If my suitcase could talk, it would probably open up about my tendency to mistake it for Mary Poppin’s bag. I can’t help it, I always tend to think I can add more and more items from my travels without trouble. Truth is, as I’m writing this, I remember I’m dreaming of travelling with Margherita Buy’s elegance in the movie “I’m travelling alone”. As much as I would like for it to become my new reality, each day seems to derive me from this ideal. I know I will never reach it as one can often find me at the airport carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, layering sweaters and coats to allow more space in my suitcase.
Bringing back specialty produce, food and drinks from abroad is a direct consequence of my taste for travel. It’s probably a way of extending the trip, or bringing somewhere else’s light inside the sometimes grey walls of the everyday. It’s as if taste acted as a memory : I would have a bite or a sip of something I had and the texture, pleasure of this time all comes back to me. Here I am, trying to be a poet while babbling about my way of travelling back home with a suitcase full of things to eat and drink. It’s also that I’ve always considered food to be so much more than just food: it tells a lot about its producers, the culture of a place, and, from the first bite to the last, a place’s identity. Maybe that’s why I’m so keen. Or maybe I just enjoy food more than anything.
My trip to São Miguel island in the Açores made no exception to the rule. Few words can really encapsulate or describe accurately the range of feeling and emotions one gets to experiment while on a hike, on a top of a mountain, with a view to lakes and the ocean. Right before I got back from the island, I got a bottle of Magma, a white wine from Terceira vulcanic vines. It’s as brisk and fresh as sipping on sea spray in the summer. I also got green tea, because São Miguel is nearly the only place in Europe where it grows and Cha Gorreana is one of the oldest producers there. I also got my hands on a cheese only made by one farm in Miraflores, the smallest of the Açores islands. And of course, tuna fillets bathed in organic olive oil, courtesy of Corretora, a canning factory based in São Miguel. I strongly advise you to have the tuna fillets and the white wine meet for apéro: I can promise you they’re going to love each other. Add a little side of toasted sourdough to put the tuna on and you’re in for a very very nice time. By this point, close your eyes, sip the wine, and São Miguel features might appear on the horizon…
P.S I’ve bought all of these treats in a shop I encourage you to visit if you find yourself in Ponta Delgada. It’s called “O Rei dos Queijos” and contrary to one might think, it sells many more produce than just cheese - although, cheese is, in fact, the King here and in my heart.
