Soooo! It’s late Sunday afternoon. Flocks of house martens and bee-eaters are circling colourfully and noisily overhead. A slight breeze is keeping the ambient temperature just on the bearable side of 40c, yet Das Fürballen are crashed out panting on their backs, trying to stay cool. Lewis Hamilton has just won the Belgain Grand Prix, although why that drab, rainy little country warrants a Grand Prix is quite beyond me, so let me tell you instead about a sortie we undertook last week, Thursday to be precise.
In the delightful company of the NSW and a couple of friends I drove for an hour or so down to the south east and the ancient Algarvian coastal town of Castro Marim overlooking the Spanish border to enjoy the opening night of Dias Medievais, a four-day-long annual festival of history, spectacle and, most importantly for this wolf, gastronomy.
Everything is supposed to kick off around seven in the evening, hora portuguesa. Now, you have to understand that although the Portuguese word amanhã may seem similar to the Spanish mañana, it in no way whatsoever conveys the same sense of urgency, so when we turfed up in the narrow streets below the castle at something approaching 8 PM we were just in time for the procession. The good burghers of Castro Marim pull out all the stops and any ‘modern’ shop front is cloaked in hessian and the alleyways are filled with wooden stalls selling every kind of stuff from ‘erbs ‘n’ spices to New-Age crystals. The parade takes place in this warren of streets and alleys with dancing groups and bands interspersed with armoured Christian knights on chargers and Moorish califs in flowing robes on camels – the whole theme of this evening being a celebration of the Algarve’s colourful history and architectural and culinary past.
At the end of the procession everyone joins in the stiff walk up to the castle which sits on a rocky outcrop like a mother hen protecting her chicks, the dwellings of Castro Marim that nestle in her shadow, and where the evening really begins. Once inside, one is invited to exchange Euros (at the convenient rate of 1 to 1) for heavy, iron reais, an ancient coinage specially minted each year for the festival and which may be exchanged for a bewildering array of goods and services. Unfortunately our non-Portuguese speaking friends could not cope with the real, plural reais, and they soon amended the name to a more English ‘groat’ and subsequently to the even more Anglo-Saxon ‘scrote’.
Anyway, after expending several ‘scrotes’ on ale we did the tour of the keep, watching the falconer preparing his charges for the forthcoming display, a blacksmith beating a sheet of red-hot iron into an armoured breastplate, the torture chamber and the stables with a proper farrier shoeing the horses for the forthcoming conflict. No matter – something else was attracting my attention, that unmistakable and delectable scent of cooked meat wafting in the air. And so it proved to be. They had at least two whole hogs on spit roasts conveniently situated at opposite ends on the castle, generously interspersed with oil drum barbies with spatchcocked chicken, prawn kebabs, grilled cuttlefish, traditionally produced sausages and even smoked, air-dried octopus tentacles. The latter – a fishy tasting version of biltong or jerky – are interesting in that I first sampled them on a remote island in Tonga and discovered much more recently that Portuguese mothers give these chewy delights to fractious infants in lieu of rusks or plastic teething rings.
We enjoyed the rest of the exhibitions, the jewellers making the most amazingly delicate filigree pendants out of silver thread, the Gregorian chants echoing in the remains of the castles’s chapel, the weavers, the millers and the other artisans, watched the jousting display and the hand-to-hand swordfighting and the eagles flying into the smokey darkness of the warm Algarvian night to return swooping for the falconer’s meaty reward. Eventually, full of roast pork, chocos and edible goodies we wound our way back through the still crowded streets to the carpark and headed back to the dark quietness of the Alentejo.
A good day.
OZ
Boadicea's Chariot 
Lovely descriptions. Excellent photos.
Cheers, Pseu – pleased you enjoyed it.
Sniff! Hello? Sniff sniff! Hmmm! What do we have here? Sniff sniff sniff! Yoo hoo, Bilby! Huge paw-over-the-ears wave and tail set at maximum jauntiness. I know you’re out there.
OZ
Great post OZ and wonderful pic’s. You were within spitting distance of where we were in June.
Evenin’ Toc – From the battlements of the Castelo de Castro Marim one can look out across the Guadiana river into what the Spanish like to think of as the ‘Spanish Algarve’ – a pale imitation of the real McCoy, IMHO, and it behoves any patriotic Portuguese to gob one off in that general direction. Next time stay in Portugal and I’ll come down and buy you a beer.
OZ
I’m not here really, OZ. 🙂 Great post though, mouth-watering descriptions and lovely pics; certainly worth a click of the ‘like’ button, even though I didn’t, as far as I’m aware. This happens A LOT!
A Great Australian Bilby Ear Wave back at you. 🙂
Sounds amazing, OZ. Quite jealous. And I’ve always, ALWAYS wanted to see a bee-eater since I was eight and my unc gave me Birds of the World as an unbirthday present.
I love the idea of giving an air-dried octopus tentacle to a baby as a teething aid. 🙂
A cracking trip, OZ and great slide show. I can almost smell the spit roast.
