Provincetown Portuguese Cookbook

Especially Pork

After fresh fish, pork (porco) was the second most dependable source of protein in the Portuguese immigrant community in Provincetown. Unlike beef cattle which need lots of wide open space for grazing, pigs are easy to raise in confined areas. Since practically every family had a pig in Portugal, raising them in Provincetown was an easy transistion for the immigrants to make.

My own family was no exception. A fisherman with 10 children to feed, my grandfather had no choice but to farm and keep pigs. Food had to be put on the table during the winter months when inclement weather could ground the fishing fleet for weeks. The by-products from the pigs were easy to store. Practically every part of the animal had a useful purpose. Pigs were a valuable commodity.

My aunt, Izabel Souza, told me that slaughtering the family pig was as much a social event as a it was a necessary ritual. My grandfather's friends would help him with the slaughtering, while their wives assisted my grandmother in putting up the meat and making the sausages. My Aunt Izabel also told me that she can still hear the horrific squeals of the wretched creatures as they were being led off to the slaughter house. She used to flee the property to escape their pitiful cries. It was enough, she once said, to almost put her off pork forever. Almost, being the key word. Pork has never been out of fashion in Provincetown.

Beef, chicken and small game have also been popular in Provincetown, although to immigrants, beef was a luxury. Most of the cattle found in Provincetown over 100 years ago was probably dairy cattle. My husband's grandfather owned a large dairy farm, Winthrop Farm, out on what is now Shank Painter Road and Route 6 and provided Provincetown with most of its produce, milk and other dairy products.

Since game such as rabbit, duck and deer abounded in the woods and marshes of the Province Lands, they were easy pickings for the industrious. A good, cheap source of food, many Portuguese immigrants supplemented their family's diets with wild game. Many still do today.

When I worked at Cookie's Tap, in the years when women were more than welcome, it wasn't unusual to come to work and find that the Cook brothers and several of their friends had spent their early morning hours in the woods. Several rabbits would be lying on the kitchen counters waiting to be turned into a stew or fricasee. Lucky customers who just happened in were freely given the products of those hunting expeditions, all for the price of a drink and a little good natured teasing.

It wasn't until recently that lamb has come into favor. I can remember several of my friends, who as children, had never eaten lamb. It just wasn't popular. My husband says his own father wouldn't have it in the house because he hated the smell of it. Because my mother is Irish, lamb was served in our house as frequently as pork or chicken. The more practical reason for lamb's lack of appeal probably had more to do with a sheep's value as a source of wool rather than a source of meat back in the old country.