Proud to be Portuguese Canadian - the event(s) Posted by João on 5:31 pm

For those Portuguese-Canadians who hail from the province of British Columbia, the name Terry Costa is one a lot of people got to know over the years. In Vancouver, when it came to community activism and participation within the Portuguese community, Terry (on the right) was, and in many ways still is, the poster boy of many initiatives. These days he calls the Azores home, although he still does a lot of traveling back and forth between Canada and the islands.

Presently, through his production organisation Mirateca Arts,Terry has set out on one of his bigger ventures yet when it comes to the Portuguese in Canada. Aimed primarily at Portuguese descendant youth, Terry is the man behind the initiative Proud to be Portuguese Canadian (PtbPC), an initiative that sets out a number of objectives that include: 1.) stimulating young professional luso-descendants, students, their families and colleagues in discovering the Portuguese culture of today; 2.) strengthing links between the Portuguese in Canada and the Canadian social, cultural, political and economic life; 3.) promoting Portuguese culture through the presentation of artists and other cultural agents; and 4.) expressing pride in being Portuguese-Canadian.

A series of PtbPC events will take place in Toronto during a 10 day period, from March 15th to the 25th, kicking off with a ‘not your regular kind of conference’ conference on Saturday, the 17th at the Mod Club Theatre, featuring special guests, among them Portuguese-Canadian celebrity chef extraordinaire, Carmen Correia, as well as presentations, talk-backs and more.

As well, the PtbPC initiative inviting members of his community to submit their “Proud to be Portuguese Canadian” videos to a video contest aimed at bringing greater invisibility to the heritage of Portuguese descendants residing in multicultural Canada. Videos can be sent via email to proudtobeportuguesecanadian@gmail.com or uploaded on YouTube with the link then sent in to the same e-mail address. The person who’s video gets the most views wins him or herself a cool ‘grand’ (aka $1000.00).

The PtbPC project is also a media partner with Canadian Music Week (CMW) and Missão Canadá: Mission Canada that, this year, are presenting a special "Focus on Portugal" session at the Slacker Canadian Music Fest, showcasing a series of music acts from Portugal. This year’s CMW will run from March 21st to 25th and will feature among the 100’s of music acts, a couple of hand fulls from Portugal, including Setubal’s Mazgani, Porto’s masked men Blasted Mechanism, Braga’s Peixe:Avião, among others…

So there you go, if you’re in Toronto come the month of March, this is something worth taking in. Leave you with a couple of fun promotional posters for the event which also contain the website where you can go to get more info.

September used to mean homemade wine Posted by João on 7:14 pm

Ok so here we are nearing the end of September. Drawing back on my days of youth in Prince George, B.C., this time of year reminds me of three things: yellow leaves, chopping and stockpiling lumber for the winter ahead, and making wine. It's this last one I'm going to talk about today. The Portuguese love their wine, it's a matter of fact. But the Portuguese also believe they shouldn't have to pay a lot for their wine. Most Portuguese emigrant men in Canada will tell you that they will drink 3, 4, 5 glasses of wine a day, yet most have never purchased a bottle at the liquor store. How do they do it? They make it at home.

Now having grown up the son of Portuguese emigrants in Canada, and as many like me will attest, this time of year was often a messy time of year. Making homemade wine never was and probably never will be a clean process, yet everyone had to help with one thing or another. So in our house, every September, from one day to the next, unannounced, my dad would receive boxes of grapes, often brought to our place of residence by another member of the Portuguese community. The grapes, whatever the variety, would either came from the Okanagan region of British Columbia or from California straight into our backyard and ready to be turned in the nector of the gods.

Boxes of California wine grapes ready for the wine press

Now the crushing of the grapes, of course, was the messy part, be it the crushing (crusher on the left) or the pressing (presser on the right).

The end result, however, made it all worth it - to see the juice flowing into the pail, the first signs of what would be on the table every night for the year(s) to come. I guess it made it all worth while.

So skipping ahead a few steps in this winemaking adventure, a few weeks or months after fermentation would come the bottling. Now bottles often came in two sizes. On one hand, there was the popular five litre bottle (see below) which was robust, heavy (once full) and awkward to put on the table during dinner.

On the other, there were the unreturned 1 litre Pop Shoppe pop bottles (on the Pop Shoppe see www.canadiansinportugal.com/2011/09/pop-shoppe-memories.html). Whenever my non-Portuguese friends would come over, if we would go into the garage for one reason or another, a common question posed would often be: What's the deal with all the empty Pop Shoppe bottle cases piled up one on top of each other? Why don't you return them? It's for bottling wine. Explaning it would bring a smile to my face as well. I guess it was a bit of a way of bringing a bit of Canadiana to Portuguese winemaking. Go ahead, imagine one of these here to the left full of tasty homemade wine on your table though...

Now by the 1990's, this whole process of making wine right from the grape got replaced by the buckets of grape juice ready for fermentation. Everybody got into it. Surely the cutting off of certain steps made things cleaner, even cheaper, but the replacing of the wooden grape boxes with white plastic buckets left something to be desired, this beyond the fact that such a "new" method seemed to be serving up a slap in the face to the old, more traditional means these Portuguese emigrants adapted upon settling in Canada. Now is there hope of the grape making a comeback among Portuguese winemakers in Canada? I like to think so. After all the Pop Shoppe bottles are back.

The Summertime BBQs of Canada Posted by João on 6:57 pm

Alright, continuing on with these themes of summer and food, as has been the focus of our last posts, today I want mesh the two together and talk about the old fashion summertime outdoor barbecues which are very much a part of the summertime fun and imagery of those long days of summer north of the 49th.

