Tosta de tomate

One of the conveniences of living in a Portuguese border town is that what we can't find here is probably to be had with a ten-minute drive across the border to Badajoz, Spain.

One of those things is apparently tomato toast. One morning the doutora announced that we were going for a drive and would have breakfast in Spain. I was quietly horrified at the idea, because Portuguese friends have often told me how terrible Spanish food is, and my few experiences up to that point had done little to contradict their opinions.

And when we took the freeway exit to what I would probably call a truck stop, I was dubiously curious about what was to come. Just tosta, she said as we approached the cafeteria counter, and café.

Hmm. I thought as I watched the help slop olive oil over a bit of white bread toast. Very dubious. We were given a plastic squeeze bottle with some orange crap in it, which turned out to be pureed tomato. At the table, I was instructed to spread the goop onto the olive oil-soaked toast and then add just a sprinle of salt. Given that we almost never cook with salt, I was really skeptical now.

It was love at first bite. My God.

Since then we've improved on that first delicious experience; now the tomatoes come fresh from the garden sometimes, and the bread for toasting is usually some sort of a spelt-and-rye sourdough or some other whole grain mix. And we use a better salt, collected from evaporation beds by the seaside. The olive oil too is a few classes better - Portugal has the best in the world, after all. Heaven can get better.

But that's usually the Portuguese way: go out and find something great somewhere in the world, maybe just a little way across the border. And make it better.