The European cookbook for American homes (from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France)

of the individual pork, veal and bird pies served flabby and cold in London pubs. "Muito saboroso," very savoury, say the Portuguese, downing another almost without tasting it. They are served piping, as their brother empanadas of Spain, from a. special hot-box standing beside the bar, and some of the sea-food concoctions are beyond compare; one is a tantalizing bite of boiled shrimp enclosed in melodious golden batter mixed with the essence of olive. Distinctive and delicious — a cut above our own soggy canapes. In the Northern ports a sea oddity serves as a "piece" between meals. This is a meaty mussel torn from its hiding place among submerged rocks by the bushel and consumed raw by the plateful, even as orisons, sea urchins, are, all along the Mediterranean. The Portuguese mussel is about the length, thickness and shape of your forefinger, but it looks more like a leg, a tiny stuffed doll's leg. Its fleshy marrow is encased in a black silken stocking that ends in a polished patent leather boot, its shell, worn neatly and the exact shape of a shoe. To eat this exceptional bit of sea-food the stocking must be first rolled down to get at the shapely white calf that tastes something like scallops. Beside its salt sea succulency the sea urchin of the Mediterranean is a mere nose-thumbing gamin. There is a Cinderella stateliness and charm about this sea leg that mellows the accompanying wine itself, though sometimes the shining black stockings are sadly wrinkled, for want of garters. At dinner time, jantar, as the last meal of the day is called, the oyster-gorger falls to with lemon and pepper-grinder again. If he has no nonsense about him and hasn't been affected by the foreign beer and aperitifs of Lisbon and Oporto he will dine at a native restaurant in the hearty style of Portuguez antiga, in an old-time atmosphere as homey as an Italian kitchen. The tables are served by waiters in fancy vests and shirt sleeves, a respected custom even encouraged by past kings and princes. They are informal, like Italian, Chinese and all good eatinghouses, where the diner feels free to go first to the kitchen, lift the pot lids, savor his dish and consult the cook. The floor is kept freshly sawdusted, like English chop houses of old. Nothing ritzy here, and yet no better menu at the Ritz: Appetizer: Dry tawny Madeira Bread soup A pie of beef, bacon and crisp snips of pork Cod boiled with potatoes and onions, decorated with shrimps grilled in their jackets, and melted butter sauce White Wine Pig's head in aspic Wild duck with wild rice Sliced oranges Red Wine Sonhos (Dreams, Cream puffs) Ice cream Fruits Cheese: Traz os Montes, or requeijao, a half dried curd, also of mutton milk, wrapped in a fresh green leaf Black coffee Cognac Liqueurs A meaty meal and also a fairly intoxicating one, from the variety of drinks served with it. Pork in some form appears at every jantar. It is most applauded when it comes on roasted at a tender, suckling age, then known as leitao. The name itself was taken in early days by a proud and prolific family of Lusitania who still own one of the leading department stores in Rio de Janeiro, Casa Leitao. It is well known that the Romans started the custom of taking to themselves as surnames the names of their favorite fowls,