Tracing The Humble Pao, Fado & Lovely Monuments In Lisbon

I ate some stunning meals in my two weeks in Portugal. But regardless of how engrossing the food was, I never failed to be delighted by the bread basket. This is partly because baking is an elevated art form in these parts, and the bread was as satisfying as good bread can be, but also because I was taken up with the fact that I already knew the Portuguese word for bread—pao. The Portuguese, by the way, they sailed in ships called nau—must have introduced non-flat breads to western India, and now I doubt I can ever eat a pav-bhaji or vada-pav without thinking of Portugal.