A Farmer's Table Lunch in Portugal's South
As we drive through the arid plains of the Alentejo region in Portugal's South, I hang my head out the window like a golden retriever. I’m slurping up the terracotta houses and old men sitting outside tascas drinking beer on plastic chairs, when it crosses my mind: How do they decide who you sit next to? Rocks clamour against the side of our rental car as we creep down a dusty unsealed road at snail's pace. We’re on our way to lunch at a vineyard off the beaten track in The Algarve; a recommendation from a friend.
Morgado do Quintao’s red dirt car park is marked by white pearly gates and Mediterranean shrub. Orange groves and olive orchards poke their head out, reminding you exactly how far away from home you are. People are waiting in their cars like it’s some kind of culinary purgatory. There’s a staunch black Mercedes with a driver in full black suit sitting in the front. The windows are tinted. Who’s in the back? Just beside it a woman leans on her car door, a beach towel draping over it. She’s wiping sand off bare feet.
We’re all here to assemble for a communal farmer’s table lunch. A unique experience where the family behind Morgado do Quintão shares their slow food philosophy, alongside a flight of their biodynamic wines made on site. In short, we’re here to eat with strangers.
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Standing outside the Main House, we’re greeted by Laura. She’s warm and convivial, already giving off the sense that family and community are the nub of this place. The estate has remained in the same family since the 1800s. It was passed onto Filipe, its current owner, from his mother Teresea in 2017. A contemporary artist and professor in her own right, Teresa is omnipresent in the details here. From the weathered, natural-toned furnishings that pay homage to her deep connection to the land, to her graphic art that adorns the wine labels. Her personal book collection also sits by the loo.
Laura pulls out her iPad to check her seating plan, confirming there’s some intention behind the seating arrangements, ‘I try to be the puppet master, matching people based on their bios’. She ushers us over to a communal table that sits under a 2000-year-old olive tree. Its trunk is about 20 times the size of my dads spindly, yet much-loved suburban backyard version at home. The gnarled, fruit laden branches hang over a simply set communal table. It’s dressed with a white cloth, mismatched flowers gathered from the garden and wine glasses that are waiting to be poured. Chickens are on the loose. They circle our feet and inebriate themselves on swigs of chlorine from the nearby pool.
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There’s a feeling of nonchalance here, but much like a natural beauty routine, you know it’s been perfectly curated to look this way. Simplicity is hard to do, that’s true for life, food and place. ‘Details are so important here. Details details details,’ Laura tells me. ‘Filipe is a details person. He sees the stuff I don’t see. He will ask me “why is that like this?” and I haven’t even noticed. He’s constantly considering how to create a good experience centred around people, wine and Algarivan food.’
Laura is busy ushering people to their seats. I take it all in. There’s wrinkled faces and botoxed faces. Lippie on, holiday hats, the full rig! Young hipsters and retirees. German accents, French accents and we’re-here-for-hens-do accents. A loud American humblebrags about this being her WFH lunch break, on route home from seeing Taylor Swift in Lisbon. There's a lavish distribution of linen shirts and instagram pictures being taken. I study them, and we study each other.
I ask Laura how she feels about orchestrating a family style meal for a group of strangers. ‘Morgado Do Quintao is a place to create memories and share,’ she tells me. Some people are flexible to sit next to a new person and share a meal, some are not… but people always find a way to talk. I always say to myself, “wine will resolve this”.’ She speaks sweetly and humbly, but underneath it there’s a confident resolve to vanquish people. ‘We have so many factors that will conquer you. If the wine doesn’t have you, the food will. If not the food, it will be the way the table was set or the landscape. If none of that.. we’ll leave to the 2000-year-old olive tree.’
I hear the seal of the first wine break as the table is still quiet. It’s pale yellow and giving me hints of fresh pineapple. As it spills into glasses, the awkward - how did you find out about this place? But also… who are you? - conversation begins. It turns out that our table partners are the mysterious backseat bandits behind the tinted veil of the black mercedes. A retired couple from New York, who knew literally nothing of the experience they were about to partake in. ‘Our travel agent booked it for us. We know nothing about this holiday. We’re just being driven around places,’ the wife explains bemused. ‘We’ve never travelled this way before,’ she says, her eyes imploring we’re not those-kind-of-people, I promise. We all laugh at the novelty and I regretfully snide internally at the extravagance.
Little Portuguese ceramic bowls of carrots are brought out onto the table and are served alongside fresh homemade bread. The carrots are coated in the perfect medley of spices: cumin, paprika and pepper. A combination I vow to put through everything when we get home. ‘Everyone loses their mind over the carrots,’ Laura says. ‘But the secret is… fresh parsley, garlic and extra virgin olive oil.’
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‘Parsley, garlic and extra virgin olive oil,’ she repeats enthusiastically, nodding her head. The potions clearly worked, as our neighbour who normally only eats plain pasta (his wife laments), is lapping up the remaining juices with bread.
Our glasses are refilled once more, this time a red with a soft purple hue. A nice young man brings out the next round of dishes, explaining where the local ingredients have come from. Sardines. Roast potatoes and roast pork. A simple salad dressed with lemon and olive oil. The table is louder now: a cacophony of small talk and laughter, forks hitting plates and the relaxed hum of grazing chickens. I’m feeling decidedly drunk and in the grips of some revelation: there’s something powerful about sharing a meal with people who aren’t a part of your hand picked social circle.
I think of how often I seek out people who are just like me and the little time I spend with those who aren't. It resounds in the echo-chambers of my conversations. It might seem inconsequential in my own life, but I realise too that it’s related to a breed of single-mindedness that when applied in an extreme sense is sinister.
‘Prejudice feeds off abstraction,’ writes British philosopher Alain de Botton ‘however, sitting down at a table with a group of strangers has the incomparable and odd benefit of making it a little more difficult to hate them with impunity.’ He’s right. There’s something about passing around dishes, pouring another person's wine, even asking a stranger to pass the salt – that interrupts our belief that strangers are really that different to us at all.
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As the dessert comes out, the whole experience feels incredibly familiar. People are moving around the space casually now, talking to other guests. I’m patting a chicken. Our table partners are hilarious - embodying the particular variety of Manhattan quick wit meets almost any subject with a sarcastic response. We’ve seen far too much of their camera roll, know their dog's name - Dolly - and the colour of their couch. I can’t leave, mainly because we’re driving and I’ve had too much wine. But also because I really don’t want to. Does this mean I’ve been conquered? Was it the food and wine, the people or the olive 2000-year-old olive tree?