Lucy Bryson

Alheira da Mirandela, a sausage made with shredded chicken and breadcrumbs, is credited with helping huge numbers of Jews in Northern Portugal evade capture during the 1500s.

Women wearing checked tabards offer me cakes in every shape and size, from foot-long phallic feasts to little plastic bags of “fun size” pastry penises.

There are more cows than people on Terceira, a tiny island in the Portuguese Azores archipelago. Cattle graze all year round on rolling green hills, producing some of the most delicious dairy known to man.

I tracked down one of the Portuguese capital’s Chinês clandestinos, the hidden eateries operating from the homes of some entrepreneurial Chinese residents.

The Francesinha is essentially just slabs of bread stuffed with meat and cheese, but Portuguese chefs are reluctant to share their technique.

Brazilian expats living in the Portuguese capital have introduced their new home to tapioca pancakes: a traditional dish made using the cassava root flour, and topped with everything from shredded beef to Nutella.

Due to overfishing, stocks of lingueirão—an odd-looking razor clam once popular in the Portuguese town of Sesimbraare—are in sharp decline. “It's illegal to fish for it in certain areas but people still do,” says local fisherman Senhor Jaime.