KITCHEN GODS

The water heater nestles in the center of every American home, like a Minuteman missile resting in a silo beneath some wind-swept Nebraska prairie, unheralded but ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.


It is not that way in Portugal. First, the houses are much smaller, and second, energy is expensive here. So, while an average American home may house a missile-sized water heater, in Portugal there is a small suitcase fixed to the kitchen wall for all to see and admire. The really good suitcases have dozens of exposed pipes sticking out of the bottom and disappearing into the wall. They’re made by companies like Junkers, who I thought specialized solely in dive-bombers used to terrify fleeing Polish peasants and so give the Germans more space in which to live and build Volkswagens.


When buying a water heater, in Portuguese grandly called a termoaculador - not to be said at speed, lest you spit all over your friends - several choices are offered. They are as follows:
A) A heater that when turned on makes a loud ‘Woof,’ then mumbles while it produces a little bit of warm water.
B) A heater that when turned on makes a quiet ‘Woof,’ then mumbles while it produces a little bit of warm water.
C) A heater that makes no sound and produces constant hot water. This one has been discontinued, all models destroyed, the factory razed to the ground and the plans sent to China.
What you cannot have under any circumstances or at any price is a heater that delivers constant hot water.


Heaters A and B will offer a quick shot of water at 200 C to inspire hope, but that, by government mandate, may not last more than two seconds. Also by mandate it must, must, must, be followed instantly by a concentrated jet of ice-cold water - or nothing at all but a sarcastic gurgling from the tank.


There is a reason for this disparity between Portugal and the United States and it can be traced directly back to Adolf Hitler’s misguided pursuit of Aryan supremacy. No doubt you remember when Teflon-coated pots and pens that wrote upside down in six hundred fathoms of saltwater first arrived on the market. They were, we were told, the happy by-products of missile and space research. I never really believed that.


At the end of WWII the Americans nabbed rocket scientist Werner von Braun and his assistants from Nazi Germany and spirited them to the States. There they worked on the American space program, and in doing so also created Teflon, submersible pens and large water heaters, while the Europeans were left destitute. Without Werner von Braun’s genius, the European space program and water heater evolution were crippled. They’ve never managed to catch up since and that’s exactly why there’s no hot water in Portugal and the rest of Europe. It’s also why European cooks constantly burn the food and for communication Mediterranean divers must resort to sign language or a hammer, chisel and block of marble after sinking past the first fathom.


Now for Zeus. You don’t come much mightier than him. My termoaculador(I think I made this word up is called Zeus, who I had not realized was the god of water heaters. There seems to be a logic flaw in naming a water heater after him, particularly a European heater. The Greek gods lived in the sky above Greece, which is a hot country, so they probably never worried about the cold, and I don’t know if they ever needed to shower anyway. Surely if you’re a god you can just say - “Dirt, be gone! I command you to stay away from my godly body!” - and it would be so. And I can’t imagine Zeus working out and sweating. I appreciate that Zeus sounds powerful, but why not call the heater Nanook? After all the Eskimos know a thing or two about staying warm.


Then there’s Thor. He’s a clothes washer at the other end of my kitchen. By amazing coincidence, two separate manufacturers came up with Greek gods’ names for their entirely different products, and while I can(very)vaguely follow the logic behind connecting mighty Zeus and heating water, Thor has me floored. I thought Thor was the guy who was always chucking hammers around when he got mad and what that has to do with washing my underwear escapes me. Not that it washes all my underwear at once anyway. This is still Europe, remember.


Back to the US of A for an educational moment. There the washing machine has a room of its own, not the kitchen, and it’s a very simple machine. You jam in all your family’s clothes until there’s no space left, turn it to super-hot and walk away. Ten seconds later you open it up, take out the clothes, stuff them into a dryer, turn that to nuclear super-hot and walk away until they’re cooked. It’s all over in twenty minutes.


Not so here. First, there is no such thing as a dryer anywhere in Europe; you hang your washing up on a line or drape it out the windows. Get over it, that’s life.


Thor is not a large machine. It can hold six kilos of clothes, which translates to one T-shirt (short-sleeved), one pair of Calvin Klein underwear (not boxers, too much fabric) and a sock, left or right, doesn’t matter which, but not both. Once loaded and switched on, the Thor cannot be stopped, short of blasting it with a shotgun. The door is locked and nothing will pry it open. This is an example of European engineering at its best.


Activated, Thor begins to work his magic - but only if you don’t look at it. First, nothing happens. Then there’s a cough from deep inside the machine and the clothes flip over. Then silence again, followed by the sound of gurgling water - the sound of, not necessarily actual water. The clothes flip over once more, the gurgle, gurgle sound happens again, and then more silence. This routine goes on for about four hours until finally Thor slams into a spin cycle that sounds just like an F-18 on full afterburner. It whines so loud it scares cats, shatters glass and alerts dogs for miles around. Wisdom suggests getting far away from the machine at this point.


