Lisbon Markets

[docsconz]

When I travel I love nothing better than visiting local food markets. Where are the best ones in Lisbon and what should I be looking out for in early October?

[MiguelCardoso]

Dearest Doc: there are a lot of markets in Lisbon - almost every neighbourhood has one - and often the smaller, local ones are just as interesting as the largest.

That said, there are two outstanding mega-markets where, technically, only greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers can go to. However, if you go very early in a taxi (crucial) and look appropriately bored and workaday, they're a cinch to enter. Once inside, you can buy in small quantities as vendors are tolerant towards party-crashers.

These are real markets, though - not for housewives and much less for tourists so be prepared for intense hustle and bustle. I love them.

For fish - a gigantic, endless mecca of everything at every size and price - it's the Docapesca in Pedrouços. Go between 4 and 5 in the morning. Prices are half (at least) of what they are in the local markets, which in turn are about half of what you pay in a fishmonger or, God forbid, in a supermarket. There's intense competition between buyers and sellers and, as is the case anywhere but more so in Lisbon, the big buyers (who supply restaurants and fishmongers) have already bought the best and cheapest, as they bid for the fish the moment it's landed and auctioned, around midnight.

What's left, though, is so abundant and diverse that it's staggering; infinite; impossible to take in even if you dedicate four hours to walking through as many stalls as you can. I warn you though: it's hard-core Atlantic fish, daily brought in by an enormous artisanal and industrial fleet, plus all the fish from trawlers, long-distance fishing vessels which use all the modern onboard conservation methods and imports which you find in all big fish markets in the world.

Portugal consumes more fish than even Japan and this appetite also means higher prices, as demand is high and constant - so don't expect any bargains. Just impeccable freshness. Also, you'll find it singularly unromantic - fish isn't something special or luxurious or "gourmet"; it's just food. Vendors are loud, rude, direct and violent. They want to get rid of their fish at the best price possible and that's that. They won't chat or answer questions. If you make a polite enquiry of a purely academic nature, i.e. if it clearly won't lead to a sale, they'll shout out to the other vendors, as a public announcement: "Olha este; olha este; a querer música!" ("Hey, lookit the gall of this guy, wanting to gossip!")

The "new" mega-market, which sells everything else (including fish, as the idea is to one day concentrate everything there, though it'll never happen) is almost a city in itself and is outside Lisbon, about 10 miles away, in Loures: it's called MARL (Mercado Abastecedor da Região de Lisboa). You must go, even though it's even more violent and strictly business, because it's like the whole of Portugal on any one day. Greengrocers go around 4 in the afternoon and it's more difficult to enter but if you have a press card of some sort and promise you won't be buying, you'll probably get in.

Then you have all the proper markets where any citizen can go. Again, you have to go early (well, sevenish) and, this time, your problem isn't the vendors. They'll charm you and woo you, call you "handsome young devil" and say they're so smitten they want to sell you something wonderful for half of what it cost them. No, your problem now are the other customers who act as ruthless competitors, elbowing and envious, hateful and despising. Don't even take notice - pretend they're not there.

I'm only familiar with about 20 of the bigger markets, but these are the four best and/or most charming:

Mercado da Ribeira - beautiful and yet still utterly business-like and huge, in the Cais do Sodré. Unmissable. There are different warehouses on both sides of the railway track; both indispensable.

Campo de Ourique - a typical neighbourhood market, only midsize but has everything.

Algés - the best for fish, as it's near the Docapesca. Outstanding - it's where the best Japanese itamae go. as they dislike getting up at 4 to go to Docapesca and don't trust anyone to buy their fish for them.

Benfica - A large neighbourhood market; no charm whatsoever; but the real thing. Excellent everything, including fish.

You must go to all of these to get a decent idea. You'll love them, I assure you - they're so rich and serious and the customers are so unforgiving, mean and demanding. It's the real Portugal with not one proviso or caution; one touristy note; one photographer; one web site; one (sigh) mention on eGullet.

As the open-market "feiras" are just as important and professional as the markets (and cheaper), you must go to at least one. I'd suggest Malveira, near Loures - on a Tuesday or Wednesday, I think. Marvellous, marvellous produce and the authentic rustic attitude (as the farmers themselves are the vendors) which you don't get in cynical, single-minded Lisbon. Here even a photograph may be taken without an instant collective order to buy at least three crates of melons.

