Postcard
with stamp of 0.32€ from the 2010’s ‘Portuguese Cheese’ stamps issue posted on
October, 21 2011.
(Special
thanks to my Best friend Alberto Velez Grilo)
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| Portuguese Cheese (1st group) |
Portuguese Cheese
Portugal –
given its continental narrowness – cannot pride itself of having good pastures,
especially for larger stock… However, in the areas where the high grass is
scarce, the goats and the sheep reign. The Azores is quite another story.
There, on the island of São Miguel, and on the other blessed island “Her
Ladyship the Cow” is empress. That is, the true dairy cow, not the vacuum
cleaner transvestite as «marcolina cow» in the paradigmatic translation of
“vacum cleaner” done by some, touched by the American greatness of local
emigration…
Therefore, and
also due to the poverty of the soil, herd tending has always been present in
the Lusian lands, as a very old livelihood, quite often supplementing in a
sustainable manner, avant la letter, the tilling of the soil, while the payment
for the “pasture” that fed the furry or woolly cattle that returned the natural
manure to the earth was negotiated between farmers and shepherds.
It is quite
obvious that in herd land the cheese is the king. Cheese is perhaps the oldest
man made processed food. After that hunting, fishing and fruit and vegetable
collecting times were by gone, and after man had learned to master the secret
of fire, Cheese appeared. Historic documents place its genesis in the valley
between two rivers and in Egypt, around 3 500 B.C. In Portugal, cheese has
certainly been produced since Neolithic times.
Cheese making,
whichever the cheese, is an art. At least that is the case with hand-made
cheese, intuitively worked by experienced hands, where knowledge is passed down
from the mother to the shepherd’s daughter who attentively follows every
details: The temperature of the hand, the curdling time, the turning of the
cheeses and the changing of the bands, the pastures of broom or other
graminaceous plants of the higher lands which greatly influence the flavour of
the final product.
As a tribute to
the shepherds, to their wives and to all the people who still work in the
traditional Portuguese cheese-dairies, we have made this commemorative stamp
issue, made up of two series, portraying all the Lusitanian cheeses with POD
and geographical indication (GI), leaving the description of the cheeses to
Master José Quitério.
Azeitão Cheese
Made from the
milk of the Bordaleira sheep race, sub-race Saloia (in present times from other
imported races as well), raw, curdled with cardoon, three weeks normal aging
time.
Shaped as small
cylinders – 5 cm high, 8 cm in diameter – weighing in average between 250 to
300 g (smaller ones are now appearing on the market).
Pale-yellow or
whitish paste, soft, creamy, with a stronger milky taste than the Serra da
Estrela cheese (from which it descends).
The production
area established by law stretches to the municipalities of Palmela, Sesimbra
and Setúbal, in the Lisbon region.
Transmontano
Goat’s Cheese
Made from raw
goat’s milk of the Serrana race, curdled with animal rennet, aged during two
months at least.
Cylindrical
shape, 4 to 6 cm high and 12 to 15 cm in diameter, weighing between 600 and 900
g. Hard whitish “blind” paste that has the characteristic flavour of goat’s
cheese and a light peppery touch.
Produced in the
municipalities of Âlfandega da Fé, Carrazeda de Ansiães, Freixo de Espada à
Cinta, Macedo de Cavaleiros, Mirandela, Mogadouro, Torre de Moncorvo and Vila
Flor (Bragança district), as well as Murça and Valpaços (Vila Real district),
located in the north-east of Portugal.
Rabaçal Cheese
Made from
sheep’s and goat’s milk, in the ideal proportion of 75% of the first to 25% of
the second, raw, curdled with animal rennet, it is aged for at least three
weeks.
Cylindrical
shape, about 5 cm high and 12 cm in diameter, it weighs between 300 and 500 g.
Whitish-unpolished
paste, semi-hard, with little or no holes, it has a particular flavour.
The production
area is mostly concentrated in the old village of Rabaçal (Penela municipality,
Coimbra district) and a few neighbouring villages. The certificate that
instituted the POD includes the municipalities of Alvaiázere, Ansião,
Condeixa-a-Nova, Penela, Pombal and Soure, in the centre of Portugal.
Serra da
Estrela Cheese
Made of pure,
raw sheep’s milk, of the Bordaleira race, Serra da Estrela variety, curdled
with cardoon, aged between 30 to 45 days (for the soft cheese).
Cylindrical
shape, about 6 cm high and 15 in diameter and weighing between 300 and 1 500 g.
Ivory coloured
paste, soft, creamy, “blind” or with a few small holes, exquisite flavour,
slightly acidulated.
The legally
defined area of production, which better opinions considered to be excessive,
covers the municipalities of Carregal do Sal, Celorico da Beira, Fornos de
Algodres, Gouveia, Mangualde, Manteigas, Nelas, Oliveira do Hospital, Penalva
do Castelo and Seia, and a few administrative parishes in the municipalities of
Aguiar da Beira, Arganil, Covilhã, Guarda, Tábua, Tondela, Trancoso and Viseu,
in the centre-north of Portugal.
