Any amount of heavy food only works with an active lifestyle, and where many Europeans are cut from their long daily walks, the Portuguese in these parts tend to round out early.
Our waitress in Setubal is younger than us, but already rounding out into the shape of an old lady. In the Portuguese interior, as in Spain, old couples take evening walks into the fields. You see every sunset dozens of well-dressed walkers holding hands, deep in conversation.
It seems the Portuguese cuisine favors the small rural towns, where the lifestyle is still active and traditional. After sixteen days of a diet of cheese, we're feeling like those urban Portuguese. It's time for some banana shakes and big American salads. But Jane's already telling me she wants to try the cheese in this country, and that country. She's pointing at the map and saying, "do they make cheese there?"
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