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Glossary
Glossary of Portuguese crafts
Techniques, materials, objects and flavours of Portuguese tradition, explained simply and linked to the people who still make them.
31terms
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Aguardente DOC Lourinhã
Aguardente DOC Lourinhã is a wine brandy, distilled from wine and aged in wood, made in the Lourinhã Demarcated Region in western Portugal. It was demarcated in 1992 and is...
ReadAlguidar
Alguidar is a traditional Portuguese vessel wider than it is tall, with a mouth much larger than its base, shaped like an inverted truncated cone with an outward-turned rim. Made...
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Banana fibre
Banana fibre is the plant fibre taken from the stem and leaves of the banana plant after it has fruited. Extracted, dried and cleaned by hand, it is plaited, coiled...
ReadBarcelos figurines
Figurado de Barcelos is the tradition of hand-modelling fired and painted clay figures in the municipality of Barcelos, in Minho, Portugal. Roosters, saints, musicians, scenes of daily life and fantastic...
ReadBitter honey (mel amargo)
Mel amargo (bitter honey) is the popular name for strawberry tree honey, made by bees from the flowers of the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo), which bloom in autumn and winter....
ReadBunho
Bunho is a giant wetland rush, also called erva-de-esteira (mat grass), with round, smooth, leafless stems that can reach three metres. Harvested green in summer and dried in the sun,...
ReadBurel
Burel is a wool cloth that is woven on a loom and then fulled, meaning it is beaten and scalded in very hot water until it becomes dense, compact and...
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Cabeçudo
A cabeçudo (literally "big head") is a festival figure with a huge, oversized head, worn like a helmet, that dances through the streets to the beat of bass drums. It...
ReadCantarinha dos namorados
Cantarinha dos namorados (lovers’ jar) is a traditional pottery piece from Guimarães, Portugal, in red clay, shaped like a small stacked water jug with a lid and decorated with raised...
ReadCavaquinho
Cavaquinho is a small Portuguese folk string instrument of the guitar type, with a flat top and back and four strings. The Minho, in northern Portugal, is its heartland. It...
ReadCobertor de papa
Cobertor de papa is a traditional blanket from Guarda, Portugal, woven by hand on a wooden loom from churra sheep wool. It is thick, heavy, warm and almost waterproof, with...
ReadCopper cataplana
Cataplana is a traditional cooking vessel from the Algarve, made of copper, with two concave halves joined by a hinge that close like a clam shell. When closed, it traps...
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Empreita
Empreita is the technique of plaiting thin strips of palm leaf, or esparto grass, into long braids. The braids are then coiled and sewn together to make baskets, bags, mats...
ReadEsparto
Esparto is a tough grass, Stipa tenacissima, that grows in the limestone barrocal and inland hills of the Algarve and Alentejo. Once pulled, sun-dried and soaked, it is braided into...
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Flor de sal
Flor de sal, the Portuguese flower of salt, is the thin layer of crystals that forms on the surface of the water in salt pans on hot days with a...
ReadFumeiro
Fumeiro is the place where meats are hung to be smoked and, by extension, the name of the products themselves: sausages, hams and other pork cuts cured over wood smoke....
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Mafarrico
Mafarrico is a Portuguese folk word meaning devil and, by extension, an impish person or a mischievous child who is always up to something. Its etymology is considered obscure. In...
ReadManta lobeira
Manta lobeira is one of the traditional variants of the cobertor de papa from Guarda, woven in churra wool with white, brown, green, red and yellow stripes. Also known as...
ReadMead (hidromel)
Hidromel (mead) is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey diluted in water, with most of its sugars coming from the honey. It is considered one of the oldest fermented...
ReadMedronho
Aguardente de medronho, or simply medronho, is a spirit made by fermenting and distilling the fruit of the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo), a shrub of the hills of southern Portugal....
ReadMouth-blown glass
Mouth-blown glass is glass shaped by hand with human breath. The glassblower gathers molten glass on the end of a hollow blowpipe and inflates it until it takes shape, either...
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Palma
Palma is the leaf of the dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis), a low palm that grows wild in the dry scrubland of southern Portugal. In the Algarve it is dried, cut...
ReadPorta da Loja apple
Porta da Loja apple (maçã Porta da Loja) is a traditional apple variety from northern Portugal, linked to the Monastery of Tibães, in Braga. It has yellow skin heavily streaked...
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Ra-Ro Index
The Ra-Ro Index is the rarity scale created by Ra-Ro to measure how special each handmade piece it sells is. It has five levels, from Uncommon to Unique, and weighs...
ReadRooster of Barcelos
The Rooster of Barcelos (Galo de Barcelos) is a brightly painted rooster figure, traditionally made in clay by the craftspeople of Barcelos, in the Minho region of northern Portugal. It...
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Sarronco
Sarronco is a mythical figure from Minho, in northern Portugal, the local name for the bogeyman: a shapeless, frightening being that adults invoked to scare misbehaving children. In Barcelos, the...
ReadSoenga
Soenga is the ancestral pit firing technique used in Gondar, in the municipality of Amarante, to make black pottery. The pieces are fired in an open fire dug into the...
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Vinho dos Mortos
Vinho dos Mortos (Wine of the Dead) is a wine from Boticas, in Trás-os-Montes, Portugal, that ages in bottles buried under a layer of earth. The tradition began in 1809,...
ReadViola braguesa
Viola braguesa is a traditional Portuguese guitar from Minho, with ten strings grouped in five double courses and usually a soundhole shaped like a ray fish (boca de raia). Strummed...
ReadViola campaniça
Viola campaniça is a traditional Portuguese guitar from Lower Alentejo, with five courses of strings and a strongly waisted, figure-of-eight body. About one metre long, it is mostly played fingerstyle...
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Glossary of Portuguese crafts
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