Poisonous Shellfish in the Algarve
I'm sorry to say I have never been a fan of Portuguese food. The
general level of cooking here is akin to the old style of UK cooking.
Cook everything till it's boiled or roasted to death. There is a recipe
which haunts me. It requires you to cook prawns for 45 minutes! Even if
that read 4/5 minutes it would still be too long.
There are some great international restaurants, but I have yet to find
a Portuguese one that I would be pleased to return to. The last one I
was introduced to got off to an appalling start with the waiter being
downright rude to us.
I used to like clams. In fact a local dish I would have come to like if
it had not been overcooked is pork with clams. Unfortunately I ate a
dish locally which nearly killed me. I had a stomach upset which
reminded me of my days in Cairo when I got dysentery. This led to a
serious fever and an attack on my nervous system that made it almost
impossible for me to see. I thought I was going to die. My eyesight
dimmed, and everything blurred and I could hardly see, and I started
shaking.
All this is by way of an introduction to an article on Portuguese
shellfish. My view is: eat them if you dare. I wouldn't touch them.
Several people I know have been seriously ill after trying shellfish
here in the Algarve, one of whom had to be repatriated to a hospital in
the UK for treatment.
The Arade estuary is foul. At low tide guys are out on the mud flats
digging for crustaceans. Some of these get back to the local
restaurants.
I suggest you take a walk to windward of the estuary and take a deep
breath. The stench is appalling. The bed of the river is loaded with
sewage. No doubt that is why the Portuguese cook their food to death,
in an attempt to neutralise the poisons. I'd rather avoid the stuff.
It gets worse. The shellfish that used to be harvested from the Ria
Formosa at Olhao have been designated unfit for human consumption. This
is again due to the dumping of raw sewage into the estuary.
Effectively, you are eating waste products concentrated in the body
tissues of the shellfish. Rather you than me.
This ban has been in place for some time, but there is now a complaint
against the government for doing nothing about the raw sewage, and
indeed, deliberately keeping the estuary polluted so no-one can
reasonably complain if oil is discovered offshore, and the farming of
shellfish would have to be stopped anyway.
Take it how you like, but once again we have another body blow to the
local economy, and a deliberate attempt by the government to make
matters worse. Apparently the closure has put another 2000 workers in a
local industry on the dole. Great news for a country already on its
knees!
Good grief, it's christmas in a week's time. I shall have to find
something nice to talk about. I promise to try.
john
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