The whole world eats italian pasta and pizza, everyone knows how french cuisine influenced the way we all eat and most of us know that sunny feierabends match spanish tapas and beer. But who has ever heard about portuguese gastronomy? Who has ever eaten Petiscos (the portuguese Tapas) like the ugly looking but yummy Percebes, the jewish sausage invention called Alheira (a sausage without pork meat invented by the jewish inhabitants of Portugal while trying to escape the Inquisition that easily recognised non-converted Jews by the lack of sausages hanging in their smokehouses) or a range of sweets amongst which the Pastel de Nata is king? Probably, very few of you.
That is what illustrator Alexandra Klobouk thought when she first arrived in Lisbon, capital of Portugal, where she ended up living for almost one year. Alexandra calls herself a kulturillustratorin, someone who tells stories through her illustration work. She travels and she meets people, sometimes living abroad for a while, she becomes engaged with local cultures and issues, then she comes back and writes and illustrates a book about what she’d seen.
Die portugiesische Küche is her 4th (co-authored with Rita Cortes Valente), and it’s an attempt to show the rest of the world (one step at a time, starting with Germany) what she found in Portugal. But it’s also a project of friends, a group of people of which I was happy to be part of, who joined efforts to portray this beautiful small country in the shape of a cook book.
The book launch will take place on May 15th, at 8pm in Picoteo Restaurant (Kreuzberg). The program, organised by the publisher Verlag Antje Kunstmann with the bookshop Dante Connection, includes a conversation with the authors and team and a tasting of various portuguese wines and a selection of dishes. The attendance is limited to 40 places so make sure to book your spot here.
RSVP to the facebook event.
Publisher’s website / Book info.
