St Martin's Day

November 11 is the date. My middle name is Martin, and I've just learned from my mother Shirley that my 'expected' birth date was this day. In Portugal, it's traditional to taste the new wine on St Martin's.

The workers on our house knew we have 500 litres of wine in the barrel. They made it quite clear that they expected a chance to taste it. So last Friday they planned bit of a do, with barbecued pork provided by the boss. It was a simple affair -- pork, bread, and new wine -- but it was enough to take a couple of hours out of the work day for them. As for our wine, I suppose I'd describe it as 'green'. Flavour is rather thin, and there's something of a bitter initial taste. Aftertaste is a bit more rounded, but I must admit I was expecting something a bit more sophisticated. Still, I think the flavour will develop over the next couple of months.

Another tradition on St Martin's is chestnuts. Three kilograms from the local supermarket (Ecomarche) cost about 5 euros. One of the workers roasted them by simply mixing them into a pile of pine needles and setting fire to the mix. It took only five minutes, and the result was as good as any chestnuts I've tasted. It's a technique I'll remember!

Some of our workers with the remains of the chestnuts!

Tabua has a large market on the nearest Sunday to St Martin's. It turned out to be little different from our regular monthly markets -- cheap clothes (mostly Chinese), shoes, tools (often hand made locally) and the usual CDs, DVDs, and trinkets. The only thing I wanted was a copy of the local almanac, known as Borda D'agua. Although it is available earlier in some stationers, St Martin's day is when the older people look forward to purchasing their copy for the coming year.