Museum of Sardine Canning

The Museu de Portimao, housed in an old sardine canning facility, tells a really well thought-out story of the history or Portimao and especially of the catching and canning of sardines.   Life as a worker in the factory, especially the women's jobs, is vividly shown through a documentary made 1946 that's on a running loop in the museum.  The movie and exhibits all are accompanied by English translations, making them very accessible.

boats bringing in fish scooped up the catch into baskets, which were then carried on a conveyer belt up to the canning factory,  There's baskets still hanging on a section of the belt. 

There's also fascinating info on the labeling, lithography and assembly process that produces the attractive tins the fish comes in.  It was a very hands-on job with a lot of workers to get sardines from the sea into cans and I loved seeing it all documented this way.

In addition, the museum has an exhibit of the work of the late Querubim Lapa, an artist whose paintings and ceramics captured Neo-realist and lyrical depictions of working men and women of the area.  It made a very moving counterpoint to the documentary in the canning exhibit, as his work reveals the raw, emotional and often dark struggles of fishmongers, street vendors, jugglers and others in the gritty everyday existence of a working port.  His later works on display in ceramics were graphic tile arrangements that created illusions of depth and space.

this pre-cell phone painting somehow captures parents reacting to their child scrolling -- how did he know?

When I first came to the Algarve 3 years ago, I avoided Portimao and Lagos, because they are big busy cities and Covid and crowds were not on my itinerary,   I am still torn about whether to go to Lagos on this trip, but I'm glad I made the trip to Portimao on a not-busy Saturday, when I could drive in past the car dealerships and fast food restaurants, spend time at the museum, and head back out.  It probably didn't help my sense of a gritty city that today was a gray day with dark clouds and winds coming in for what may be some rain later tonight or tomorrow.  

I stopped at Gurkha Kitchen for carryout dinner tonight.  I had a very good Indian meal there 3 years ago and the food I got tonight was great too.  

And one more food note that I forgot from yesterday -- I don't have photo of it, but at Marisqueria Rui, I was served a hot, buttered, puffy roll with a plate of mayonnaise.  I probably was served a 1/4 cup of mayonnaise on the plate for my one roll, and I saw other tables with twice that amount.  And people were just dipping in.  I like mayonnaise and I like it on frites at a Belgian restaurant, but I was a little surprised watching people swipe up the mayonnaise on their rolls like it was hummus on pita bread.  I tasted it, and it was good... but surprising.

Another afterthought -- after I was in the Algarve 3 years ago, I read a book about a family who owned a former sardine canning facility and the tensions between different family members about what would happen to the property.  The book also dealt with race and class issues among the people in the region.  I loved it and was thinking about it yesterday when I was planning today's sightseeing.  I couldn't remember the name of the book!  After googling many search terms in the hope that one would bring up the book title, I realized I could recall the name of the translator, Margaret Jull Costa (why that stuck in my head, I don't know, my mind is funny that way).  When I looked up works she'd translated, I found the book -- it's The Wind in the Cranes by Lidia Jorge.  I may read it again while I'm here.