Sardines for Saint Anthony

The Saint Anthony festival is the midsummer celebration in Portugal. Like most other midsummer celebrations (such as Midsommer in Scandinavia and St. John's Eve in Greece), midsummer happens before or on the actual arrival of summer. For some reason that eludes me, midsummer celebrations often involve jumping over a roaring bonfire.

In Portugal, and especially in the Alfama section of Lisbon, this is one of the biggest parties of the year. The midsummer holiday happens in mid-June and honors St. Anthony, who's associated with matchmaking. So this holiday is something like Valentine's Day. Shy suitors can take the opportunity to win over hearts with romance in large doses. But this holiday isn't about chocolate; you give your lover a potted herb called manjerico. This plant is a sort of basil, with tiny delicate leaves, and groomed into a round bush. It's decorated with a small paper with a verse on it; what's romance without poetry?

But you can't make a meal of basil and love, so grilled sardines are also on the menu. They're a common starter or main dish in most restaurants at all times, but St. Anthony's Festival provides them a grand stage. They're associated with this saint, who was not only a great romantic, but was apparently able to converse with fish. Why this means that we should grill them is beyond me, but they are delicious.

It took some persuasion for us to get the sardine-seller to provide any plastic utensils. We watched people eat them and understood why. Each sardine is about the length of an unsharpened pencil, so they’re too big to eat whole. In fact, people don’t eat the bones of these. Instead, they plop the fish onto a slice of bread, where it hangs over the sides. Then they pick at it with their fingers, pulling the meat away from the skeleton and eating it, leaving a skeleton that looks like something you'd see in a Popeye cartoon. And then you eat the fishy bread.

Don't ever put your nose to the manjerico. The right way to do it is to touch the leaves with your hand, and then smell your hand. But do this before you go after the sardines.