Portuguese food habits

Portuguese people love to sit down to eat and drink, specially accompanied by their friends and family. Portuguese are very proud of their gastronomy and wines.

Maybe that is why there are so many meals:

– Breakfast: on the table there is bread (we can’t live without it), butter, cheese, ham, sweets, coffee, tea, milk and juices.

– Mid morning and mid afternoon: fruit, cake, bread, coffee.

– Lunch and dinner: there’s soup, salad, fish, meet, vegetables, rice, pasta, potatoes, fruit, sweet, espresso coffee.

It seems to be impossible to have time to eat all this but it is always possible to have a 15 minutes pause at work . At lunch time, workers have at least 1 hour pause and many restaurants prepare home cooked day menus all inclusive between 7 and 15 €.

Everywhere there’s a restaurant, a snack bar or a pastry shop that also serves lunches.

But eating isn’t all that the Portuguese like to do. A good wine is very much appreciated, but also a cold beer, specially in late afternoon having some snacks to go with it.