-in-law, from Pedraça. Maria de Fátima Carvalho recorded these testimonies in February 2011. Names help to realize that this memory belongs to a concrete family experience.

In the memory of Abadim, José Antunes distinguishes the fields of the Village of the Tower and Santo António from those of Travassô, Porto d’Olho and Torrinheiras. In the first two places, it lists corn, millet and rye, as well as wine, olive oil, chestnut and oak acorn.

In the three places that he describes as colder, he highlights rye and little corn. The document approaches climate, relief and food: what was harvested was not the same in the whole parish. It does not present harvest weights nor allows to calculate the production per inhabitant.

The author also places Torrinheiras at the top of the hill and Porto d’Olho and Travassô at half a hillside. Its description helps to relate the names to positions in the landscape, without providing measured altitudes. In the mountain grounds it mentions heather, carquejas, tojos, and some pasture. The agricultural portrait therefore includes cultures and forest spaces: the parish does not appear as a single uniform field.