There’s big trouble in Little Portugal

Salted cod and sandwiches doused in gravy?

Photo by Simon Redd/Alamy

As with everything that happened before 1980, we can blame God. I am talking, of course, about the Portuguese zeal for salted cod. Catholics used to have very strict rules about when they could eat meat, and so fish was a handy alternative. But, as fellow enthusiasts of the EU Common Fisheries Policy will know, Atlantic cod do not actually live near Portugal. They were caught, preserved in salt to survive the import journey, and eaten in Lisbon on a Friday.

Now, bacalhau remains on menus despite modern refrigeration techniques and the slow retreat of Catholicism. They continue to eat it… because they want to? I am afraid the Portuguese and I might be divided by a lot more than unites us. Salted cod is, well, very salty. And a bit coddy for my tastes too. I am staring into a refrigerator full of it – in strips, chunks, sheets and whatever other way you could butcher the disarmingly big animals. Huh, fish jerky, I thought. Dreadful idea!

We are in a supermarket in Little Portugal – that tiny Iberian exclave in central/south London. I am inspecting the aisles as one might in a Carrefour in France, or an Esselunga in Italy. This is anthropological research into the culinary idiosyncrasies of foreigners, an exercise more instructive than plodding through a national museum. For example, it’s here that I learn of the Portuguese affection for chocolate milk – if the hectares of floor space taken up by glasses of “Ucal” are anything to go by. I want to know: when and how did Portugal become the “it” nation? It cannot be the fish.

You see, somewhere around 2012, the Euro-hipsters lost interest in Berlin and turned their attention westwards. Lisbon was recovering from the financial crash at the same time that Kreuzberg was becoming a little passé – and so they marched into the peninsula, declared Spree-Athen “so over” and “Porto actually kinda more interesting than Lisbon if you’re really in the know”. Portugal was beamed into the consciousness of the world and bifanas started cropping up on London’s menus (Quality Wines in Farringdon does the best version available in this city).

But I am sceptical that the food had anything to do with the Portuguese Decade (the stateless, nomadic Euro-hipsters have since moved on to Marseille). For one, there is a culinary giant next door in the shape of Spain – with all of that oily tapas and the superiority complex afforded by San Sebastián. No, Portugal cannot keep up, even with all that shelf-stable milk – Goliath wins this one.

But, back to the London exclave. I am sitting outside Estrela dos Lusitanos. This is about as perfect a replica of a southern European restaurant one could get – I don’t know who told the Spanish, Portuguese and Italians that they ought to hoard all of the world’s stainless steel for their furniture needs, but if you need a shiny metal table you know where to look. Ditto for those continental paper tablecloths and plastic ashtrays. On a sunny day it is about the best place to eat outside in London .

I am told to order a francesinha – recommended to me as a typical Portuguese sandwich. What arrives instead is more like a small boat. White bread, covered in melted cheese, itself then covered in a thick brown gravy (?) with some hard-to-identify meats inside. It takes 15 minutes of careful excavation to learn that there is also sausage in there. I decided to sip calmly the Super Bock instead. What the hell was that? I left scratching my head.

Never mind – there is a lot to like about Portugal, I just wouldn’t personally head there for lunch. Plenty has been said about the triumph of southern Europe – as it emerges from economic desolation, catches up with and looks as if it will, in some ways, take over its plodding northern peers. Good: we could do with a little hot-headed, Mediterranean, Catholic energy up here – consider it the spiritual opposite to “Manchesterism”. But we just don’t need to do it over salty fish and wet sandwiches.

[Further reading: Britain in the crosshairs]