“The Revival of the historical food of Europe and benefits for healthy diet of population”: Portuguese Christmas Dishes

Food is an important part of Christmas traditions in Portugal.

There is a wide variety of Christmas dishes that can be found on Portuguese dinner tables during Christmas time. As most of them have their origin in the Mediterranean diet, olive oil, fish, potatoes and vegetables are their most important ingredients.

The night of the 24th December is an important time in the Christmas calendar. On Christmas Eve, or “Consoada”, the Portuguese have salted cod fish for dinner. Its preparation starts the day before Christmas Eve when the cod is steeped in water for 24 hours to remove most of the salt. It is then cooked in a large pan of water with vegetables, potatoes and eggs.

On Christmas Day many different dishes are eaten including turkey, pork, kid, and lamb.

Cakes and sweets are also a major part of the Christmas dinner. “Bolo rei” or king cake, "Mexidos" and “Rabanadas” are some of the favourite ones.

To show you some of these typical dishes, our Comenius students have prepared a “Christmas dinner”.

Here are the pictures, the recipes ("Mexidos" and "Bacalhau Cozido") and the results of the meal evaluation.

Happy Christmas!!

“The Revival of the historical food of Europe and benefits for healthy diet of population”: Visiting Caves Calém (Porto Wine Cellars)

Project work about the visit and Porto Wine

Comenius “What we are, what we hope we will be“ : Comenius Meeting in Sveio, Norway.

Between 28th September and 2nd October, the European Comenius team responsible for the Comenius Project “What we are, what we hope we will be“ met in Sveio, Norway.

The two teachers and six students from FORAVE met the Norwegian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian and Italian Comenius teams to discuss and evaluate the development of the project and to carry out the planned activities.

There were also students´ presentations about one´s school/country, field trips and some cooking experiences, during which we had the chance to prepare Leite Creme, a typical Portuguese dessert.

Comenius Multilateral Meeting in Blansko, Czech Republic

The first meeting of our Comenius Project “The Revival of the historical food of Europe and benefits for healthy diet of population” took place at the Czech school Střední odborná škola a Střední odborné učiliště Blansko in Blansko.
Last week two teachers and four students from FORAVE met the Italian, Swedish and Czech Comenius teams to discuss and evaluate the development of the project and to carry out the planned activities.
There were also students´ presentations about one´s school/country, field trips and some cooking experiences, during which we had the chance to prepare a typical Portuguese dessert and to taste and evaluate traditional foods from the different countries which take part in this project.

A new Multilateral Comenius Project - “The Revival of the historical food of Europe and benefits for healthy diet of population”

This year our European ”adventure” will continue.
Besides the two projects – “What we are, what we hope we will be” and “Europe: so far, so near” we have been developing since September 2009, we’re going to take part in a new Multilateral Comenius project!
With partners from Italy and Sweden and the coordination of the Czech school Střední odborná škola a Střední odborné učiliště Blansko , we’re going to develop the Multilateral Project “The Revival of the historical food of Europe and benefits for healthy diet of population” which aims to rediscover and to prepare old traditional meals from the participating European countries and will also focus on people's increased awareness of eating healthy food (locally and bio cultivated for sustainability).
As usual in our school, this school year will be a time for hard work, but also for new discoveries and new friendships!

Comenius Meeting in Lousado

Between 3rd and 8th May, the second meeting of the Comenius Project “What we are, what we hope we will be“ took place at our school. 28 students and 12 teachers from Bulgary, Hungary, Italy, Norway and Turkey met the Portuguese team to discuss the development of the project and to carry out some of the planned activities.
It was a week full of activities. Meetings to discuss the products that had already been made and to plan the future ones; ice-breaking games which allowed the different groups to get to know each other and to make new friends; students´ presentations about each school/country and about music and fashion; field trips to Viana do Castelo and Oporto; sports events; a common fashion show where the participating countries showed traditional and modern costumes and a dinner with traditional Portuguese music and dances.
It was a great week which allowed us all to get to know our partners and their different cultures, educational systems and ways of living and made our students and teachers develop their language skills. And last, but not least, a week which gave us the chance to make new friends.

Project Meeting in Portugal

Dear partners,
Here are the students who will host yours during your stay in Portugal.

Rogério, João Barreira, João Areal, Andreia, Diogo and Joaquim (back row, from left to right)
Severina, Alexandra and Ângela (front row, from left to right)