What do people eat in Portugal?
In Portugal the day runs on coffee and pastries: a light breakfast, a pastel de nata mid morning, lunch at 13:00 that starts with soup, and dinner around 20:00. Salt cod, bacalhau, is the national dish.
Typical dishes and their calories
Breakfast
Breakfast is quick, often at a pastelaria on the way to work around 8:00: a galão, coffee with milk in a tall glass, with buttered toast, torrada, or a tosta mista with ham and cheese. Around 11:00 many stop again for a bica, a short coffee, and a pastel de nata, about 220 kcal for one tart.
Lunch
Lunch is between 13:00 and 14:00 and nearly always starts with soup, such as caldo verde made of potato, kale and a slice of chouriço, about 150 kcal a bowl. Then comes fish or meat with rice or potatoes, and many people eat the prato do dia, the dish of the day, in a small local restaurant.
Dinner
Dinner is around 20:00 to 21:00. At home it is often lighter: soup, bread, cheese, a salad and fruit. On Friday and Saturday people book restaurants for 21:30 or 22:00 and eat grilled fish, chicken piri piri or a cod dish such as bacalhau à brás, shredded cod with egg and thin fried potatoes, about 550 kcal a plate.
Starters
Restaurants put a couvert on the table as you sit down: bread, butter, olives, sometimes cheese or a fish paste. You pay for it only if you eat it, and you can send it back. Petiscos are small shared plates much like tapas: pica pau, fried meat bites, clams with garlic and coriander, pastéis de bacalhau, fried cod cakes, and octopus salad.
Desserts
Many Portuguese sweets are made with egg yolks and sugar, and many were first made in convents. The best known is the pastel de nata, a custard tart sold warm with cinnamon in every café, about 220 kcal each. At home people make arroz doce, rice pudding with lemon and cinnamon, and the bolo de arroz, a rice flour muffin, is a common café snack.
Drinks
Coffee is a bica in Lisbon or a cimbalino in Porto, an espresso of about 30 ml, drunk several times a day. Vinho verde from the Minho is a young, light wine, about 110 kcal a glass, and port, a fortified wine from the Douro valley, is often served with dessert. In Lisbon ginjinha, a sour cherry liqueur, is drunk from small cups at street counters.
Street food
The bifana is a thin pork steak marinated in white wine and garlic, served in a soft roll, about 450 kcal, and often eaten with a cold beer. Porto has the francesinha, a sandwich of meats under melted cheese and a beer and tomato sauce, easily 1,000 kcal. In June grilled sardines on bread are sold in every street during the popular saints festivals.
Normal there, odd elsewhere
People say there are 365 ways to cook bacalhau, one for each day of the year, and boiled cod with potatoes, cabbage and eggs is the dinner of Christmas Eve, even though most of the cod is now imported. The same espresso is a bica in Lisbon and a cimbalino in Porto. And soup comes before lunch even on a hot day in August.