Rua do Arsenal: Cod at the Door and Fish in Tins
Why is it significant?
Stop in front of one of the old grocery shops along Rua do Arsenal, and you may have to step around the stock. Stiff, flat, greyish-white slabs of salt cod are piled up like firewood, beside sacks of dried beans, strings of sausages and shelves of wine and olive oil climbing to the ceiling.
Key Facts
| Place | Rua do Arsenal: Cod at the Door and Fish in Tins |
|---|---|
| Address | Rua do Arsenal, 1100 Lisboa, Portugal |
| Geo Coordinates | 38.70770, -9.14200 |
| Part of Walk | Ginjinha, Salt Cod and Custard Tarts: A Lisbon Food Walk from the Baixa to Cais do Sodré |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop in front of one of the old grocery shops along Rua do Arsenal, and you may have to step around the stock. Stiff, flat, greyish-white slabs of salt cod are piled up like firewood, beside sacks of dried beans, strings of sausages and shelves of wine and olive oil climbing to the ceiling.
The street is named after the Arsenal da Marinha, the naval arsenal that took over the old royal shipyard behind you after the earthquake of 1755 and went on building and repairing warships there for generations. Sailors, dockers and clerks had to be fed, and the mercearias, the old-fashioned grocers, lined up to supply them. Some of these shops have barely changed: wooden counters, big scales, and a smell of salt, coffee and dried fruit.
Watch how cod is bought here. A serious customer chooses by thickness, because the fat loins are for roasting and the thin tails are for shredding. The shop cuts it to order on a heavy blade that looks like a guillotine. At home it then soaks in cold water for a day or more, with the water changed again and again, until the salt is gone and the flesh falls into big pearly flakes.
Then look at the tins. Portugal's canning industry took off at the end of the nineteenth century, and soon canneries lined the coast, from Matosinhos in the north down to Setúbal and the Algarve. Sardines, mackerel, tuna and octopus were packed in olive oil, very often by women working long shifts timed to the arrival of the fishing boats. During the world wars, demand for Portuguese tinned fish soared, and whole towns lived from it.
Tins have come back into fashion now, in bright retro wrappers, and Lisboetas eat them as petiscos, little dishes with bread and a glass of wine, without a trace of embarrassment. A good tin, they will tell you, gets better with age, like wine. Keep walking west along Rua do Arsenal, past the railway station at Cais do Sodré, to the long market hall that faces the riverside avenue.