Kindness of Strangers

Any of you who know me know that I am slightly obsessed with grocery stores. One of my favorite things to do when I am traveling is to go to the supermarket and see what the locals are eating. You can tell a lot about the culinary preferences of a people by noting the amount of shelf space dedicated to a given product. In Lisbon I was surprised by the vast selection of yogurt, ham, cheese, and dried bacalhau, a salted cod that is a specialty here.

But what I really wanted to do was visit a local market off the beaten path. I think I’ve always harbored this secret, romantic dream to make a picnic from what I can forage from the bounty of area farmers. Maybe it comes from watching too many Rick Steves’ episodes on PBS. Whatever the case, I read that Guimaraes, our current base in northern Portugal, had a great municipal market. On the continuum of stress-inducing food procurement, I wasn’t sure where this would rank. Most sit-down restaurants are tough – there are too many choices, I don’t know what 74% of the items on the menu are, and even if I do, I usually end up ordering the wrong thing. Supermarkets are the least stressful – there is very little communication involved, as numbers flash on the monitor, and I can take as long as I need.

We set off this morning for the market using the map in our Lonely Planet guide, arriving to find locked, wrought-iron gates strewn with cobwebs. We smooshed our faces against the bars and noticed tattered canvas awnings and abandoned avenues. “I’m guessing the market isn’t here anymore,” I said. Just then, a man approached, as if he could read my mind. People are always eager to help, and the language barrier seems to make little difference. I was able to decipher “not here anymore,” “down blah blah blah road,” “ten minutes.” He made swooping motions with his hand that led us to believe that the market was down a twisting lane.

We walked down a narrow cobblestone road, which soon turned into an even narrower path, eventually reaching a dead-end at a field of grapevines with chickens running to and fro. A man pushed a wheelbarrow piled high with boxes of vegetables in the opposite direction. “We must be heading the right way,” Maikael said.

Based on my experiences at Latin American markets, as well as the skeletal remains of the previous location, I was expecting something rustic, outdoor, and slightly dingy. When we arrived, I was surprised to find an attendant guiding traffic into a modern parking structure. Slick elevators shuffled shoppers upstairs to the market, which ended up being a huge, open warehouse space filled to the brim with stall after stall of vendors.

We first inspected the produce section, admiring the local bounty: shiny oranges; globes of grapes with the tendrils of vine still attached; elegant beans; petite melons; plump cherries; gigantic figs; fragrant strawberries. Bakeries, butchers, fishmongers, and florists filled in the gaps. After perusing the goods, we decided to take the plunge. Despite the language barrier, everyone was exceedingly patient with us, and we somehow managed to order and pay for exactly what we wanted. We emerged with 13 Euros worth of thick slabs of tender pink ham; local cheese; fresh-baked artesian bread, four decadent pastries; and a bag of fruit.

I think we paid a bit more than we would have in a supermarket, but for farm-grown products and the experience of going to the local market, it was worth it. And, it was less stressful than going to a restaurant. We packed up our goods and headed for Penha, 7 kilometers outside of town, nestled in the mountains. The weather was iffy, but we decided to take our chances. To reach the peak, a cable car ushers passengers to the top. When we arrived at the base, the rain had picked up, clouds swallowed the top of the mountain, and the teleferico didn’t seem to be running. Clearly, we were the only ones fool enough to go into the clouds in this weather. “When does it run?” Maikael asked. “Now, if you want it to,” the operator said. Suddenly, the teleferico sprang to life, gears whirring, as the cars began moving in a loop. We hopped in our egg-shaped car, and were soon soaring over fields of grape vines as the red-tiles roofs of Guimaraes faded into the distance. Magnolia trees sidled up to palm trees, and, as we continued our ascent, clouds enveloped the car altogether.

Once at the top, it was as if we had been transported to another world. A thick shroud of fog hugged the mountain. I felt like a characters in The Secret Garden – was I in Portugal or the British Isles? Giant boulders, dripping with moss, supported one another by its broad shoulders. Rustic stone stairways, seeming as if they had sprouted from the rocks themselves, appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared into the fog. Tiny niches revealed statues of religious icons; candle wax caked onto the stone facade. Each time we turned a corner, a new path appeared. The fog played tricks with our eyes – is that a cloaked man in the distance? We discovered a small church and peeked in. A man pounded ivory cloth banners into the ends of the pews, unaware of our presence. Fog slipped through a door, cracked ajar, like a ghost.

The rain pounded down, and we discovered a stone bench perched under an awning formed by an abiding rock. We huddled close to one another as I bit into the fig’s fleshy skin, perfectly sweet and soft. I had never eaten another like it. Our pastries, filled with cream, crumbled apart and dripped down our fingers. They couldn’t have been fresher. It wasn’t exactly the European picnic I had always imagined – we were soaking, I slipped and fell (twice), losing my silver band somewhere in the mossy banks – but it came pretty darned close.