Ok, first, as many may already know, BBQing can basically be accomplished in two ways:

1.) via the old gas BBQ, more conviniente for those backyard or deck gathering with friends;

2.) via the fire pit, usually more common when camping out.

Now no matter what route you take, what is most important to remember is that a good ol' fashion BBQ not only brings together good food, that is often also accompanied with plenty of great drinks, it is also about camaraderie and being with good friends and family. Sticking to the food, however, I think we can all agree that pretty much everything tastes great over an open flame - meat, fish, vegetables and lets not forget these things below:

Yes, that's right yummy marchmallows roasting on an open fire, a culinary delight that is vertually unknown here in Portugal. In fact, if anyone knowns where good chunky marchmallows can be purchased here, leave a comment.

Now although BBQing may have certain ritualistic elements symbolic of the Canadian summer, in the same vain that Canada is a multicultural haven, so is BBQing synonymous with multiculturalism: Greek souvlaki, Chinese BBQ pork, Brazilian picanha or maminha, the abundancy of German sausages, and the list goes on. Of course we cannot forget the Portuguese in Canada and their passion for a BBQ - bifanas, chicken, sardines, and so on and so forth. Seldom is a gathering of Portuguese communities in Canada in the summer BBQ-less.

Good ol' typically Portuguese community BBQ in Canada

One of the most interesting features of these Portuguese community BBQs, however, are the BBQ instruments themselves - the often homemade oil barrel sawed in half BBQ that is then put on wheels and is ready to travel.

Portuguese BBQ-on-wheels with built-in chicken rotisserie ready to feed hundreds

Well it's only natural that I should be hungry now and it's certainly not a soup or salad that I'm hankering down for. I'm off to eat and if you BBQ, BBQ safely and enjoy!

Workshop on Luso-Canadians and their descendants in Canada and in Portugal Posted by João on 11:48 pm

On the afternoon of Monday, the 27th of June, from 14:30 to 18:30 at the new TagusPark campus of Universidade Aberta (Edifício Inovação I - 2nd floor, room polivalente), myself, João Sardinha, am coordinating the Canadian Studies International Research Linkages Project Workshop: Luso-Canadians and their Descendants in Canada and in Portugal: Questions of Civic Participation and Diversity Management.

The workshop includes the presentation of seven papers, bringing together researchers from Portugal and Canada. These include:

"Multiculturalism and the politics of belonging among Portuguese-Canadians - Shifting contexts and meanings" - Ana Paula Beja Horta (CEMRI-Universidade Aberta, Lisbon);

"Evaluating Multiculturalism: Portuguese-Canadian descendants within the Canadian mosaic" - Fernando Nunes (Mount St. Vincent University, Halifax);

"A past for the future: Archiving the Portuguese-Canadian experience - the Portuguese-Canadian History Project" - Gilberto Fernandes &Raphael Costa (York University, Toronto);

"Portuguese media production in Canada: Some preliminary ethnographic notes" - Sónia Ferreira, Marta Rosales & Filomena Silvano (CRIA-FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon);

"Understanding Portuguese-Canadian civic identity in a cosmopolitan context" - Robert Kenedy (York University, Toronto);

"Transnational practices and intergenerational transmittance among Azorean descendants in Quebec" - Ana Gherghel (Universidade dos Açores, Azores) & Josiane le Gall (Université du Québec a Montréal, Montreal);

"When the idyllic becomes a myth: Portuguese-Canadian descendants narrate pre- and post-return to Portugal" - João Sardinha (CEMRI-Universidade Aberta, Lisbon).

The event will also host the Canadian ambassador in Portugal, the Honourable Anne-Marie Bourcier who will provide the opening address.

Entrance is FREE. Please come join us if these issues are of interest to you.

"Sitting here at the Hortons, so you know this is important" Posted by João on 2:06 pm

The title of this entry is a line from the song 'Vancouver Divorce', a track off of Gordon Downie's (aka singer of the legendary Tragically Hip) first solo album Coke Machine Glow. As a songwriter that often reverts to the Canadian cultural landscape to get his point across in his songs, in this case Downie's reference to the 'The Hortons', if you haven't guessed it, refers to that all-Canadian house of coffee and donuts and other gastronomical treats known as Tim Hortons. My favourite among those treats, by the way, is the chili, served up with some of that country fresh bread which you can then dip into the chili ... oh that's tasty!

But anyway, in Canada, it's pretty well know that Tim Hortons is an important gathering location for many; a place of conviviality where friends and acquaintances come together to sit around and discuss, gossip, reminisce, etc. As Downie points out, if it's being debated at 'the Hortons' it's got to be 'important'. Now I highly doubt Downie was thinking of the Portuguese when he was putting those lyrics together, however, if there's an ethnic group that loves to gather at 'the Hortons', it's the Portuguese. I first witnessed this when I used to live in Prince George, B.C., among the local Portuguese community there. At first I thought that this was perhaps a local phenomenon, after all the older members of the community had to meet somewhere. Recently, however, during trips to Toronto and Montreal, I discovered that the same phenomenon occurs in these cities as well. In Montreal I was especially amazed by the large concentration of Portuguese at one Tim Hortons, but more then the large concentration, was the male/female division with men sitting around one table, women around another. If the men were to break out a game of sueca (the card game), it would almost be like being at a Portuguese association clubhouse.

So it seems that Tim Hortons has conquered the Portuguese emigrant market in Canada as far as fast food is concerned. The question that remains, however, is: are the Tim Hortons people aware of the market potential when it comes to the Portuguese? Perhaps they would consider this suggestion as a donut substitute?