Roasted, fried, with cuttlefish, in an Algarvian chickpea stew, in soups, in pastries and other sweets, there are a thousand and one traditional ways to eat sweet potatoes. But Aljezur doesn't want to stop here and that's how, from noon tomorrow until Sunday, the Sweet Potato Festival will also teach how to make and give new ways to eat this tuber.
«We'll have several festivals here chefs consecrated, but I highlight the Susana happiness, who is from Aljezur and was one of the judges of RTP's “Top Chef” program. All of them will introduce us to new ways to combine traditional and new cuisine good gourmet food», revealed José Amarelinho, mayor of Aljezur, in an interview with Sul Informação.
«There will be, as has been the habit, very unexpected combinations, always using sweet potatoes and other regional products to create dishes and delicacies that everyone can taste at the Festival», added the mayor.
With the strong dish centered on sweet potatoes, a product that at a local level, due to its characteristics and quality, won the right to bear the DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) seal, to visitors to the Festival, which takes place in the multipurpose pavilion of Aljezur, they can also buy the tuber at attractive prices, directly supplied by the producers, as well as enjoy the traditional dishes in the taverns.
The Aljezur's pastries will bring to this festival the most exquisite temptations of cakes, pastries, pies and other ways to satiate the appetites of the most gluttonous and the most curious to realize how unique these temptations are made in a wise and traditional way, by ambassadors from the local sweets.
Bearing in mind that this Festival is the «great show of the local economy and of this region», the mayor José Amarelinho emphasizes that the producers are already working «with the event in mind». “The main objective is for agricultural associations to be increasingly strengthened around this type of product with DOP”, he stresses.
However, warns the mayor of Aljezur, “it is important not to let ourselves be caught up in the ditty with other sweet potato varieties, because they say they give greater production and faster maturation. The “Lyra” variety is the one that is certified for our area, it is the one that gives a product with unique characteristics with a protected geographical indication. Only “Lyra” can bring greater returns, even from a financial point of view».
A Festival that grows from year to year…and other plans
After fat cow time where, in the Algarve, there was a gastronomic festival on every corner, «now there are only three or four, of better quality and more connected to the products of each land. This is the case of our Sweet Potato Festival, which has established itself as a great gastronomic festival and has even grown from year to year», said Amarelinho.
An example of this growth is the number of exhibitors, which increased: «there has been a lot of entrepreneurship in Aljezur and in our region, mostly self-employed activities, linked to agriculture, rural areas, sweet potatoes. And that's what is shown at the Festival», guarantees the Aljezurense mayor.
But the Aljezur Town Council's plans to promote local products, even at the gastronomic level, do not stop there. José Amarelinho revealed to Sul Informação that, even during this term, a festival linked to the sea and its products, namely the barnacles, but not only will be recovered.
«It will be a festival that will bring together gastronomy, ethnography and history. We're already working on it, but it probably won't be next year that this festival will start. The most likely is that the first edition will be at Easter 2015», he said.
“The infrastructural cycle is practically completed in Aljezur, only the Library is missing. Now, municipalities have to focus on social functions, as they have, in many cases, to replace the central state. Within these functions is economic development and one of the areas in which we are committed is the promotion of sustainable development, which involves supporting local and traditional economic activities. The Sweet Potato Festival and the new event that we will create is one of the forms of this support, as will be the 10th Meeting of Environment and Environmental Education that we will host next year, in partnership with Almargem, or the Bienal de Turismo de Nature, which we are promoting with Vicentina», concluded the mayor José Amarelinho.
The Sweet Potato Festival is promoted by the Municipality of Aljezur and the Sweet Potato Producers Association of Aljezur.
The official opening of the event, which will take place tomorrow, November 29, at 21 pm, will be chaired by the Secretary of State for Agriculture José Diogo Albuquerque.
The Festival can be visited on Friday and Saturday, from 12:00 to 24:00, and on Sunday, from 12:00 to 22:00. Admission is free.
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