12 things I've learned about Portuguese life
after Debora Robertson's 12 things she has learned about French life
Last week Debora Robertson wrote “Twelve things I’ve learned about French life.” If you don’t know Debora, which of course you do, she is a British journalist and food writer who lives now in south west France in a haunted village house next to a lagoon. Her substack is about cookery and her life in the beautiful French village. I read the 12 things and thought “blimey, the French and the Portuguese are so alike!” until seconds later, I thought “oh, no, they’re not”, and then I thought “I must do a 12 things with Debora’s 12 as a launchpad.” Do go and read it, it’s very entertaining, plus there’s a recipe for mackerel paté which I’m dying to try.
But for now, this is my “12 things I have learned about Portuguese life as compared to Debora Robertson’s 12 things she has learned about French life”
Always say bonjour. Always say bom dia, but never after midday. After 12 you must say boa tarde, unless the sun has just dipped below the horizon. If you can’t see the horizon, you have to make an educated guess. Then must you say boa noite, until the sun returns the next morning. If you get it wrong, nobody cares but they will absolutely assume you are a tourist. If you’re unsure of the time, as I usually am, just say “bom dia, ou tarde, um desses… não faço ideia, que horas são?” and they’ll just think you’re a bit weird and annoying. Always say bom dia etc before the other person. Do not wait to be bom dia’d because if you’re a stranger, walking in the street, or in the middle of nowhere up a mountain, that bom dia may not be forthcoming. Say bom dia in that situation and the person in front of you will appear to suddenly realise that you’re there, and will reciprocate. Sometimes with a smile.
But don’t go overboard with the niceties. Verbal niceties are what lubricate our days. A cheery bom dia will get you places with younger people, a calmer and respectful one with older generations. Along with the bom dias there are the pleases and thank yous. It is good form in any exchange, in which you are buying or asking for something, to say se faz favor/por favor once and obrigado once. Try not be all English about it. I really struggle with this, still. At a supermarket till, a common exchange with me continues to be:
Do you want a bag? - no thank you
Your tax number on the receipt? - no thank you
Do you have our loyalty card/app? - no … thank you
That’ll be 19 and sixpence - thank you. Paying by card, please
The price shows up on the pay terminal - Thank you.
Beep (that’s me saying it, because it’s still funny). Thank you, I say to the machine.
Do you want your receipt? - yes, please…. thank you. Have a good weekend.
Thank you. You too. - Thank you, I say running out of the shop.
It’s a hot mess, and I think people sometimes feel sorry for me. Be better than me. One please and one thank you will suffice.
In France, original is not a compliment. But extraordinário is a compliment in Portugal. However, it is rendered almost entirely meaningless, by its overuse, especially among media people. The media industry is tiny, and so it doesn’t do to ever be less than glowing about somebody’s book/film/tv show/new fancy dish, so almost everything is called extraordinário. Given that extraordinário means extraordinary, i.e. out of the ordinary, you would be forgiven for thinking that ordinário means ordinary. It means base, vulgar, common in its derogatory sense. Vulgar (voolGAAr) means ordinary. Cut to my being told many times by men that I don’t mean ordinário, I mean vulgar. They don’t know me very well.
If you’re a pedestrian, bear in mind that zebra crossings are merely a suggestion to drivers. And don’t be fooled by the charming-sounding trottinette – scooter people to a man, woman and child are homicidal maniacs. Every word. except trottinette in Portuguese is trotinete, because double consonants were mostly abolished in the 1911 acordo ortográfico, when the government wanted to cut down on space (not really, it was to simplify spelling to help literacy rates).
With all the handshaking and cheek-kissing, the bonjouring, bonsoiring and aurevoiring, it can take longer to arrive at and leave a party than you spend at a party. In Portugal, the same. Everybody greets everybody on their arrival (see the next point), with, depending on the degree of intimacy, a handshake (rare, mostly reserved for Anglophones), a kiss, or a kiss and a hug, and a “I haven’t seen you for ages, how are the kids? And your mother?”. So, if you have 10 people in a room, that’s 90 greetings. If everybody arrives at the same time, the greetings can be over in mere minutes, as they are done simultaneously. If they drift in over time, the greetings can take several hours. When it’s time to leave, start leaving at least an hour before you actually have to get in the car or catch your boat, as you have to go and kiss everybody goodbye and as you reach the door, the real conversations begin, the ones where you tell your friends about a project and you’d like their input, what you really think of the prime minister, and the latest juiciest gossip.