Just as you’re sure Thor is going to launch itself right through the kitchen wall, it suddenly stops dead. No sound, no movement, no denouement. Nothing. It’s as if it had a heart attack and expired. A female friend of mine says it reminds her of her ex-husband in bed - all power, glory and great intentions, then crash, finished, fast asleep and snoring like an asthmatic walrus.
That’s about what you can expect with a Portuguese kitchen full of Greek god appliances.

SENOR FRANCO

He was a young man once, and proud. This was his farm, passed to him by his father, and he lived in the big house. The farm was built by generations of the Franco family; there had always been a Franco living on this hill. He farmed the fields and hunted the hills and his life was patterned by the seasons.

He married the beautiful girl he loved and was also a little in awe of, and they had children who lived in the cottages around the big house. It was a simple, hard, yet satisfying life, and he worked knowing he was one of a line of farmers stretching too far back to remember.

Then he and his wife were old. They moved into one of the small cottages and his son brought them food every day. His wife had a stroke and for the first time in their lives, they were separated. She lay in a bed in their granddaughter’s home down in the valley, while he was alone in the cottage on the hill.

An Americano came to live in the big house; a man without family and who spoke no Portuguese. He talked to him anyway and the Americano replied with a few Portuguese words and many gestures. Several times he tried to explain how once he and his wife lived in the big house, but the Americano just smiled and said thank you in Portuguese.

Now he sits on warm afternoons outside his cottage and stares at the big house where used to live. When he was a young man once, and proud.

TILE & TILE AGAIN

It is neither safe nor wise to stand still for too long in Portugal. If you do, there is a great likelihood you could end up tiled and there will be found a colorful image of some saint across your back, or a delightful picture of a galleon sailing bravely out to discover new worlds in order to pillage, loot and enslave the locals for the sole benefit of the Portuguese nobility who will then turn them all into Christians as payment for sucking their country dry.

It seems as if everything stationary in Portugal eventually ends up tiled. Where Americans might hire a couple of undocumented folk up to no good loitering about on a street corner to slap on a coat of paint, spread around some stucco, or nail up aluminum siding, the Portuguese lay tiles, beautiful tiles. Inside a building or outside, big or small, yours or mine, it doesn’t matter, sooner or later everything gets tiled. If you have a creative eye the buildings might seem very artistic, but if you’re inclined to be more practical then everything can look a bit like a public toilet. A pretty public toilet, though.

The precise term for these tiles is azulejos, which, like most Portuguese words, is not pronounced at all as it appears. Portuguese is somewhat similar to Welsh, but with vowels, or Navajo with the sh sound tossed in every other syllable. If you don’t know Welsh or Navajo I can’t help you and you’re on your own. Perhaps the easiest way to pronounce Portuguese is to remember when you were a kid staggering around pretending to be drunk on Australian sherry like your uncle Bill at Christmas and slurring every word. Works well for me, but then I’ve had a lot of slurring practice. Staggering around while slurring is optional and doesn’t convince the locals you can speak their language, but it does confuse them. And that way you’re equally baffled.

While we’re discussing foreign languages, of which Portuguese is definitely one, I have learned how to communicate with the local peasantry. It’s not at all necessary to learn their language, just let them chatter away while you respond in English. Then point at what you want, wave some euros around and off you go with a lot of grinning on both sides. Could not be easier, just don’t wave dollars because nobody wants them anymore. Do not, I repeat, do not, under any circumstances speak a single word of their language because that will only encourage them to keep talking that way and so they’ll never learn English. Then how will they communicate with you?

Back to the azulejos and their history. The Moors, whoever they were, invaded Portugal years ago and brought tile-making with them. Supposedly, they got it from the Iranians, who insist on being called Persians nowadays, at least those who live in Beverly Hills and build all those huge, ugly mansions do. Where the Persranians got tile-making from is anybody’s guess, maybe from whoever started Home Depot. After several hundreds of years of oppression the Portuguese kicked the Moors out, but kept the tile-making. Where the Moors went I have no idea, presumably back to Mooristan.

Freed from foreign rule, the Portuguese went tile crazy. By the 17th century, which is way too far back to interest most Americans who know nothing about about the world before the day Elvis died, the whole country was covered in tiles. Eventually some king had to put a stop to it because there wasn’t a tree or a dog or cat that remained untiled.

In a way tiling back in those days was a bit like graffiti is today, and just as difficult to control or eradicate. So it was decided that if you couldn’t beat them you might as well join them, and everyone was allowed to slap tiles all over their buildings. There were severe penalties however for tiling animate objects. For a couple of years there was a lot of grumbling about censorship and restriction of artistic freedom, but the Portuguese are a pragmatic people by nature and eventually it all calmed down.

Today Portuguese buildings, subways and train stations are covered in azulejos, and glorious it all is to behold. Now and then, some clothes designer or automobile manufacturer gets a wild idea about azulejoizing their products, but it usually comes to nothing. Azulejos are made to cover walls, not cars or jeans.

Although the Portuguese are sensible about tiling things nowadays, I would still suggest not staying still too long in public, though, just in case you end up with a galleon sailing across your chest. I mean, who wants to look like a public toilet, even a pretty one?