Some time ago, at the end of February, Tony, Dino and I were showing the progress of our restaurant by the river to Miguel, Carolina and Dinis. They are the wonder team who are making… a documentary here in the valley! And of course, we couldn’t skip a visit to the old lagar – an olive oil mill, which will be ready to serve you delicious food by this summer 2021.
As we neared the restaurant, fate met us on our way, taking the shape of 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 had worked all his life, and he as well during adolescence. For Zé da Cruz, a trip to his childhood days, and a reality which we, born close to the new millennium, almost won’t believe to be true.
This meeting will be told in two parts. We start by getting to know how the lagar worked in the 60’s, in the same exact spot where the restaurant is being born through a reconstruction with natural materials and renewable energy sources. In this and the second part, we will discover something of the reality of two boys born in the 40’s. Here is the conversation that we had in the old lagar of Sobral Pichorro, by the river.
[We walk into the ground floor of the old lagar, future restaurant]
JOAQUIM
I have many memories here. I still have one here… [he shows me a scar in his hand], it was a chain… the chain ran through here and wiped this part clean off.
CATARINA
The memories of the skin.
JOAQUIM
They are gone gone, it was before i joined the army, in 65, it’s been 60 years… 50 something years.
CATARINA
How old were you when you worked here?
JOAQUIM
16-, 17-, 18-years-old. I joined the army at 20. It was in August, I still worked here in the lagar until March. They I went to Angola.
This was all olive tree fields, Zé da Cruz knows, he’s also from here, from my time. Here in the house [the lagar] we would be 20 and a few men, 30 something women. Every day.
[We approach the turbine well]
JOAQUIM
This now is for generating electricity, in those times it was just to make the lagar work. All the pieces and cogs of the lagar worked from a chain that came out of here. The driving force for all the lagar, it came out from here. We didn’t even see it [the turbine], it was always covered in water, because this worked through water pressure. If it was full, it would have more force.
In the olive oil phase, it was just olive oil. There was a flour mill. They made flour underneath here. Where the olive oil was up here. From the month of Christmas until February, sometimes March, it was just olive oil. The water was the same, the one in the turbine. The water passed here on the river, and it made the whole lagar work, and then came out through down here to the river again!
ZÉ DA CRUZ
There were two lagares here, now there is none.
JOAQUIM
And there was one in Aldeia Nova.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
All the villages had a lagar back in the days.
JOAQUIM
There was a lot of olive! And now who picks it?
CATARINA
Next fall I’ll come help too!
ZÉ DA CRUZ
You don’t say. You’ll really come? To work the olives?
CATARINA
Yes, i will.
JOAQUIM
Then up there was our room. We slept here. We all slept in the same room, each in our own bed … In the time of my father, I already came to sleep here many times.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
And here there was also good food. That dark break, toasted. A toast with olive oil.
JOAQUIM
In those days, we would slaughter a pig. One or two. If the olive oil flowed well, good maquia, as we called it, there would be a chouriço [smoked meat sausage] or a morcela [smoked blood sausage] or a farinheira [smoked meat and flour sausage], a demijohn of wine. There were always demijohns of wine, we drank when we could. We didn’t drink a lot, because, well.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
But still enough to get drunk. [laughing]
JOAQUIM
In the evening we stopped at around 7 or 8 o’clock. We didn’t go straight to bed! We hung around, there was a… a boiler, where we heated the water for the work. We worked with hot water. The basis of olive oi is boiling-hot water, minimum 90 degrees Celsius. So there was always a big, copper boiler on top of a furnace. We drank some glasses, talked, until 10 or 11, then we went to bed.
CATARINA
And at what time did you get up the next day?
JOAQUIM
At 6 AM, we had an alarm clock, and everyone got up. Then we had our morning coffee, what was our morning coffee? We put a pan of boiling water with olive oil, which was abundant, and then a bit of bread in the bowl and that was breakfast. That was what was available! There was no coffee.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
Not even sugar to make it sweet! But it wasn’t a lot of bread. Not a lot of bread!
