Portuguese Appetizer
FISH SAUCE
(molho cru)
INGREDIENTS
3 garlic cloves
6 tablespoons fresh parsley
1 onion
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon crushed red peppers
½ teaspoon pepper
1 package saffron
⅓ cup cold water
1 cup cider vinegar
PREPARATION
Mince garlic and parsley. Dice onion. Add all ingredients to serving bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Put bowl in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Serve cold. This dish also works well for marinating fish.
TIDBITS
1) Want to really run with the bulls? Visit the Portuguese island of Terceira for the Sanjoaninas festivites in August. Simply hold a rope that is tied to a running bull. Okay, it is suggested that you run as well. Prove your courage to your loved one by scampering as close to the enraged, huge, muscular, sharp horned beast as possible. A gore wound is guaranteed to give you a story you can tell your friends forever. Go for it!
2) Admittedly, painful injuries just aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Well, if you’re one of these people may I suggest the Orange Throwing Competition in Ivrea, Italy? Held forty days before Lent, it’s perfect for the warrior in all of us yearning to participate in a safe war. (And how many of those occur these days?) Watch a parade. Blend in, pretend to savor the historical significance of some long ago battle. Then pelt other tourists and locals with overripe oranges. If life gives you rotten oranges, hold a festival.
3) Sometimes you just feel like being a dick. That’s a good time to head to Tyrnavos, Greece for its Phallus Festival. Start your celebration of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and whoopee, by eating spinach and nettle soup. Then go crazy and bop others on their heads with an enormous phallus–fake, not your own. This all ensures a good harvest and occurs at the start of Lent.
4) The Festa della Madonna Bruna in Matera, Italy, is perfect for everyone thirsting for vengeance against the law for that $400 in towing fees and fines they gave you for parking illegally in a spot where you couldn’t see the no-parking signs twelve feet off the ground and twenty yards behind you. Ahem. Police, locals, and participants battle for the possession of the float honoring the Madonna. Held on July 2, it’s good fun, it’s legal, and doesn’t cause run-on sentences.
– Chef Paul
My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World, and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com
As an e-book on Nook
or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com
Sounds like we need a Humor Outcasts pilgrimage to those locations. But getting some of the props through airport security might be a challenge (or fun)