Going to some friends for drinks or dinner? If it’s a proper old-school household, no one gets a drink before everyone is there. Sometimes people are late, le quart d’heure de politesse and all that. I laughed out loud at the polite quarter of an hour lateness. In Portugal (and I know a load of you are going to shout at me and claim to be punctual…. nope) a quarter of an hour late is early. Half an hour late is on time, an hour late is a bit late and two hours late is late late, and really quite common. The three people in Portugal who are genuinely punctual, including me, prepare to cut ties with that late late people, forever. If we waited for drinks, we’d be dead.
bon appétit. Bom apetite irks me, it feels like it’s ripped off from the French, and that just makes it sound naff. If I make a meal, it is my place to say bom apetite to my guests and as I refuse to say it, somebody round the table always pipes up, on my behalf, and says bom apetite! as if it’s like grace or something, another superstitious thing and the god of food will come down and smite us if it’s not said, and I have to contain my fury.
Very cold water is bad for your digestion. In Portugal, there are many such mundane things that aren’t just bad for your digestion, they will kill you. Children eating ice cream at the end of lunch (although, if they bug you enough, you can risk it). Swimming if you have eaten food in the last six weeks. I have met people who take this even further and don’t shower either, if they’ve eaten a sandwich, as tomar banho means go swimming or have a shower. And I do mean shower, since hot baths will kill you soon as look at you. Draughts also kill, and if a raindrop comes into contact with you, you’re a goner.
Bread and butter. Do not touch the bread basket until your food is on the table. I read this line out to Luís and his jaw dropped. “What?” he said. Here, bread is to be eaten while you wait to eat everything else. Butter comes in little plastic packets unless you’re somewhere dead fancy or avant garde, where you might get funny coloured butter or butter that tastes of goats. Bread is to be eaten before and with your food, and to dip in juices and sauces. Some people think, for some reason, that we British don’t mop up our gravy with bread, and congratulate me for being civilised when I do so. I blame Downton Abbey and its predecessors. Some Portuguese bread is the best bread you can eat and some Portuguese bread is just awful. If you have teeth issues approach all bread with caution.
If you want your coffee to be served with your pudding you’re going to have to ask, so devoted are French restaurants to prolonging your pleasure. I wouldn’t say that the Portuguese restaurant is devoted to prolonging your pleasure. You’ve come to eat, they’re feeding you. You want pudding? Ok. It won’t be pretty either. It’ll be a mousse or something made of eggs, maybe some fruit or perilous ice cream if you can hide it from the children.
You’d be very unlucky if a waiter harasses you to pay. In most normal restaurants in Portugal, you can take as long as you bloody well like. Only in very hip or famous places with queues do they do mandatory double covers, and when booking for a table at 7.30, say, they’ll request that you’re done by 9. I don’t like being told that, even if we’re likely to be done by 7.45. Far too much pressure.
And finally, if you’re a grown person in control of your faculties, it’s poor form to eat except at mealtimes. Happily, this is very much not the case in Portugal. You are never more than ten metres from a café or snack bar. First thing in the morning, you can eat a little cake for breakfast. Then you can grab a little something with your mid morning coffee to help you survive until lunch. After lunch, to be sure you can survive until you get home, you could grab another little something with another coffee. The little somethings are small cakes or huge pastries, savouries and little pies and sandwiches, toasted or not. It’s not that everybody eats like this every day, but everybody is safe in the knowledge that they can if they need to. Small children are keenly observed for signs of hunger by grandparents in charge of them after school, and parents must give strict instructions to them about not offering them a lanchinho, a snack, the minute they arrive home so as not to spoil their dinner. A very bad thing about Portugal is the crisps culture, or lack of it. A sneaky individual bag of crisps, for an adult, just isn’t a thing. Debora introduced to me to her Crisp Course, which is the first course of lunch, which begins at 11am, and ends with the final Biscuit Course at 3pm, and I’m very much adopting that. The name, that is. The crisps and biscuits are already here.
So, that was my “12 things I have learned about Portuguese life as compared to Debora’s 12 things she has learned about French life”. There are many, many more… but we’ve got time. Se deus quiser.
Right, one thing you didn't mention: bread MUST be eaten with every meal. When setting the table, bread is the first thing that goes on the table. I shall quote my grandmother, "Comida sem pao nem no inferno a dao." (They wouldn't serve a meal without bread, not even in hell.)
Also bread has magical properties. If for some reason you need to eat a lot (don't ask me why!) you eat it with bread "to push it down" leading to the famous exchange, "Hey, pa, podias comer uma vaca?" "So com muito pao para a pushar p'ra baixo." "Hey, dude, could you eat a cow?" "Only with a lot of bread to push it down."
And on that, if you take your normally brought up American kids to Portugal, you find you need to teach them to be quite forceful with "Nao obrigado!" (No, thank you.) This is accompanied with a hand gesture down and out. Because if you're not forceful, and don't do the gesture, and just whisper nicely, "no, thank you," everyone from street vendors to your grandmother will assume you really want to buy/eat the thing. (My poor kids.)
My Slovenian grandmother would use the French word ordinaire to mean sth was vulgar/lacking good taste. She would say "so and so is ordinaire" with contempt for the so and so...