JOAQUIM
Good times, good times.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
Good times?? [interjection]
JOAQUIM
Good times, but back then it wasn’t easy. This is hard work. Today they deliver a bag of 20, 30 kilos, back in the days it was bags of 100, 110 kilos. Because it wasn’t by weight, it was by the bag. So we had to fill it up well to give more, to put in the mill. The mill was right here. [He points to a spot close to the turbine well]
CATARINA
The millstones.
JOAQUIM
The millstones, exactly. They were right here; we came with the bag of olives on our back. And so, we worked here, weeks and weeks. We slept here. Sunday morning, we would leave, by nightfall we were back here again.
CATARINA
You would just go see your family and then came back.
JOAQUIM
Just that. From the moment the lagar opened until it closed, we slept here every night. Sunday morning, we would go to the village for the day. By nightfall we were here again
JOAQUIM
I’m going to tell you a story, only António Alberto knows it. And Paganeta. Is Paganeta still alive? Paganeta was also here! It was him, my brother Amândio, and Ti Albano. We slept up there all in the same room. Each one of us had their own bed, like an army barracks. One Sunday we came down from the village, they were all tipsy, at the time I still didn’t drink … I wasn’t old enough yet. We went upstairs to the bedroom, one bed was turned with its back to Sobral, another on that side, another on the other side, and another on the other side, making a circle. The chief’s was the one upstairs, the one with the lamp and the alarm clock. I went upstairs, I couldn’t sleep. They were all sleeping, each one turned to one side, what do I do? For about three hours, alone, I went over there to the head of the bed, moved it half a meter there, then went to the foot of the bed, moved it there. I turned them all the other way around. I turned all the beds.
Ti Albano slept with his back to Sobral. By daylight, the alarm clock rang, he woke up, “Oh! Oh! When I wake up, I never see Sobral here and now I can see it? Oh! Something happened here! Something happened here!” Then Tó, a young boy, said, “My bed is also turned the other way around!”. And then [laughs] my brother. Mine was the only one that was not turned around, because I was not going to turn my bed, it wasn’t worth it.
CATARINA
A prank!
JOAQUIM
Exactly, a prank. But they didn’t believe that it had been me, it had been… witches.
JOAQUIM
So the olives went through that door. This is where they were stored, we called it tulha [the reservoir]. The olives that came from the olive trees.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
It had stone tulhas, square ones.
JOAQUIM
CATARINA
Shall we go upstairs to see your old room?
JOAQUIM
These were long years. As I was telling you, i was raised here from a young age, because I would come here to my dad. My dad was the master here. And I would come here with him to sleep and eat.
CATARINA
And join the party!
[Outside, at the door of the old lagar]
JOAQUIM
The bagaço came out through here. You know what the bagaço is, it’s the leftover from the olives. So it went to the factory so that they could make oil and other things out of it, for animal feed and such. A small truck came from up there by the bridge, on this old path.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
It was through this path!
JOAQUIM
There was only this one, and no other.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
That road up there didn’t exist, it was from later.
JOAQUIM
And so it came, arrived here, sometimes the oxen had to tow it so it could get closer.
CATARINA
So an ox wagon came?
JOAQUIM
Sometimes when there was a lot of water and the truck couldn’t make it here, it skidded, and it was towed here. It was a very small truck. Back then there were no lorries as there are today.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
Yes, they didn’t exist back then.
JOAQUIM
They were small vehicles, of about 5, 6 tons. The bagaço went on trucks, the olive went on the wagons. Because the bagaço was taken to far away.
CATARINA
What exactly is the bagaço?
ZÉ DA CRUZ
It is the olive pit. The thing is crushed… Portuguese is sometimes hard to understand, isn’t it? It’s hard. Because you see, if it’s in wine it’s cangalho. You get wine, you squeeze it, you get cangalho. Here, the olive goes in, olive oil comes out, what is left is bagaço.
JOAQUIM
From the olive you get three things. You get olive oil, clean, you get… between the olive oil and the [bagaço], they call it aziaga, which is that black water, and then you get that bagaço, which you can make feed out of, you can extract oil. Because that bagaço will be milled again. It’s milled again and crushed and squeezed again.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
And they burned it also, to heat up the water.