For some reason a picture of one of the boars did not appear in the slideshow. Here he is, a veritable beast of a hog with thighs like an Olympic sprint cyclist.
It also missed the fishy kebabs of prawn, squid and monkfish grilling amidst much smoke on a classic oil-drum barbie.
All in all, it was a good evening.
OZ
Nice piece, OZ, and great pics.
Here you are Jan. Wonderful little birds, so colourful.
OZ
Lovely grub! 🙂
Lovely blog and pics OZ, sorry to be brief but I’m still in agony typing. I’m giving in and off to the Docs tomorrow to see if he can help get shut of it. Sorry to be antisocial of late.
Excellent post OZ, great pics and a great story, thanks.
Hiya Val – Is that shoulder still giving you gyp? Get yourself down to the quack pronto and then maybe we can have some decent photos on these pages again. 🙂
Mornin’, Soutie – My pleasure, although I am becoming concerned that most of my posts seem to be food related. I stuck my snout outside just now and it’s already 35º and they’re forecasting 41º by midday, so I’d better go and do something constructive before yet another day is lost to the heat.
Toodle pip!
OZ
Oh,wow. The sight of those fish kebabs had all my taste-buds going *ping.*
Thanks for the bee-eater image, OZ. Superb! I had no idea they were small. I always thought they were the size of magpies. Are they blackbird-sized or even smaller like a warbler?
Mornin’ Jan – Forget taste buds going *ping*, I was reduced to a slobbering, drooling wreck by the sight and smell of those kebabs and particularly by the hogs-on-a-stick. I must admit to having subsequently made a bit of a pig of myself if the truth be known.
Bee-eaters are smaller than magpies, but certainly bigger than the house martens that often fly with them. They’re something more starling-sized, have amazing sharply pointed wingtips and call constantly to each other when in flight.
Just put a shoulder of boar in the oven to roast. Fancy a bit of lunch? I’m doing garlic roast potatoes, home-grown steamed veggies, onion gravy and all the business. There will be wine, no doubt, and the front door’s open.
OZ
OZ, isn’t your new squeeze sharing your bounty these Mondays?
Janus – The NSW, or ‘my new squeeze’ as you so delicately put it, will be arriving shortly as it happens. Anyway, what’s wrong with a bit of multi-tasking? 😀
OZ
That’s a relief. Enjoy your repast…..
I’m now very very hungry, Oz.
Lovely post and pics! 🙂
Wow. Those bee-eaters must look quite something flying in a flock. All that colour!
OZ you certainly know how to eat well. I can almost smell it. I could have brought a fresh-baked blackberry and apple crumble too! Blackberries picked this afternoon at idyllic Pinbury Park, Glos – where Masefield used to live. It’s not been a great summer for blackberries locally but there, they were massive – bigger than cultivated raspberries.
Though not a patch on your medieval festivity, OZ, the Belgian Grand Prix does have some good points. I’m thinking of the chips and waffles, though I accept that they wouldn’t appeal to a carnivore like yourself. The year we went to the race it was dry and sunny, so a bit of a procession. You need Belgium’s rain to make the race interesting and to keep the beautiful scenery green.
Oooh Looordd! – Burp! Streeetch! Scratch, scratch. Pffrrrttt! Burp! Scratch.
Never again, I swear (until the next time) and belated greetings from a dyspeptic and drooping wolf. Yesterday was a hoot, seeming, as it indeed was, a good idea at the time. Lunch was excellent, even though I say so myself and would have been more than adequate for any day, but then came the fatal phone call….
“We’re all going up to your favourite restaurant for dinner. Pick you up at seven.” Groaning under the weight of previously mentioned shoulder of boar plus all the trimmings, I rolled out of the deeper recesses and into the shower, towelled myself dry, took a deep breath and headed out. You just can’t miss an invitation like this because the owner, who cooks far better than me on a wood-fired range way up in the hills, always serves up a storm.
And so it proved to be yet again. Cheeses, olives, bread and presunto to whet the appetite, grilled sea-bream, tenderloin of pork in a fig sauce and lamb chops spiked with fresh rosemary and garlic served with salads and arroz de pato, baked duck-in-rice, the fish and the rice being the only things not raised or produced on site. Chilled melon, carob cake or apple tart for dessert followed by coffees and brandies and all for fifteen Euros per head.
I was deposited back at The Cave in the early hours of this morning knowing I had to be out before nine, scrubbed and glowing to pick up the NSW for our Portuguese language lesson. You all think I live the life of Riley here, but it’s tough, let me tell you. How I made it to the NSW’s Cave or got through the lesson I do not know – thank God I had already done my homework. On arriving back around two pee emm I felt the compelling need for a quiet, dark lie down from which I have only recently emerged.
Jan – The blackberry and apple crumble sounds delicious, but can we leave it until next time?
Sheona – Please don’t even talk to me right now about cones of finely cut, crispy Belgian chips with mayonnaise.
Araminta – There’s some cold pork and crackling in the fridge. Help yourself, sweetie. Sorry!
Beeelllccchhhh!
OZ