Basic information about the food culture in Portugal
Going out to eat is always an easier option than making your own food. In Leiria it is also really cheap option at least if you compare it to the prizes in my home country. Roughly said a dinner out in Finland can easily cost you 20-40 euros especially if you order something like a bottle of wine to enjoy with the food. In Portugal it often takes you 5-10 euros to do this. The difference is huge! You can view this in section “Cost of living” where you have a link available to make your own price comparison.
Eating out is also a cultural thing. When moving to a new place it is highly recommended to get to know the local food culture because in Portugal it might be tough or even impossible to find all the same food products that you use in your home country. I used to miss my morning porridge, the curd and of course the Finnish candy a lot.
My adapting to the local food culture was rapid. I come from a hunting family so I’m basically used to eat anything that is served. In the mornings I eat fruits and whole-grain cereals (luckily found whole-grain ones from Lidl), during lunch I eat at IPLeiria and the portions are… Well huge and during the evenings I often cook myself. The local food is good as I expected but maybe I should change my style a bit: too much red meat and fried potatoes definitely. In Finland I am more used to eating things like chicken and fish a bit more and I basically never eat potatoes. On the other hand I rarely consume any bread here as most of the bread is made out of wheat flour so it’s not something I enjoy. Finding a place that sells rye bread here in Portugal is my next task.
Traditional Portuguese dishes are often made from simple ingredients, based on regional produce with an emphasis on fish. The former colonies in Africa, India and the Far East have influenced Portuguese cuisine making it very different from the nearby Mediterranean countries. Many herbs and spices such as pepper, saffron, ginger and coriander were introduced into Europe by the Portuguese, as were coffee, pineapples, potatoes and rice amongst other ingredients.
Portuguese recipes are characterised by their use of a wide variety of spices, for example, piri piri (a spicy chilli pepper), vanilla, cinnamon and saffron. Southern Portuguese cuisine has Arab and Moorish influences and an old tradition of almond and fig sweets.
Breakfast (pequeno almoço) consists mainly of milk, coffee, bread rolls or toast, butter and jam. Lunch (almoço) is the main meal of the day and can be a leisurely affair, while dinner (jantar) is usually served late in the evening. (Angloinfo.com)
A cup of coffee is usually a small and really strong compared to our Finnish ones. At first it was kinda a shock as I have a huge cup in Finland which holds about half a liter of coffee and it is usually full in the morning and this Portuguese one is such a small one. The strong taste satisfied me from the first cup and I really like my morning coffee at work which is also a social occasion with my colleagues.
It’s quite a Finnish tradition to also eat buns with the coffee. Eating buns is luckily not that common in Portugal but I occasionally try to enjoy local cakes. Eating cakes is Finland is more of a thing that we do during celebration but in Portugal I try to taste some local cakes (bolo) in every Friday. Sweet cakes they are and really really delicious in my opinion.
