Fermentation is a thousands-year-old technique for preservation and enhancement of food. With the abundance coming from our vegetable garden, more than we can eat and share (since everyone’s garden around here is overflowing with courgettes and tomatoes as well ihih), we are exploring several alchemical ways of keeping the vegetables nutritious for longer.
As we neared the restaurant, fate met us on our way, taking the shape of José da Cruz and Joaquim, two villagers born and raised in Sobral Pichorro. And so, we had the most incredible guided tour of the building, for Joaquim the lagar where his dad worked all his life, and he as well during adolescence. For Zé da Cruz, a trip to his childhood days, in a reality which we, born close to the new millennium, almost won’t believe to be true.
At Vale das Lobas, in the area above the village of Sobral Pichorro, there is an incredible forest of tall, thin trees, with light-brown trunks covered in green, fluffy lichen, whose floor is now covered in a bed of leaves representing autumn hues. They are chestnut trees…
