How to Clean a Fish describes an extended family stay in Portugal, full of food, adventure, and the search for home. Offered the opportunity to live in Costa da Caparica for an extended period, Esmeralda Cabral jumped at the chance to return to the country of her birth. Together with her Canadian-born husband, children, and Portuguese Water Dog, Maggie, Cabral makes new and nostalgic discoveries-a labyrinth of cobblestone alleys and beautiful painted tiles, a delicious bica and pastel de nata, a classic fado concert, the gentle ribbing of local fishmongers, a damaging high tide-translating words and emotions for her family along the way. Packed with local cuisine and customs, tales of language barriers and bureaucracy, and threaded with that irresistible need to connect with the culture of our birth, How to Clean a Fish is for readers curious about life in Portugal and for anyone who has moved from one place to another and is seeking their own version of home. "We sat around the large outdoor table for our last big meal. The patio was filled with flowers growing along the wall and spilling out onto the street. The side and back yards were terraced and shaded by an almost impenetrable roof of grape vines. The fragrance of the flowers mixed with the garlic from the kitchen. I breathed in deeply and prepared myself for the delicious food and for another round of simultaneous translation." An extended family stay in Portugal, full of food, adventure, and the search for home. Map, recipes Sales Tips:
• The author's family immigrated from Portugal to Canada in 1969, just as she started elementary school.
• How to Clean a Fish chronicles Cabral's return to Portugal with her Canadian-born family and Portuguese Water Dog, Maggie.
• It's an easy, engaging read about an extended family stay in Portugal, full of food, adventure, and colourful local characters.
• Coastal mainland Portugal is a wonderful setting and Portugal is a hot tourist destination.
• This is an exploration of identity and the theme of "home."
• It's a story about the irresistible need to connect with the culture of her birth, and the desire to pass on her heritage to her children.
• This book straddles several genres: travelogue, food, and memoir.
• There are not many books about Portugal published in English. This is a fine example of Portuguese-North American emigrant memoir-a growing but still underrepresented genre.
Audience:
• Readers of travel writing, especially those who are interested in Portugal and its culture.
• Portuguese Canadians curious about the country of their heritage and ancestral homeland.
• People who have lived or aim to live in a foreign country for long periods of time with or without knowledge of the native language.
• People who enjoyed Peter Mayle's Provence series, Frances Maye's Tuscany series, and Diana Marcum's The Tenth Island.
• "Foodies" and dog lovers will like it too! "These pages are as delicious as the Portuguese food the author so enthusiastically writes about. Any English speaker interested in Portugal will gladly savor Esmeralda Cabral's genuine narratives as a tasty introduction to Portuguese culture's joys, appeals, intricacies, and mysteries. She is well-versed with food, fado, the language, and even soccer, but she has to negotiate how to feel somewhat at home in the complex web of subtle Portuguese ways." Onésimo Teotónio Almeida, Brown University "With the keen eye of a traveller, Esmeralda Cabral serves up close depictions of daily life in Costa da Caparica, including market days, pastéis de nata, and Portuguese hospitality. Told with warmth and layered with Cabral's nuanced reflections on home, belonging, and family, How to Clean a Fish is an enticing memoir that will connect with readers." Meaghan Hackinen, author of South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels "Our easy-going and approachable narrator gives us a charming and entertaining book