The restaurants around there are astounding - and obscenely cheap. Try "Sagrados" (closes on Fridays), where you'll be hard-pressed to spend more than 10 euros, no matter how gargantuan your appetite and thirst.

And that's enough markets for today!

I'm looking forward to your visit and hope we'll be able to get together (I just had a brilliant idea: why not go out for a meal, teehee?). Lately I've been working too hard and indulging too hard and all my best social plans have been reduced to ashes.

Just don't ask me to accompany you to any of the markets! I have a hard enough time as it is. If you're going just to gawp (a real taboo) at least walk about with a few plastic bags to avoid a lynch mob being formed. And, whatever you do, look surly and profoundly pissed off, be shocked with the prices, however low, and keep looking at your watch as if you'd rather be somewhere else. :)

[docsconz]

Wow! That is a lot to digest. I'm looking forward to checking a few of hem out, although I'll have to figure out how to avoid buying frsh fish and produce I can't do anything with.

We would love to get together for a meal!. I've been trying to email you. Let me know when would be good.

[Marco_Polo]

If you're going just to gawp (a real taboo) at least walk about with a few plastic bags to avoid a lynch mob being formed.  And, whatever you do, look surly and profoundly pissed off, be shocked with the prices, however low, and keep looking at your watch as if you'd rather be somewhere else.

Whoa, Miguel my friend, what a great primer in market behaviour and deportment! This post should be developed into a full scale eG tutorial/workshop that would be relevant for market shopping the world over. In fact, you've inspired me to start working on my *attitude* now, yes tonight (especially on looking as 'surly and profoundly pissed off' as I can). Shopping in Portuguese markets will never, I mean never, be the same again (what a lily-livered soft touch I've been all these years). I wonder if I can practise in my local Tescos? Dare I try browbeating the teenage shelf-stacker to knock a couple of pence off the price of the cornflakes? No, perhaps instead I'll eat a peach...

Marc

[MiguelCardoso]

Oh, I had to learn the hard way, Marc. I'm by nature a tourist and, in fact, that's what my Portuguese friends call me, having been burdened with a sunny disposition - a glowering handicap in melancholy, moody Portugal where, even when I'm forcing down my lip muscles to a grimace, the first irrepressible "Ooh!" at the sight of some particularly rosy turnips or langoustines, lights me up and makes me stand out in the morning market crowd like a fluorescent leper.

My own father dubbed me a tourist when, after two years soaking up the sun and intense wild basil and lavender aromas of Manchester, I arrived back in Portugal for a month's Summer holiday and in my chronic homesickness, during an outdoor lunch of sardines, potatoes and pepper salad in Alfama ( to which we went straight from the Santa Apolónia train station, me still in my sodden student togs) dared express that "life in Portugal was indeed sweet." "Bah", the old mariner replied, his chin glistening with sardine juice, "you've become a tourist, like your mother!"

My mother is English and therefore allowed to commit the crime of enjoying Portugal and having the bad taste to confess it, whilst my father had been born in the heart of Alfama and the Fado, only a few yards from where we were eating. The proximity must have brought on the accusation: "If you were a real Portuguese, like your brother, you'd realize the terrible, incurable pain Portugal causes and why the Portuguese are such a sad people."

This kind of talk is universal here but I've always had the greatest difficulty in understanding it (even though my Ph.D thesis was about it) when it's trotted out after prolonged lavish lunches in gorgeous surroundings while gazing at their second large whiskies, probably brought on by the disappointment of the restaurant not stocking the particular single malt they'd set their heart on.

In restaurants and, more menacingly, in markets I've been taken aside and berated for "spoiling it for everyone" because my touristy heart naturally leads me to being sincere in my appreciation. I used to say "How fresh! Is that all it costs? How do you do it?" The sellers think I'm being sarcastic but the other shoppers - grim-faced crones who noisily tut-tut their way through the stalls like sinister little mopeds - lecture me about how poor they are, not like me, Mr price-inflating, arse-licking dilettante Big Spender.

