I probably haven’t been here long enough to be writing about this topic. I should probably wait, but, you know, this is an important topic. I feel that I should go ahead. First, though, I need to lay some groundwork.
1. I will admit… I am skeeved by the idea of putting meat in my mouth and chewing it. No, it doesn’t bother me to be around other people eating meat. But I do not miss meat, do not want meat, do not want to eat foods that are pretending to BE meat. If it in anyway seems like meat, I probably am not able to even try it. Also, no shellfish, no mushrooms, no fishy-smelling fish, no fish that isn’t filleted. I’m sorry that this makes it difficult for people deal with me as a dinner guest.
2. Then there’s this other thing. Several years ago I had gastric bypass surgery. Since then I have not been able to eat very much food at one time. No matter how delicious something is, it is physically a problem (I’m going all in here) for me to eat more than will fit in the now much smaller stomach that I have. If I do, it comes back up. Like I said, going all in, if I take the eating too far, the food comes back out. Often with not enough warning for me to get to the loo. Some people are surprised that beverages take up space, at least for a little while, in the stomach. It does, believe me.
3. During 1968 and 1969, my parents and I lived in Waycross, GA. Waycross was a 90 minute drive from Fernandina Beach, FL. So those summers we went to Fernandina on the weekends. It was GREAT. Somewhere along the route, there was a bakery named “Robbie’s Bakery”. Man, that place. It had its own delightful, distinctive scent when you came in. Here’s the thing, the pastries all tasted at least AS delicious, if not MORE delicious than they looked. None of the sad, sad disappointments I have experienced at some other places.
You know what I mean, right? When you look at a case of pastries to choose something. You finally decide. You convey your choice. You buy it. When appropriate, you dig in. ACK! This tastes nothing like it looks! No, no, no, it has no flavor at all! Tricked again. How? Why does this happen? Or sometimes, it’s just too dang sweet, or dry or just bleah. So my namesake bakery somewhere between Waycross and Fernandina Beach, set the bar for my expectations REALLY high. If I’m very honest, I think, if I had been keeping some sort of count throughout my life, that baked good satisfaction based on how something looks is pretty low. At best, it’s been 50% meeting expectations and 50% NOT meeting them.
I’m truly sorry to tell you that my experiences here in Portugal have actually made me wary. The famous pastry of Portugal, the Pastel de Nata is a case in point.
This is a brief history of this pastry from Wikipedia: Pastéis de nata tarts are pastries inspired by an original recipe called Pastéis de Belém, which were created before the 18th century by Catholic monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in the civil parish of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, in Lisbon.[3] At the time, convents and monasteries used large quantities of egg-whites for starching clothes, such as friars and nuns' religious habits. It was quite common for monasteries and convents to use the leftover egg yolks to make cakes and pastries, resulting in the proliferation of sweet pastry recipes throughout the country.
In the aftermath of the Liberal Revolution of 1820, following the dissolution of religious orders and in the face of the impending closure of many convents and monasteries, the monks started selling pastéis de nata at a nearby sugar refinery to bring in revenue. In 1834, the monastery was closed and the recipe sold to the sugar refinery, whose owners opened the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém in 1837. The descendants own the business to this day.[4]
This is why I brought up my weird eating habits and the bakery from my formative years….
The Pastel de Nata looks like it would be a nice little pastry. I think that the US anti-eggyolk press has ruined this for me. Egg yolks and sugar. I just don’t like the IDEA of eating anything that is primarily egg yolk. So, though I have eaten these when presented to me, I really don’t like them. AND, again, it troubles me to write this, but most of the pastries I’ve had here have been abysmal. Ya gotta have some hope, though, right? I haven’t been that many places yet, or seen much. Can’t wait to, haha, eat my words! AAH gosh, I crack myself up!
Fortunately, Scott has found one pastelaria that has these chocolate croissants that are as big as my head and they are frickin’ delicious. He already ate the left end before I even saw it. I'm happy to report that this no fake out. The scrumptious chocolate runs all the way from one end to the other. No big gap in the middle (I'm looking at YOU, Starbucks). Bom Domingo everyone!
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