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Portugal is known for its seafood and being a big fan of calamari I decided to order some. Before ordering the waiter took me into the restaurant to show me how fresh the squid was - when he brought it out after cooking I was surprised that it looked somewhat untransformed. I have never eaten squid like this before but I thought it had to do with presentation.

It certainly looks nice, doesn’t it? I started by cutting crosswidth into the squid at the top. When I had cut into it there I noticed that the inside was filled with what looked like small clear eggs. I scooped the eggs to the side and ate the surrounding - it tasted quite fresh and good. I proceeded to dissect the squid; inside were eggs, either the ink sac or the poop sac, some red organ and various other bits. I gutted it and then ate the outside, I managed to finish the 3 squids but having to clean your squid before you eat it is a little more unsettling than I would have liked. I asked the waiter after and he said the Portuguese eat the whole thing, whether that means they actually eat the ink sac or poop sac I am unsure - I decided to skip calamari the rest of the trip.

I used to read all kinds of research on bovine spongiform encephalopathy - BSE or mad cow disease - and one of the places where you can find information is on the CDC website. The CDC maintains a list of countries and the results of their monitoring programs. At some point I read about Portugal and how they have had quite a few positive tests and that their monitoring program is too under funded to be effective. While in the UK I have avoided beef to avoid BSE and I certainly wasn’t going to stop being paranoid in Portugal, so I avoided it there as well.

In Lisbon we went to the Miradouro de Santa Luzia - it is a nice look out over the city. We decided to eat at the cafe right on the patio in the sun as it looked relatively busy and that we would not be the only customer. Having had enough of ungutted seafood, and having decided to avoid eating cow, Oana and I split a green soup and an order of wild boar. After eating part of the wild boar I had a close look at it and it was still bloody on the inside. It didn’t come to my mind that wild boar and pig are related and that the boar might carry the trichinosis (TRICK-a-NO-sis) parasite but it did to Oana’s, and I couldn’t eat any more after that. When we got home I checked and sure enough wild boar can carry it!

Hopefully we don’t each have our own personal round wormcolonies that even now are creating larvae that will migrate to our muscles and form calcified cysts.

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