Fumeiro: Traditional Cured Meats From Tras-os-Montes
In Tras-os-Montes and other rural areas in Portugal, many families used to rear pigs as one of their main sources of meat.
Without fridges and freezers, they employed other methods of preserving their pork and other meat products, i.e. charcuterie or fumeiro in Portuguese. Smoking turned out to be the most effective way and the word fumeiro refers to both the cured meats and the smoke house.
Fumeiros
Various types of sausage hung from beams inside the kitchen fireplace and were smoked for several months to preserve them. In some homes, and especially in establishments that make fumeiro to sell to others, there is a dedicated smoke house with lines of curved sausages and legs of ham dangling from the rafters, gradually absorbing the flavours produced from chestnut and oak wood fires.
Although the practice of rearing, slaughtering and making smoked meats in family homes is far less common these days, the love of traditional enchidos (sausages) is strong. Not just in Tras-os-Montes but all over Portugal.
Chouriço
The most widely-known enchido is chouriço, which is very similar to the Spanish chorizo. As well as pork meat and fat, it contains bread, olive oil, garlic and spices such as the paprika that gives it the distinctive red colour. You may spot a slice of it floating in your caldo verde (kale soup). It needs to be cooked before eating and the best and certainly the most dramatic way is to flame grill it using aguardente (Portuguese brandy).
Morcela
If you know what black pudding looks and tastes like, you’ll have some idea of what to expect from morcela. This is blood sausage, usually containing cloves, cumin and wine. Some versions are made with rice which makes them slightly less rich in flavour but still delicious. Again, morcela needs cooking before eating and is usually sliced then grilled or fried. Because of its strong taste, it’s often served on a bed of cooked apple or something else that’s sweet to balance out the flavours.
Alheira
Alheira sausages don’t traditionally contain pork. Back when Jews were not tolerated in Portugal, Jewish families would make sausages from poultry or rabbit in a bid to convince their neighbours that they had converted to Christianity. Alheira from Mirandela is particularly popular and is usually served fried with a fried egg, rice and chips. It can also be served on its own, in slices, as long as it’s cooked first.
Other enchidos
Other popular enchidos include farinheira, made with pork fat and flour, salpicão, made with pork loin, wine, garlic and paprika and linguiça, a mixture of pork meat and fat with the same ingredients but made in thinner sausages.
Presunto
A whole hind leg of pork can be cured so that it can be eaten without cooking. The legs are salted for at least 30 days then rinsed and basted with a mixture of paprika and olive oil or lard before hanging for smoking. The longer presunto is smoked, the better, up to about 18 months, although the quality of the meat will also affect the flavour. Bísaro pigs from the Tras-os-Montes region tend to be less fatty than other pigs and provide flavoursome meat. Another popular source for top quality presunto is acorn-fed black pigs.