I brace myself and, like a tourist apologize (God, I even propagate their philosophy here on eGullet, so don't talk to me about lily-livered, Marc). Then, smugly satisfied with my abjectness, they nod up and down, as if weighing whether to stick the knife in or spare the poor bastard, but this only makes them more rabid and they ask why I don't stick to my fancy restaurants and poncey pseudo-food (general laughter from the gathered audience) and what do I know about fish anyway since I just bought four dodgy red mullets that had been a fixture there for at least a week and a finger-pointing figure of fun for all serious shoppers and how they had to come to market every day just to avoid starvation (the bright-eyed head of an enormous scabbard-fish sticking out of their horrific tartan nylon shopping bags, as a speechless witness to the gall of its owner) and how they always switch to another channel whenever I'm on because I talk out of my arse and now they know this talent extends to shopping as well.

But, of course, they were right. Real housewives - generally and genuinely poor - are being threatened by the restaurant buyers and the supermarket buyers and, yes, foodies with comparatively fat wallets. They can still get great fresh fish, vegetables and fruit at a price they can afford but they're legitimately afraid that one day they may have to do with the frozen and supermarket stuff which the younger generations are quite happy with...

In a way, we owe them. It pains me to say it - and it's not because I'm lily-livered - but it's these uncompromising battleaxes who wage war not only on the vendors but on other shoppers whose attitude is too sunny and easy to please, who have kept Lisbon markets true and honest.

I'm sorry I was carried away - just one last thing. You seem to imply that your bedazzled state in markets probably led you to pay higher prices. This is not the case - it's more complicated than that. The prices shown are respected - but they're the maximum price. What matters is the quality and freshness of what they sell you. If you are an innocent shopper, whether Portuguese or foreign - and specially if you're a stranger who looks like he won't become a regular customer for years to come - they'll give you the worse fish and a generous discount too.

I've had several foreign friends who've bragged about getting stuff much cheaper than we do but, when you see the fish (although it's fresh) you understand why. Fishmongers are great liars - it's a feature, not a bug - and the game is to discover the whoppers and get to the truth. Price has nothing to do with it. But you can tell when you've got the freshest fish because, though you're paying full price, it will be the vendor who'll turn surly - because she lost that round.

Which brings me to the last strategy if you're a visitor and want to buy the best. I'm afraid it involves lying - but lying is allowed in shopping and, if you're later found out, you'll be congratulated for your success:

Always imply that you have moved to Portugal. Say "Olhe que eu não sou nenhum turista!" ("I'm not a tourist, you know"). A nice touch is to add wistfully "I wish I were..."

Say you're living nearby and ask the sort of questions a new resident would ("When do you go on holiday? Does the stall shut?"). This will start the wooing process, which is to your advantage as she'll give you the very best, to hook you.

It makes sense: they give their best to their best customers. I expect it's like this everywhere but here it's more ostentatious as the tradition is not to "shop around" - no, you find a regular vendor and, barring a mishap and a dramatic falling-out, she's yours for life. You can get the best fish from any vendor, however small, and the worst from any vendor, however big. If you're regular and shop around, then you enter the dangerous adversarial ranks of the battleaxes who rely on their knowledge alone and can't be outwitted. Suffice it to say, unless you've been going daily to a market for at least two decades - they memorize each stall, detect every new arrival and so know the day-age of any single fish (they often buy them for bargain prices, of course) - then it would be very foolhardy.

I onced asked, while on holiday, why a vendor in a small market in coastal Alentejo was giving me the smallest crabs and he answered "What? Don't tell me you expect ME to keep the worst ones?" and audibly muttered "Que lata!" ("The cheek!").

God, I hope I haven't put you off, Doc!

Or perhaps secretly... ;)

[Marco_Polo]

... This will start the wooing process, which is to your advantage as she'll give you the very best, to hook you.

It makes sense: they give their best to their best customers.  I expect it's like this everywhere but here it's more ostentatious as the tradition is not to "shop around" - no, you find a regular vendor and, barring a mishap and a dramatic falling-out, she's yours for life.

