While a cozido can be put together by one person, its preparation is often a social affair, involving many pairs of hands. The creators of ours will be Isabel, her sister Lenor, and the wives of Filipe and his brother Pierre. The four women huddle over the ingredients, gabbing cheerfully as they scrub vegetables at ancient brass sinks. Filipe, Pierre, and Isabel’s husband, António, a retired bank director from Lisbon and every bit the Continental aristocrat, sit comfortably in the elegantly appointed living room sipping aguardente, a grappalike aperitif, and discuss Portuguese and island politics.
The ingredients of the cozido reflect the Azorean philosophy of using everything available. The women toss in chicken, pork, veal, the spicy pork sausage called chouriço, cabbage, kale, turnips, yams, carrots, white potatoes, and sea salt. (No garlic, no pepper.) Morcela, a sweet sausage of pig’s blood and various pig parts mixed with onions and cinnamon, is key to the recipe. Consumed on the islands nearly as enthusiastically as fast food in the United States, morcela is essential for the rich, smoky taste it imparts to the stew.
The cooking pot is not, as might be expected, a family heirloom of antique ceramic or brass. Rather, it is made of aluminum. A container made of any other material, says Isabel, would be too thick for the job, and the dish would be ruined.
She lines the bottom and sides of the pot with kale leaves. “This is a ritual,” she says, brushing a strand of gray hair away from her eyes. Her sister stands poised with a thick chunk of veal in one hand and a pig’s ear in the other, as their two friends lean intently toward the pot and offer bits of advice. I marvel at this group effort, at the way these cooks make great skill look like instinct.
Suddenly, Filipe, António, and Pierre enter the kitchen. There seems to be a minor crisis. António takes a flashlight and some string from a drawer, and the three men gather around the pot and stretch the string across the top. Then they disappear into the night.
“They think the pot is too big,” Isabel says with a wink as she packs the food down with her fists. Finally, she and her sister wrap the morcela in cabbage and kale leaves and place the bundles carefully on top of the other ingredients. After tying the lid on tightly with string, the women wrap old bedsheets around the pot and tie them in a Christmas bow. Next, they swaddle the entire package in layers of burlap and then tie up the bundle with a cord that dangles from the table like a leash.
Satisfied, they stand back and admire their achievement. The door bursts open, and the men announce proudly that the pot will fit. “Yes, yes,” Isabel says, uninterested; she’s known all along that it would. Then she unceremoniously pushes the cozido under the table, where it will remain until morning.
At daybreak, a thick fog, sepulchral and ghostly, hugs the ground. The earth down in the mouth of the volcano grumbles; steam shoots out of cracks in the surface, seething and hissing. I wonder again what’s preventing us from falling through to the cauldron below.
Isabel lowers the pot into the ground with a rope. It jams halfway down on its many layers of swathing, so she gives it a no-nonsense kick and it slowly continues its descent. The men shovel dirt onto the wood planking covering the hole, and Isabel, a shadowy silhouette in the swirling steam, looks down at the mound of dirt, still clasping the rope with both hands as if she feared her handiwork might keep sinking and be lost forever.
The Azoreans have cooked cozido in this ingenious manner since the 17th century, and they know to leave the pot in its subterranean chamber of boiling mud and scalding steam for seven hours in the winter and six in the summer.
“And if it is undercooked?” I ask.
“To the pigs!” cries Isabel. “You can’t put it back in the hole. And if you overcook it, it becomes mush and then it, too, goes to the pigs. It is always a surprise.”
Seven hours later, the cooks and their husbands return and gather around the hole for the unveiling. Steam seeps from the pile of dirt, enveloping us in a sweet-scented mist. They lift the pot into the trunk of the car with steel tongs and then drive in solemn procession the few miles back to the house. In the kitchen, the cooks excitedly cut the strings and begin to unwrap the still-steaming bundle of burlap and bedsheets. The men watch in silence. Dirt falls onto the floor, more steam begins to escape, and the smells—sweet, smoky, cabbagey—now become intense enough to taste. Everyone stands over the pot like a proud parent and watches as Isabel lifts the lid with a flourish, prompting a collective “Ahhhh.” The ingredients may have shrunk by a third, but there is obviously enough food to feed a small army.
“We don’t eat it all at once,” Isabel says, standing back and marveling. “It’s what we call roupa velha—old clothes. For us, leftovers are an art. You cook in advance so that you can have other things later.” The recipes for leftovers, she adds, are often more complicated than those for the original dishes.
The long, linen-covered table has been set with crystal, silver, and antique Portuguese china. As the women scurry around the kitchen, the men stand before the fireplace drinking aguardente—not called “firewater” for nothing—and awaiting the feast. The side tables are crowded with the proud vintages of the islands: Curral Atlântis, a Bordeaux-like wine with a deep ruby color and a solid taste befitting the meal; Terras de Lava, a slightly fruity, accommodating white unique to these islands; and the locally made passion-fruit liqueurs. (Because of the -climate and the islands’ rich, volcanic soil, the Azores—particularly nearby Pico—have a long history of producing fine wines.)
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