When in Portugal, Do as the Carnivores Do

One of my favorite things about any vacation is going out to eat.  Choosing a restaurant, sipping some foreign wine, and randomly selecting a meal based on the relative phonetic ease of pronouncing the dish.  Which is how I ended up with a bowl of snails for dinner once in Spain, and had to ask the waitress to show me how to pull their snail bodies out of their shells with toothpicks.

At this point, I should mention that I’m a vegetarian.  I haven’t eaten meat for about 7 years, but you can keep reading, because I’m not about to give you a lecture!  When I’m traveling, my general rule is that one or two bites of meat is okay, because it’s part of the culture.  I also don’t want to offend, so if I happen to be served a plate of snails, well, so be it.  People eat plenty of things that live on sidewalks, right?

In Portugal, vegetarian is a dirty word, and their salads consist of slices of left over vegetables from the meat dishes.  Their motto is: the sun is warm, we’re being incredibly friendly, so just let us eat a lot of meat!  The first night in Lisbon, my parents and I chose a restaurant after walking the gauntlet of waiters, who were waiting by the giant menus in the small, cobblestone streets, waiting to pounce and follow you, looking you in the eye and chanting a list of dishes they offer.  “Good evening-salmon-monkfish-steak-pizza-pasta-cheese-no?-okay-thank you-have-a-nice-night-cod?-no?”  It sure is hard to say no to a guy who looks like maybe his mother cooked that cod, and thus, we sat down, lest another waiter try to take the chair out from under us and drag it over to his restaurant.

We opened the menus.  I’m pretty sure this restaurant listed all of the meat dishes it knew and then just started naming cute Disney animals.  “Salmon, Pork Cheek, Baby Veal, Soft Lamb, Bambi’s Mother…”  I tried to choose the least offensive dish, but was told they were out of it.  The waiter suggested some sort of fish, which seemed like a safe choice until it arrived, mouth agape, and eyes piercing my soul.  Instead, I tried to imagine that it was a mean fish from Finding Nemo, but only ended up seeing a slow, cheesy montage of Nemo and his buddies, playing over and over in my head.

Throughout the meal, its eyes kept watching me, but not more than our attentive waiter.  When I tried to give the international symbol for “finished”, by putting my fork and knife together, he informed me that in Portugal that meant “finished.”  Yes.  “But you’re not finished, are you?”  He looked even more horrified than the fish.  So I scooped up the silverware and nervously laughed.  No, I was just about to take another forkful of Nemo.  I wasn’t about to get let off the hook (and neither was the fish), and I discovered what was worse than eating Nemo while Nemo was watching: eating Nemo while Nemo was watching while I was unbelievably full.

I’ve heard of parents finding their kids smoking and forcing them to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes to cure them of the habit.  Well, eating a fried fish while guilty meat sweat dotted my forehead worked the same way.  And so, you can find me on the beach tomorrow; I’ll be the one catching fish just to hug them.