←

Miguel, I'll give you an example of how utterly lily-livered we are. As you know, we've been going to the Algarve for more than a quarter of a century. In those days Armacão da Pera, the nearest town to where we stay, was then just a grubby little seaside fisherman's outpost; now it's a grubby, sprawling, horrendous tourist resort - but - and this is the point - a wholly Portuguese, not foreign, grubby tourist resort. In those long-ago halycon days, the mercado was a simple, covered affair, quite small, picturesque, the sort of market tourists love to take pictures of. One stallholder, a wizened old crone dressed in black, with a withered arm, seemed to take a shine to us, young and bright-eyed as we were (we might as well have worn signs around our necks: Suckers). Of course it was obvious we were tourists: how could we have been anything else? But we were tourists who cooked food (not just took photographs of it) and therefore always purchased vegetables and fruit in arm-aching quantity. So whenever we'd appear, she'd give us a handful of almonds (delicious), perhaps a ripe fig or a peach (how kind). But if we ever even so much as paused at someone else's stall on entering the market, she'd shuffle over and get our attention with a little gift, while looking daggers and death at her audacious competitor who had dared to try and lure us away. This went on for years, even after the market moved to its present hideously ugly purpose-built premises. When our children were born, the old girl in black (looking strangely younger each year - I think with all the money she made from us, she was holidaying for the winter in Madeira) now transferred her attentions to Guy and Bella, insisting on holding them when they were babies, and later kissing them (to my son's great embarrasment and discomfort), handing them a few almonds, perhaps an over-ripe fig or peach. You could see the other stallholders rolling their eyes as she did so, but godammit, we were hooked. As you say, hers for life.

It reached the point, Miguel, where we came to dread going to the market. I tried everything (for I like nothing so much as going to the market, most of all for the delicious satisfaction afterwards, leaning on the counter of an outdoor stall, bulging bags at my feet, enjoying a hot bifana roll com piri-piri and an ice cold Sagres beer as a reward for the efforts). But it was the tyranny of it, Miguel, the utter and shameless tyranny of being in the inescapabe clutches of that persistent old crone. I even took, I confess, to wearing an elaborate disguise (being summer, a time when few clothes are worn, my options were limited but I found an impressive - and very expensive - chest wig with sewn-on gold medallion and I wore outrageous designer sunglasses that hid my whole face). But damn me if the old gal didn't spot me immediately, and crab across the market floor, taking me in her wizened arm to gently lead me away from temptation, back to her stall, offering me the token gift - an almond, a fig or near rotten peach - stroking the fake chest wig in apparent admiration (it was, I must admit, very lush and handsome if unacceptably hot in summer), cooing over me, making a fuss, filling our bags, stroking, cooing, taking our money: yes, hers for life, all hers...

This summer we went, as usual, to the market. On the way we debated, as always, whether to venture around to 'our' vegetable stall (unfortunately the ameijoas are sold near where she is located - and one of the main reasons for going to market, I'm sure everyone agrees, is to purchase ameijoas). Therefore, while my bag of squirting clams was being prepared, I snuck a glance over in the direction of where the old girl should have been. My god, she was not there! Nor was her hideous daughter, who had taken in recent years to handing us rotten fruit as well, without ever even trying to disguise the fact that she was only doing it to bribe us. What had happened? Had she, perhaps, passed away? Or, far more likely, retired to a posh villa in Madeira to live the year round? I found myself wandering over, as if pulled by some strange and mysterious magnet force. She was gone. We were free! In her place, an old lady, dressed all in black, tiny behind the mountains of melons and cabbages and greeny-red, gnarled tomatoes. She hobbled to her feet when we approached, gave me a cracked grin, and pressed a few almonds in my hand, gave Kim a perfectly ripe fig...

Marc

[MiguelCardoso]

Ha ha ha!

Oh Marc, you had me laughing out loud, whilst shivering in terror - a new combo for me!

<i>insisting on holding them when they were babies, and later kissing them (to my son's great embarrasment and discomfort)</i>

Damn you for bringing back long-buried traumas of those smelly, whiskery kisses (Portuguese fisherwomen were way ahead of George Michael regarding designer stubble)!

I too have tried disguise and entering by a different door but I then learnt that whatever fisherwoman I had been unfaithful with made a point of rushing over to my legitimate fishwife and proclaiming, hands on hips: "Ai, Lúcia, your fish must really stink if your customer has to skulk around looking for something a bit more decent..." This is a variation of the old sexual taunt, thrown at wives by mistresses: "It's your fault if you're not giving your husband what he wants and he has to seek his oats elsewhere!"

These infidelities only strengthen the bond, of course, as it becomes one of those deadly woman-to-woman competitions where you are merely the pawn. Every little special treat is accompanied by a reminder of what a fool you were to wander but - what can they do, you're irresistible, she just can't keep away, that'll be 65 euros, my love...

