Portugal’s Dryland Orchard

. . . almond, carob, fig, olive

One of our oliveiras in full spring bloom

Seasons in the Algarve are punctuated by the annual cycle of its iconic trees. The year begins with pink and white almond blossoms, and in spring the olive trees are bursting with tightly packed blooms. Different fig varieties ripen throughout the summer. Autumn is the time to gather carob pods and take them to the cooperative to sell, and to harvest olives for pressing into oil. These four trees collectively make up the pomar de sequeiro, the dryland orchard.

In March 2024 I went to a presentation in Faro by the Algarve Coordination and Development Commission, celebrating the release of their book Pomar de Sequeiro. This publication is a detailed consideration of one aspect of the mediterranean diet, which was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO ten years prior. The application for cultural heritage status was a collaborative project of seven countries: Cyprus, Croatia, Spain, Greece, Italy, Morocco and Portugal.

First, let’s get one definitional issue out of the way. Portugal is bordered by the Atlantic, so how can it be mediterranean? Ah, but there is the capital M Mediterranean, the countries around the Mediterranean Sea, and small m mediterranean, the climate that circles the globe. Mediterranean climate zones include Atlantic portions of the Iberian Peninsula (nearly all of Portugal, and Atlantic parts of Spain), Southwest and South Australia, Cape Town in South Africa, Chile and California. California! No wonder I immediately felt at home here as a native of the Golden State.

My eyes have been opened to the depth and breadth of what mediterranean diet means. It is not just a dietary regimen but agriculture, landscape, culture, cuisine and societal customs. And these are remarkably similar in diverse areas that enjoy the arid climate with months of dry weather and winter rains. Watch a ten-minute video showcasing the UNESCO cultural heritage announcement here.

In future posts I will take an in depth look at each of these trees, their histories and uses—to include some of my recipes. For now, here are brief discussions of each.

Almonds

Almond trees were probably introduced to Portugal around 1000 BCE by the Phoenicians. Somewhere, in ancient times, humans figured out that most wild almonds are poisonous, containing amygdalin, which turns into cyanide in the body. People used processes like sequential washing to remove the toxin and then selected and hybridized for trees that bore sweet, rather than bitter almonds, and these are edible. Portugal has unique varieties of almonds that thrive in poor, dry soil, but these can’t be industrialized. California exploded with almond farming using heavy irrigation in the 1960s through 1980s, eclipsing Portugal’s production. Portugal became an almond importer as a result.

Carob

Alfarroba, or carob, is another ancient crop. This dryland tree can live for centuries with little care, and its pods are harvested for the little black beans, or seeds, inside. In ancient times the seeds were used as a unit of weight, especially for gemstones, as evidenced in the word carat. In the 1970s carob was promoted to health food junkies as a substitute for chocolate—back in those days I thought it tasted like brown dust. Real carob has a delicious taste all its own. A carob sponge cake roll with lemon cream filling is wonderful, for example. Carob is high in protein and used as a thickener in food processing and animal food. Portugal is the world’s largest producer of alfarroba.

Figs

The Phoenicians, Romans and Moors cultivated figs, and dried figs were the chief export of the Algarve in the 16^th century. Our neighbor has a huge fig orchard with about two dozen trees, and she gives me free range to pick as much as I can use. I love them fresh, but I also make fig preserves such as chutney and jam. I bought a dehydrator and dry figs, using them to make fig-olive tapenade. Another favorite is fig sorbet.

My homemade fig sorbet with toasted almond crumble

Olives

One way to define the mediterranean climate: do olives grow there? Olive trees prove a locale is mediterranean. Portugal is the ninth-largest producer of olive oil in the world and is projected to be in third place by 2030.

I gained the last name de Oliveira, meaning of the olive tree, by marrying Jasiel, who was born in Brazil. People used to say to me in the US, “what an unusual name!” But it is actually very common. Jasiel’s grandfather was Portuguese, and Jasiel would be a citizen of Portugal already if he could document that lineage. But just like at Ellis Island in New York, many people changed their names when they immigrated. It’s also said that a last name signifying a tree means the family was Jewish and changed their name during The Inquisition.

We have five oliveiras on our property. It is a laborious process to harvest the olives and take the buckets of olives to the lagar (olive oil mill) to be pressed. Olive crops tend to be good one year, and almost none the next, and we had to prune our trees hard last year. In 2023 we harvested one tree which yielded 32 kilos, and we got 3.5 liters of olive oil for our efforts. As the price of olive oil goes ever upward, the “juice to squeeze ratio” is more favorable. And it feels good to be part of the land, and part of the ancient traditions that make Portugal so rich.