N and I visited Portugal in the summer of 1989, travelling on buses with packs on our backs. In some provincial northern town, perhaps Braga, we visited the market. We were staying in small hotels with no chance to cook, and the local restaurants were proving quite pleasant, but we wanted to sample some of the items we saw.

We bought a half-dozen ripe tomatoes and a large round loaf of broa, a characteristic rustic cornbread. There was really nowhere to sit, but we walked a little way away from the stalls towards the dirt parking lot and found some sort of concrete structure on which to perch. I took my Swiss Army knife out of my backpack, hacked off a couple of chunks of the bread, and perched a tomato on each to slice it, letting the juice run down into the bread. We ate leaning forward, holding the slices of tomato on the bread with our fingers, and taking sips of water from a canteen.

To this day, both N and I remember that as one of the greatest meals we have ever eaten.

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