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Espinho, Portugal

There are very few things that excite me more (well, with the exception of Africa Burn maybe) than market day in small European cities. And as my luck would have it, Monday is market day in Espinho. Last night as I walked back to the apartment, the vendors were setting up already, clanging, banging and hammering make-shift stands and awnings to protect and display their precious produce. I assume most of them would actually spend the night unpacking, to be ready for their first customers at the crack of dawn.

I arrive at 9h30 and the square has exploded in a cacophony of colours, sights, smells and sounds. The place has come alive with hundreds of people, a meeting place of friends and surely foes, judging by the competition between farmers to sell the hard earned fruits of their labour. Strong competition between the brightest tomatoes and the most voluptuous peaches. And now I see all those people living behind closed windows and shutters, going about their marketing like bees in a hive. This is serious business, plums are felt and grapes are smelled, watermelons knocked and figs pinched. This opportunity only comes once a week, it is important to make the right decision!

And now, meeting the people of the land, my heart swells with endearment and respect. I see again those knuckled hands – worn, calloused, cracked, strong and certainly painful with athritis. A lifetime of working the land in the map of wrinkles on sunburnt faces, always ready to smile in spite of missing teeth. There is something movingly honest and real in this place. In between the bargaining and bickering, businessing and buying, there is time for a coffee and pastel nata. I wonder what time has been spent on producing the endless range of breads and pastries, cheeses and cured meats. The labour of love in small biscuits, lovingly draped in dark chocolate.

Proteas abound, styled daisy bushes, nuts, pulses, orchids, quince and kiwi and carrots. I look like a freshly plucked butter lettuce myself in my green jacket, but I am sublimely elevated to a place of pure joy and ecstacy. I smile and get the most beautiful “bon dias” in return. Between umbrellas and birds in cages – pigeons, finch, budgies, pheasant, chickens, ducks, geese – all cackling colour and sound nervously scratching around in tiny cages – I am hypnotically mesmerized. I am sure this is what it must feel like to be in an opium den – surreal mixture of fantasy and fiction. Only this is real, tangibly real and honest and good. I am filled with memories of my own Oupa Moos, gardener per excellence.

Oupa Moos had two gardens on their plot outside Knysna – one for the “English” and one for us. In the English garden were all sorts of different lettuce (we only ate iceberg). And greenpeppers, leeks, radishes, broccoli, brussel sprouts, broad beans, parsnips and turnips were for “them”. (Oupa also went to the market on Leisure Isle to sell his produce. There were mostly English people living there). And on our side of the garden were cauliflower, beetroot, carrots, cabbage, potatoes. I loved beetroot. When I was very small my standard request for supper was “beetroot and tea please”. One Satruday when my parents took my grandparents to town, my sister, Mildred and Elizabeth Jonck (twins) and I decided to cook our own food. We had a wonderful treehouse in the willow tree that stood between the house and the vegetable garden. (We were usually not allowed in the garden, other than to take Oupa his afternoon coffee and a sandwich). I discovered the beetroot! This was so exciting, I could have beetroot without having to wait for someone to give it to me. I pulled one out of the soil, washed it and bit into it, not knowing that it takes quite some time to cook beetroot! (We only ever ate cold beetroot, hence my thinking that it can be eaten as is). What a shock. I then discovered the primus stove ritual in the little lean-to annex to my Gran’s kitchen, where miracles happened. On the tiny primus, that had to be lit with a strange gadget that looked like a miniature whisk that was dipped in blue spirits, in a huge pot, Gran cooked beetroot that seemed like forever. This would be cooled down, peeled and turned into my favourite dish in all the world, beetroot salad! WIth onions and vinegar and loads of sugar. Sliced, not grated. And on Sundays when we went to Greenhole for picnics with the Joncks, this would be my favourite part of the meal. And yes I loved it when the red beetroot juice mixed with the cold chicken and potato salad. And we would all lie on blankets, listening to funny stories exchanged between Ouma Bettie and Tannie Jeanie. Most of these stories we were not supposed to hear, because they were inevitably not for the ears of kids. But on a picnic outing it did not matter. And we would swim in the river, feed the swans and get sunburnt. Life was good back then without the hole in the ozone. And life would stand still, we would not have a worry in the world.

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