Year In The World Part 4

The restaurants in the pousadas are committed to preserving local cooking traditions and using the best products of the area. In the baronial dining room we taste a garlic soup with sheep's cheese and bread. Bread soups, called acordas, are basic to Portuguese cuisine, just as the famous ribollita is to the Tuscan repertoire. I often make another "dry" Tuscan soup of bread and onions. I'm crazy about these soups you can eat with a fork. With such exquisite bread, how could acordas be anything other than sumptuous? In Lisbon we tried another with shrimp. We're on the lookout for soups made with pumpkin or chickpeas, both staples in the Alentejo, an area known for delicious soups. Having seen partridges at the market, we are pleased to find them on the menu. Nicely served with bread and sausage stuffing, the partridge is rich and savory. They must have been served to Alfonso, Pedro, and Fernando, the three kings who lived here and to whom we must be indebted for the eventual fate of this castelo-a haven for travellers. The cheese course! All those bell-ringing sheep out there in the dark, praise unto you! Is there a saint of cheese? If so, I offer my thanks.

In the maiden bed I dream not a dream, just an image: an iridescent gray pigeon with a blue morning glory blooming on top of its head.

We roam the countryside around Estremoz, looking at the smallest villages' Roman ruins, towers, prehistoric stones scattered across fields, and more of the enchanting white churches left all alone in fields where their beauty attains a sculptural purity. The towns are sometimes so small that we don't realize we've pa.s.sed them. The whole Alentejo invites walking or bicycling. The sweeping terrain rolls on and on, expansive and empty. In this season the green fields look as though they are underpainted with light. And they are lit also with the music of bells! Oh, for a horse. This province may be Portugal's poorest in income, but the people live in beauty, both their houses and their land, and enjoy the bounty of their own gardens and pigs. They are everywhere welcoming, though our communication, out this far, is almost nil.

evoramonte is spectacular, a lost-to-the-world white village of church, hermitage, castle, and commanding view. In the cemetery perched on the edge of the steep hill, a life-sized marble angel sits at the head of a grave, looking contemplative. I think I never have seen a seated angel in a cemetery. So Lourenco de Mamporco, with 558 inhabitants, possesses a little church with such a graceful rounded apse and bell tower that I sit down and try to draw it in my notebook. The organic curve looks as though it were shaped in one sweep by a large hand. Our drive ends in the fortress town of Arriolos, where some houses are trimmed in periwinkle and yellow as well as the familiar blue. Is this town real? A man is vacuuming the street-he doesn't miss a b.u.t.t-with a contraption a bit bigger than our garage vac. The town business is woven rugs, not needlepoint but a larger weave. In the cooperative a woman tells us the entire history of the cottage industry, beginning with the Moor converts, through art nouveau. She says in English, "Now the rugs are made by women who do not want a boss." And who does? In the plaza where the wool dying once took place, a hidden fountain sends random jets of water in various directions, riffs moving at changing speeds and patterns, startling dogs and tourists. What fun to run through in the summer. I am everywhere imagining our new grandson travelling with us in a few years, can almost see him in a blue sunsuit making a dash through the arcs of water. The church, all tiled inside with blue and white scenes of acts of mercy, feels intimate. In response to the white, white town, even the sky seems bluer here. Men in berets play cards at a cafe, and a few women at looms sit in the doorways for more light. A pillory in the plaza is the only reminder that life was not always so serene in Arriolos.

The next day we move on to the pousada at evora, magnificent evora. We have been deprived in our long lives. What if we never had come? The center of town, the elliptical Praca do Giraldo, surrounded by arcaded sidewalks, outdoor cafes full of people relishing the spring air, and rows of small shops, reminds me of Tuscany-much of life takes place in the navel of the town. Pousada dos Lolos, once a convent, faces the impressive columns of a Roman temple. The arcades are not the only hint of the Moors. A few domes and a ruined gate also remind us, as do the spiderweb streets leading us away and around whatever point on the map we've chosen.

One chosen spot is the Carlos-recommended tasca Tasquinha d'Oliveira, small and cheery, with half a dozen tables and walls hung with traditional pottery. The owner immediately starts bringing tapas, so many that we decide to forgo whatever main courses he has cooking. He brings a fantastic red reserva, Monte da Penha from Porto Alegre. Here's another divine bread, with a slight hint of rye. Stuffed crab, fried cod fritters, cod and chickpeas, marinated mushrooms with mint, chicken tart, and meat croquettes-all small plates, but the quant.i.ty acc.u.mulates. We think lunch is over, but he arrives again-a spinach souffle with shrimp. Then a plate of scrambled eggs with wild asparagus. We come to the bottom of the bottle. Then arrives fresh sheep cheese with pumpkin marmalade and almonds. One spoon of the custard dessert, and my appet.i.te rebounds. This is one of the old convent egg sweets. Bless the nuns who must have entertained themselves in long afternoons by making something good. All these convent recipes feature eggs. Egg appear in soups, too. I don't know another cuisine where eggs are so prominent. Foamy white orbs cover a golden filling. Ed mentions his mother's graham cracker pie. In the background we hear Karen Carpenter singing "on top of the world looking down on creation," poor Karen, an anorexic woman whose voice hovers over a feast.

