Everyday life in Portugal
How do people live in Portugal? What is your everyday life like? Most Portuguese live on or near the Atlantic coast. So the sea is in front of the door and invites you to jump in. Fish is therefore often eaten in Portugal. Eating and drinking play an important role in everyday life. Breakfast is also popular in the café at the bar: a quick coffee and a sweet pastry like a pastel de nata…
Families spend a lot of time together. They go on trips to the beach or go picnicking together. The Portuguese cheer their soccer team enthusiastically. In 2016 she became European champion. The most famous Portuguese football player is arguably Cristiano Ronaldo. He was even erected a memorial in his hometown on Madeira.
People are also happy to celebrate. In June there are three regional festivals for patron saints, which are celebrated with street parades and fireworks. In the country things are often more comfortable, here progress has not yet found its way everywhere.
Incidentally, in Portugal you often have to draw numbers, be it in the pharmacy, at the post office or at the cheese counter in the supermarket. Nobody can push their way in this way and everything goes well – just don’t forget to pull the number! People also like to go to the market for shopping. Incidentally, you won’t find any names on the doorbell signs and letter boxes of the houses and apartments.
The Portuguese are also known for their politeness and good manners. Even if you don’t know each other very well, you greet and say goodbye with a hug and kiss, the beijinhos – a kiss on the left, a kiss on the right.
Eating in Portugal
What do you eat in Portugal?
One of the most important foods in Portugal is fish. After all, the Atlantic is just around the corner and the fishermen bring fresh fish with them every day. Dried fish, the bacalhau, is particularly popular. For this, the fish is dried and salted. This way it can be kept for a long time, while fresh fish otherwise spoils quickly. Typical for the Portuguese preparation is a long drying time of around 150 days and the use of sea salt.
Bacalhau is considered a national dish in Portugal. There is a saying that there are as many recipes as there are days in the year, i.e. 365. You can eat the fish raw or you can water it before preparing it. You can grill or cook the fish, you can use it in soups, salads, starters, main dishes and even in desserts!
Soups and stews
Soups are also very popular and are almost always served as the first course in restaurants. A caldo verde is a “green broth”. It is popular in the north and contains potatoes, onions and chouriço sausage, finely chopped leaves of a type of cabbage, the marrow stem cabbage.
In the south of Portugal, on the other hand, people like to eat gazpacho, a cold soup made from tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables that are also popular in Spain. In addition to fish soup and bread soup, feijoada, a bean stew with meat, is also popular.
What else is there?
Meat is also popular in Portugal, a country located in Europe detailed by politicsezine. Beef, pork and lamb are popular. The Portuguese like steak with rice or French fries just as much as carne de porco com amêijoas. It is pork with clams.
Petiscos are popular as starters or small snacks. These can be small filled dumplings or dumplings like the Bolinhos de bacalhau made from a Bacalhau potato mixture.
Gladly something sweet!
In Portugal, people also like to eat sweet things. The pastéis de nata are famous. These are puff pastry tartlets that are filled with a cream made from egg yolk, sugar and cream. You sprinkle them with cinnamon or powdered sugar. Take a look at our hands-on recipe, then you can bake them! By the way, a single tart is called pastel de nata. Puff pastry and egg yolks are also used in many other desserts.
Typical Portugal
Fado
Fado is the name of a Portuguese musical style. Guitar music accompanies the singing. The lyrics are soulful and often deal with longing, unhappy love or poverty. One can even speak of a kind of Weltschmerz that is expressed in it. Fado is played mainly in Lisbon and Coimbra. It is often played spontaneously in one of the small bars, but there are also concerts with a fixed program. Of course, Fado is also played on the radio. The most famous fado singer is still Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999). But there are also modern, very successful Fado singers.
Bullfight
Bullfighting is mostly associated with Spain, but it also takes place in Portugal. However, the rules are different from Spanish bullfighting. In the Portuguese bullfight, a bull is provoked by a rider by throwing arrows in the neck. In the second part eight men fight the bull without weapons. One tries to grab the bull by the horns, the other tries to hold on to it too. If the bull is too badly injured after the fight, it will be killed. Many people are against bullfighting because they believe it is animal cruelty.
Azulejos
An azulejo is a picture made of painted ceramic tiles. Such azulejos are often found in Portugal (and also in Spain) on buildings, walls or even in rooms. They are a legacy of the Moors, who lived on the Iberian Peninsula for a long time. Azulejos can be mosaics, but also incisions in tiles or paintings on tiles.
Soccer
The Portuguese are crazy about football! There are many people who play soccer themselves and of course those who watch soccer. Some Portuguese football players are world famous, such as Christiano Ronaldo or Luís Figo. In 2016 Portugal won the European Football Championship. The most famous team from Portugal is Benfica Lisbon.