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, hates them all, takes everything back, even if it's perfect, just to keep them on their toes. They hate her but respect her. Hell, I doubt they even respect her. But they give her the best they have just to stop her raising a ruckus and delivering an impromptu lecture to all the other customers. She shops around and plays them against each other ruthlessly.

Every time I send her something (yesterday beautiful Bravo de Esmolfe apples) she's on the phone to my wife about how important it is that I take them back immediately as they're rubbish and everyone else will suffer if the greengrocer thinks he can get away with it.

A support forum would be nice. :)

[Marco_Polo]

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, hates them all, takes everything back, even if it's perfect, just to keep them on their toes.  They hate her but respect her. . .

A support forum would be nice.  :)

←

My god Miguel, I don't know what I'm more terrified of: those hirsute Portuguese fish wives ... or your formidable mother-in-law taking them on. I doubt if I'll sleep a wink tonight.

A support forum? Hell, I'm thinking of full time therapy.

M

Edited September 15, 2004 by Marco_Polo (log)

[docsconz]

This topic has certainly been much more educational and entertaining than I could have imagined!

It's too bad that all I can and will be this trip when visiting these incredible markets is a tourist looking for the beauty of the thing and admiring if not purchasing the wares that I sadly cannot use since I will have no place to use it other than perhaps some fruit or if available some fresh raw shellfish for a snack (what do you say about that, Miguel?). The beauty is that I won't have to worry too much about being an inflationary force for the regular shoppers. In addition, I suppose it fortunate that I will not be able to understand most of what the shopkeepers will have to say I will try to avoid the idle chatter and naive questions or any questions at all perhaps. Despite all your warnings Miguel and marco, I can't resist the aesthetic allure and culinary dreams of a top-notch fish market. For this Sicily will always be in my dreams. I will content myself in hoping that the restauranteurs I will visit will have sufficient expertise to have selected the best fish, shellfish and produce for me. It will be enough on this trip for me to get a sense as to how the food of Portugal stacks up to that of my favorites from Spain, Italy and France both from what's available (and visible) in the markets to most importantly what arrives on the plate.

I look forward to hearing more stories of market atrocities and dysfunctionality, although they are certainly told with great affection despite the dour trappings.

[tsquare]

This may be my favorite discourse so far!

Thanks guys.

[Eric_Malson]

I'm by nature a tourist and, in fact, that's what my Portuguese friends call me, having been burdened with a sunny disposition - a glowering handicap in melancholy, moody Portugal where, even when I'm forcing down my lip muscles to a grimace, the first irrepressible "Ooh!" at the sight of some particularly rosy turnips or langoustines, lights me up and makes me stand out in the morning market crowd like a fluorescent leper.

My own father dubbed me a tourist when, after two years soaking up the sun and intense wild basil and lavender aromas of Manchester, I arrived back in Portugal for a month's Summer holiday and in my chronic homesickness, during an outdoor lunch of sardines, potatoes and pepper salad in Alfama ( to which we went straight from the Santa Apolónia train station, me still in my sodden student togs) dared express  that "life in Portugal was indeed sweet."  "Bah", the old mariner replied, his chin glistening with sardine juice, "you've become a tourist, like your mother!"

My mother is English and therefore allowed to commit the crime of enjoying Portugal and having the bad taste to confess it, whilst my father had been born in the heart of Alfama and the Fado, only a few yards from where we were eating.  The proximity must have brought on the accusation: "If you were a real Portuguese, like your brother, you'd realize the terrible, incurable pain Portugal causes and why the Portuguese are such a sad people."

Miguel, as a former resident I find this post in particular incredibly interesting. Thank you for articulating some things about the Portuguese of which I had some vague intimations but could never completely formulate in my mind.

In a way, I'm the opposite of you, I suppose. One might call me an "anti-tourist"... no matter how much I may like a place, it seems I can almost never abandon myself completely to sheer enjoyment of it like you do. When I was living in Portugal, my outlook tended to be much more akin to your father's than yours (well, minus the pain and sadness....just a lot of annoyance). It seems that only now, now that I no longer live there, can I fully appreciate (through the rosy glasses that correct ones hindsight to something close to 20/20 vision) what a wonderful place Portugal is to spend some time. And it seems I'm like that anywhere I go. (For starters, no one that knows me would ever characterize my disposition as "sunny"!) Even now living in New York--the only place I've ever lived that actually felt like "home"--the city irritates me as much as it delights me. But the second I leave--it's the best place to be on earth!