Touring Portugal through Its Cheeses: A Meal in Itself

Like its wines, Portugal’s cheeses are little-known, varied, and delectable. It is not a country for the lactose intolerant. Every meal starts with a soft, pungent cheese in the middle of the table, waiting to be dug into with fresh white bread.

And then there’s a wine shop like this one, which specializes in Portuguese wines and Ports, and an array of cheeses from a variety of animals: cow, yes, but also sheep and goat. If you can believe it, this ‘meal,’ which began with a crisp Sauvignon Blanc from Southern Portugal, took two hours to ford through. It’s a lot of cheese, even for two people, and after several pieces you start to slow down, but don’t want to leave any behind.

Surrounding a generous dollop of homemade pumpkin jam (sweet and yet savory, similar to quince paste) and served with lots of crusty, flour-dusted white bread were:
1. Quemoso — a strong, hard goat cheese
2. Mistura — made from sheep and goat
3. Curado — a fantastic mix of sheep, cow, and goat
(At this point I was fantasizing about what genetic engineering proponents were going to do with this information in the future — cheese from a shcoat, perhaps?)
4. Azeitao D.O.P. (Dominacion Origin Portugal) — a soft, runny sheep’s cheese
5. A basic cow’s cheese from Azores, surprisingly sharp and salty
6. Serpa D.O.P. — a hard, biting sheep’s cheese

I am actually slightly allergic to milk, but that didn’t stop me from savoring every morsel of the two-hour cheese feast, cut by the pumpkin jam, light Portuguese wines, and ending with a white Port — Krohn Branco Seco, 8 years in the cask — that tasted deliciously like honey wine and was so delightful we actually shelled out 25 euros to take a bottle home to the States. Amongst our friends, it lasted about a week, but what’s the fun of traveling if you can’t share bits of your experiences with friends who can’t or don’t?