JOAQUIM
Then they make fertilizer. Most of it is for feed, for animals.
CATARINA
And the black water, what did you do to it?
JOAQUIM
Went down the river.
CATARINA
So the river must have turned black!
JOAQUIM
You see that here there was a well, the well of hell… The well of hell was more of a precaution, it worked like this: there were two deposits, here on the outside of the lagar, two stone deposits, with good, stone walls. The residues would come to these wells. Because olive oil is like the truth, it always comes up to the top. It is how the saying goes.
CATARINA
And that is true!
JOAQUIM
The truth is like the olive oil, it always floats up to the top. And so the black waters would sink to the bottom and the olive oil would float to the top. Then in the end of that well, of that tank, there was a pipe, which came out. Since the heavier water would sink, it came out through that pipe, and the olive oil would stay up. And then they would collect the oil from time to time.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
That one was for the lagar owner.
JOAQUIM
That one was for the lagar owner. It was a precaution because back then you could forget a badly-closed tap, so it went to those wells. But then you also ended up with a bit of extra oil.
JOAQUIM
My parents didn’t have olives, but we had a lot of olive oil because my dad always worked in the lagar. Back then, they worked 12 hours in here, to get one liter of olive oil. One liter of olive oil!
CATARINA
It was the salary!
JOAQUIM
Those who went around hitting the olive trees with the stick, to make the olives fall, they started at 8 [in the morning], whether it rained, or snowed, they would go around so they wouldn’t lose the [work] day, one liter of olive oil. They didn’t earn more, and the woman would earn half a liter. They came from Pena Verde, and from Queiriz, from all that area up there, they left at 6 am to be here at 8am. They went around with the stick all day long, and by late afternoon they would carry the bag on their back to the village. There was no transportation. There were ox wagons but few had them…
JOAQUIM
We were 10 [siblings], now we are 8. His father-in-law [Zé da Cruz’s] they were 12. His wife has 11 brothers and sisters.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
Now they are 10, one has died.
JOAQUIM
3 or 4 are in Algarve.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
One in Brazil. Another has died in Brazil already. And another one is in Odivelas [in Lisbon].
JOAQUIM
We were 8. Now we are 5. 3 are gone.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
Already issued their boarding pass.
JOAQUIM
But as I was saying, back then we had bigger portion [of land].
CATARINA
But then you had to divide them amongst all the siblings.
JOAQUIM
But then every sibling had to keep their portion. So they divided amongst all the offspring, and each got their share. Big portions for all of them wasn’t possible.
CATARINA
So then you got one olive tree for each! [laugh]
JOAQUIM
There were a lot of olive trees in these groves, [with] trees that didn’t belong to the owner of the olive grove itself.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
Sometimes, the poor… there was no money. In case a son was born or they needed stuff, they would ask the rich for money. They got an olive tree, there, done. Others would ask for money, they would get a portion of land. That’s how the rich would do it.
JOAQUIM
They had the power. As the folk said, they had the knife and the cheese in their hand. They had the money; they had the power. The poor… unlucky folk… They had to go there, with their cap in their hand. And sometimes they got a kick in the arse. Yes, unfortunately… But look, this all changed, what happens now is that those rich people are now the poorest.
CATARINA
Right?
JOAQUIM
Today, the poor from those times live better than the rich. [The rich] have their lands, but they are abandoned, no one wants them. There are huge homesteads of people that are still alive and no one goes there. The lands are abandoned, and they get nothing, nothing from them. No one wants them
CATARINA
And they don’t live here, they don’t take care of them…
JOAQUIM
Most of them don’t.
ZÉ DA CRUZ
There are a lot of parcels of land that, if this were some time ago, as soon as they announced the sale someone would immediately buy it.
JOAQUIM
In those days, were it 2 meters of land, it would be a done deal. For vegetables, for potatoes.
CATARINA
To eat, right?
And the conversation didn’t end there. It became more extraordinary. And I’ll share it with you next week.
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