São Jorge
Cheese
Made of raw
cow’s milk curdled with animal rennet.
Shaped as a
sort of wheel-type big cylinder between 10 to 15 cm high, its diameter varies
between 25 and 35 cm and its weight between 8 to 12 kg.
Hard,
straw-yellow paste with many tiny irregular holes, brittle, with an individual
flavour and slightly spicy touch. Minimum aging three month.
The production
area is that of the whole Island of São Jorge, Azores.
Technical
Details
Date
of Issue: 21 June 2010
Values:
0,32€, 0,32E, 0,47€, 0,68 and 0,80€
Designer:
Comcept Advertising
Printer:
INCM
Process:
4-colour offset lithography
Size:
stamps 40 mm x 30.6 mm
Perforation:
Cross of Christ 13 x 13
Paper:
White TR CPST331 110g/m2
Watermark:
Sheet:
sheets of 50 stamps
ISEP – Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto
Founded
in 1852, from the rise of Portuguese liberalism, by the force of an idea of
progress: Portugal, a country with a predominantly rural structure and
services needed to take a step forward. It was Fontes Pereira de Melo, Minister
of Public Works, Trade and Industry, who launched the first public system of
industrial education, based on the idea of education for development, where
our parent company, Industrial School of Porto was one of two first, in
comparison with the Polytechnic Academy, whose reference model was the elitist
rhetoric of the academy and the University of Coimbra who, unable to respond to
emerging needs, had been contested by the most enlightened intellectuals.
In 1864, under the aegis of the Deputy Chief John Chrysostom de Abreu e Sousa,
carried out a comprehensive reform and expansion of industrial education.
Teaching "superior" industrial is then divided into two parts: the
first, included training common to all arts, trades and industrial occupations,
integrating two components: theoretical, taught at the school, teaching and
practical training in workshops or the State, under agreement in private
factories, and the second included the teaching expertise of certain arts and
crafts, as well as various public services such as public works, mines and
telegraph.
Under this reform is the Industrial School Industrial Institute of Porto,
forming "masters", "drivers" and "factory
managers".
In 1881, during a visit to Oporto of King Louis, the then Minister of the kingdom
Tomás Ribeiro and the Minister of Public Works Rodrigues de Freitas, proposed
merging the two top schools in the industrial education - the Polytechnic
Academy of Oporto and the Industrial Institute of Oporto - a single, named
Polytechnic Institute of Oporto.
The School Board, whereas this project was contrary to its historical course -
refusing the proposed merger with the Polytechnic Academy, thus giving the body
an institutional culture that continues today: to teach, not only learn the
knowledge, but also know-how.
Throughout the period of the First Republic discussed whether Portugal should
be essentially a country of industries or an agricultural country, this
indecision by diluting the definition of an industrial policy that would be
saying abroad. And the advent of the ‘New State’ does not significantly alter
the status quo. It remains a situation of great uncertainty, which has to last
until almost our time.
The structure of industrial education will reflect just that: only between 1947
and 1950 is redefining the role of the Industrial Institutes in a review of the
industrial education, placing them at the apex of the structure of industrial
education, calling his teaching of "the middle technical industrial sector”,
with the aim of training of engineering technicians in all specialities classic,
fitted with a profile that enables them to direct entry into the productive
system in the performance of operational functions necessary for the top rising
industrial development.
In
1974, by Decree-Law 830/74 of 31 December the former Industrial Institutes became
Institutes in Engineering.
In the preamble of this decree-law is recognized that "the Industrial
Institutes are schools with a long history that shaped generations of
professionals who, arguably, have a fundamental contribution to the development
of Portuguese industry."
It is therefore within the scope of this recognition that the Institutes are
inserted into the structure of higher education, independent schools as having
legal personality and administrative autonomy, becoming the Industrial
Institute of Oporto in the current Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto
(ISEP), empowered to grant, among others, the degrees of bachelor and graduate
in engineering, matching the professional qualifications of engineer and technical
engineer.
In 1989 the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto is integrated into the Polytechnic
subsystem, through its training model to integrate two different courses: the
Bachelor, lasting three years, and the High Specialization Courses, with the
duration of two years and access by tender document, which, together with a
Bachelor consistent with it, conferred the bachelor's degree.
In 1998, under a new reform of the Polytechnic subsystem, the ISEP is to teach
the current two-stage degrees, characterized by its structure in two cycles -
a bachelor's degree with duration of three years - which allows the insertion
in the labour market followed by a second cycle of two years - mainly frequented
under post-employment - to obtain the degree.
In 2006, under Portugal's accession to the Bologna Declaration, the ISEP will
provide a new curriculum, consisting of undergraduate and master's degrees in
various areas of engineering, thus initiating a new cycle of its long history.
In 2008, Anibal Cavaco Silva, President of Portugal, enhances the quality of
work done in the ISEP for the Roadmap for Science. The passage through ISEP is
the first official visit of a Portuguese head of state to a Polytechnic Institute.
The ISEP assigns the first post-master's degree Bologna.
This
would merely perpetuate the slogan "Know How".
