Date: Wednesday 16th February 1977
Venue: Staff House, Birmingham University
Sponsor: Senhor Jorje Dias
Menu
Portuguese Dinner Menu*
Cod Pudding
Lettuce Salad
-o0o-
Duck Rice in the Oven
-o0o-
Orange Pudding
-o0o-
Nuts and Raisins
*Please note that this translation may not be fully accurate. Any further knowledge of the dinner would be most welcome.
Portuguese Dinner Minutes
A Portuguese dinner was held at the Staff House, Birmingham University, on 16th February 1977. It was sponsored by Senhor Jorge Dias.
Before dinner we drank Madeira, a Verdelho. We drank it without anything to eat as while the Portuguese do not believe in eating without wine, they don’t like to spoil their appetite by eating before they sit down. Madeira wine is unique in that after the addition of brandy it is heated up to 120°F in stoves or estufas for several months. Although this hastens the maturing of the wine, it is still never shipped until two and a half years later. Our Verdelho was delicious and didn’t seem to need anything to nibble at.
We made our Sponsor feel at home by sitting down to dinner 20 minutes late. The first course was Pudim de Bacalhau. Although Portugal is famous for fresh fish; the staple food is bacalhau – salt cod. It is always served on Fridays in Lisbon but every day in other parts of the country. There are said to be 100 ways of preparing it; ours was pudim or pudding. A sort of steamed fish cake the size of a rugger ball. In Portugal salad must be tossed by a madman. Ours came from the Staff House kitchen and admirably set off our cod and potato pudding. With it we drank an excellent white wine: Dão Terras Altas Branco, 1972.
The Sponsor considered giving us beef next as the English are called Bifs in Portugal because of their rosy cheeks, but finally he chose duck – Roast Duck with Chouriços & Rice. The chouriços – Portuguese garlic sausages – were sliced and fried. The rice was boiled in stock with onions and the chopped giblets. The combination was delicious as was the excellent red Perequita 1966.
Then we had another Pudim. This time a sort of orange cream with which we drank a 25-year-old Moscatel de Setubal – what a mouth- watering sound and a lovely drink.
Finally, with nuts and raisins, we drank a drink which we were told was an English drink, invented by the English, best bottled in London and still largely drunk by the English: vintage port. On this occasion Quinta do Noval 1960. It is hardly drunk in Portugal except by the shippers, but Senhor Dias had lived in England since 1947 and learned to appreciate it here. He could not tell us why bottling in England seemed to give the best results but sadly the new regulations in Portugal may make this impossible so 1963 may be the last really good vintage bottled in England.
As well as our English port, we had drunk Madeira, a good dry white wine, a good red and a delicious dessert wine. Portugal produces, our sponsor claimed, the biggest variety of wines of any country except France. The wine should not be compared with French wines but judged on their own merits. Portuguese wine was not plonk. Members agreed. In the long run that product of marketing and packaging, Mateus Rosé, has probably harmed the Portuguese wine trade. In Portugal they drink 97 bottles of wine per year per head of the population; in England only 9. Senhor Dias felt that as a Portuguese wine merchant there was a great future.
Our dinner and the wines we drank were excellent but simple and unsophisticated and yet it was an outstandingly agreeable and exciting occasion. This was certainly due to the enthusiasm, knowledge, forcefulness and charm of our Sponsor, Senhor Dias. We are much in his debt for the great pleasure that he gave us all.
There were present 39 members and 7 guests as follows: –
