The Portuguese blues has soul but isn’t sad.
A summer Saturday night in Lisbon, and in a square in the old Graça district the local community listens to an evening of live fado – the Portuguese blues. Through the days, along the city’s steep streets of distinctive small square limestone cobbles, you can often hear the sound of the Lisbon station Rádio Amália playing in houses and shops. Named after the Portuguese fadista Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999) , the station transmits fado on a loop – songs sung traditionally in cafes and taverns, usually by an older woman, about longing for a lover, or the past, or men lost at sea. A typical lyric runs: “In the mouth of a seaman/ In the fragile sailing ship/ The hurtful song fades…”
My friend Maria, who lives in Graça, insists fado “has soul – but isn’ t sad ”. After weeks of addiction to the station, I agree. Fado has brouhaha, wit, lust. Some of the best new numbers are sung by the gorgeous young Gisela João, who always performs in her music videos with a melancholy breeze disarranging her hair and wearing a pair of trainers. She’s a favourite of the station.
Being associated with the era of Salazar’s fascist dictatorship, fado at one time looked as if it might fade, and yet enthusiasm remains solid in Lisbon – especially for any solo on the 12-stringed Portuguese guitarra, which sounds like a harpsichord crossed with a bouzouki. At the concert in Graça, the crowd glows under street-lamps, nodding and applauding the music. Family dogs lie on the cobbles. Couples occasionally get up to slow-dance, and a restaurant hurries out plates of fried baby hake.
When eventually I get back to my room, I switch on Amália and hear about a special event at the local fado museum. “We are waiting for you, ” says the closing line of the ad, wistfully – very fado. So many of the best songs are simply about missing friends. As usual, I find it hard to switch the station off; each ballad is so perfectly contained. But soon I’ m woken by the sound of a man singing fado live, and magnificently impromptu, from the ramparts above my open window, met by a smattering of drunken applause as the last of the concert-goers wend home, the dawn-saffron sky a blur of swooping swifts.
We were warned. “We’ ve got to get our act together”, said Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University London about an impending culinary crisis. He predicted that food would be the second biggest Brexit issue after the future of banking in the City of London. But whereas The City, ominously capitalised, is an ephemeral consideration for those outside the infamous metropolitan liberal elite, food certainly isn’ t. Food affects us all – and so far it’s been hit hard by Brexit, after the value of the pound has been savaged, making importing to the UK more expensive. Here are six ways in which Brexit has is ruining our food.
Walnut Whip
The final insult. The sign that Brexit really has gone too far. It was announced yesterday that Walnut Whips would become nothing more than mere Whips. The reason given for this abomination was that the new range would cater for those who didn’ t like, or were allergic to, nuts, allowing them to enjoy just the gooey, chocolatey goodness within. Closer inspection reveals that’s not quite the whole story. Walnut importers like Helen Graham, told the Guardian that the pound’s post-Brexit fall in value after last June, combined with “strong global demand” and a poor walnut yield in Chile, have led to Whips shedding the Walnut – not consumer demand. Nestlé say that individual packets and Christmas bumper packs will still be available – but at this rate, getting hold of them might prove harder in practice than in theory.
Marmite
2016’s Marmite shortages was perhaps the first sign that not all was well. Marmite is the ultimate Brexit metaphor: you either love it or hate it, a binary reflected in the 48-52 per cent vote – and the bitter taste it leaves for many. Marmite’s endangered status was confirmed after Tesco entered hostile negotiations with food megacorp Unilever, who wanted to raise trade prices by 10 per cent due to that inconvenient falling pound. Lynx deodorant, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Persil washing powder and PG Tips tea were similarly affected, but none inspired quite the same amount of outrage as the yeast-based spread.
Toblerone
The beauty of Toblerone is the frequency of its triangles. That angularity has been undermined by manufacturer Mondelēz’s decision to space them out, removing 10 per cent of the bar’s total chocolate in the process. Art has truly been tampered with. The scandal led to Colin Beattie MSP calling for the Scottish Parliament to offer condolences to triangle fans, blaming it directly on Brexit. Defending the change, a spokeswoman for Mondelēz said « this change wasn’t done as a result of Brexit », suggesting it’s part of the sad trend of chocolates getting skimpier. That said, they did admit that the current exchange rate was « not favourable » – and that in itself is directly due to Brexit. They also refused to be drawn on whether they’d be changing their signature chocolate in other EU territories. Hmm. Semantics aside, the dispute is getting legal. Poundland, who are seeking to bring out a « Twin Peaks » alternative to Toblerone echoing the brand’s original shape but with two peaks per block instead of one, claim that Toblerone’s shape is no longer distinctive enough to warrant a trademark. They claim that their new rival has « a British taste, and with all the spaces in the right places ». Shots. Fired.
Cheddar
This one hurts more because it’s closer to home. Our Irish neighbours are reportedly considering turning away from cheddar to mozzarella. This act of dairy-based betrayal is understandable: if export tariffs to the UK go up, Irish cheese producers will have to sell their wares primarily on the continent – for which mozzarella would be a better fit. Tragic.
Chlorinated chicken
Ah, the big one. The subject of not only a transatlantic war of words, but also the source of strife within the cabinet. With the UK forced to look to the US for trade support, it was feared that the country’s’ trademark chlorinated chicken would be forced upon these shores as a concession. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox called the media “obsessed” with the topic, dismissing fears over Britain’s meat of the future by saying that there is “no health risk”. Environment Secretary Michael Gove, however, said that there is no way that chlorinated chicken would reach British shelves.
