Cyclical Food Sharing Festivals in Portugal

Abstract

In the rural areas of Portugal, the festivals, especially those that take place in the cold seasons, continue to integrate the anual agro-pastoral cycle. In these festivities, the permanence of food gifts dedicated to the Saints can indicate a survival of remote collective cults. These festive meals are distinguished by the ritual consumption of cereal, in its variants of bread, cakes, doughs or porridges, in gratitude for the production obtained during the year and in eternal commitment to annual repetition. The ceremonial involves a system of exchanges that reveals a culinary and mythical complex, providing for ensuring divine protection against various dangers, in particular plague, war and famine. Through an ethnographic description that marks different festivities having as patron the saint deserving of community devotion, we travel through different regions of the country, trying to highlight the importance of food as links of social connection. For this research we can get back to the records resulting from the observation-participant in some festivities marked by this sharing of food goods, for several years, especially in the north of Portugal, but also on the coast of the Lisbon region. The reference to most of the other weddings, mainly in the provinces of Beira and Alentejo, is due to the reading of the works on the subject consulted and selected in the bibliography.