Outside evora's walls, the surrounding countryside is littered with dolmens and menhirs. So much prehistoric activity attests to the desirability of this area throughout history. We see a few of the twenty "noteworthy" castles in the nearby villages and the abandoned Tower of the Eagles, but mostly just roam. I would like to come back to Alentejo when the wheat turns the color of molten gold. At evening early spring sunlight falls like a bridal veil over the fields. I start to hum a camp song: "Highlands, thy sunshine is fairest, thy waters are clearest, my summertime home. Bright stars watch over my sleep like the eyes of the angels in heaven's blue dome." Driving through oak forests, we return to our own splendid abode.

We have been given a bedroom and an enormous living room covered on every inch with frescoes. A balcony opens over a courtyard with a grape pergola. Our bed surely was made for a king. The pousadas' signature welcome, a bucket with iced champagne, again waits. After such jaunts, what better siesta-time reward than a bath and a bed turned down to linen. Linen promotes good dreams.

Dinner takes place in the convent cloister, where perhaps the nuns served each other the sweets they spent their spare hours devising. The food tastes of ancient rural pleasures, and even the menu's translation gives a hint of rusticity: vinegar and mint soup, black pork lower jaws, sauteed steer, duck chest, crackling sc.r.a.p fat over asparagus, and pumpakin, which sounds more robust than pumpkin. We eat everything. We're eating our way across Portugal.

In the kingly bed on the pristine linen, I dream that my mother's grave has collapsed and I look in, seeing her red-gold hair, then she seeps out of the grave, wholly herself when young, and says, I have something to tell you. But I am horrified, answering, But you are dead. Dead. I have the sensation of swelling all over; I am about to rise off the ground and float. Whatever she wants to say, I do not want to hear. I want her back in the ground. Then Ed is shaking me, "You're having a bad dream," and I wake up fully aware of my refusal to listen. If someone comes back from death to tell you something, why not listen? I did not want to.

I slip out early and go downstairs, just as they are setting up the breakfast buffet. The dream disturbs me, and I want to be alone until it recedes. I sit in the cloister with a coffee and a guidebook. When others begin to come in, I walk out into a chill morning. The rows of Roman columns startle me every time I exit. evora is one of the great small towns of the world. Seignorial in aspect, with parks and mansions, this jewel box is also graced with fountains, parks, museums, and a cathedral of dimensions that inspire awe. I stop in to visit again the serene painted-wood Annunciation angel. The statue leaves Mary to be imagined. It's always easy to imagine Mary. Mothers are like that, no?

By the time I have dispelled my dream, Ed has had the migas with bits of pork we loved in Ronda. Fried bread has first "marinated" for several hours in olive oil, usually garlic, and enough hot water to moisten and break apart, and several pastries. "Did you know-you didn't scream-but you gave this weird cry that sounded like a ghost, 'Nooooooo,' like you were falling down a well."

"I think our room must have been the one Queen Isabel died in."

The town is full of restaurants, and this month they all are celebrating local soups. Last month they featured pork, and next month will be lamb. When we see notices on the streets for concerts, dance performances, and art shows, we think of the similar intense cultural life of our adopted home in Cortona. Looking at the menus posted outside each restaurant, I find these soups, all of which I look up in my now-essential Maria Modesto cookbook. The Portuguese range of soups astounds me. Carlos said, "Italians have pasta. We have soup." I'll skip the fava with pig's head in favor of dozens of others. Reading the recipes, I can almost taste these traditional soups that are available all over town this March: Sopa de beldroegas: purslane, which volunteers in my garden.

I'll try this soup with the traditional bread base, garlic,

and cheese.

Sopa de poejos: pennyroyal, which also springs up unasked at

Bramasole. This soup, too, is made with soaked bread,

with the addition of onion and garlic.

Sopa de tomate a Alentejana, also Sopa de tomate com toucinho,

linguica e ovos: tomato soup made with beef stock,

sometimes served with sausage and eggs.

Acordo de espinafres com queijo fresco, ovos e bacalhau:

"dry" soup of spinach, fresh cheese, eggs, and cod.

Sopa de poejos com bacalhau: pennyroyal with dried cod.

Sopa de peixe com hortel da ribeira: fish with a strong river

mint with the appearance of tarragon.

Sopa de caco: skate with coriander and vinegar,

sometimes paprika.

Sopa de feijo com mogango: beans and pumpkin, something

the pilgrim families might have made.

Sopa alentejana de espargos bravos: wild asparagus, which is

also a Tuscan mania. There the bitter little strings are

usually cooked into a frittata.

Sopa da panela: many kinds of meat, bread, and mint.

Sopa de alface com queijo fresco e ovos escalfados: lettuce

with fresh sheep's cheese and eggs, which we had at

the pousada one night. It had a clear broth with

floating ingredients, like a j.a.panese soup.

Sopa de feijo e batata com ossos de porco: beans, potatoes,

and pork bones.

Sopa de tuberas com linguica e toucinho: truffle soup with

sausage, fatback, and eggs.

Acorda a Alentejana: bread and garlic.