How to Clean a Fish: And Other Adventures in Portugal

by Esmeralda Cabral

How to Clean a Fish describes an extended family stay in Portugal, full of food, adventure, and the search for home. Offered the opportunity to live in Costa da Caparica for an extended period, Esmeralda Cabral jumped at the chance to return to the country of her birth. Together with her Canadian-born husband, children, and Portuguese Water Dog, Maggie, Cabral makes new and nostalgic discoveries―a labyrinth of cobblestone alleys and beautiful painted tiles, a delicious bica and pastel de nata, a classic fado concert, the gentle ribbing of local fishmongers, a damaging high tide―translating words and emotions for her family along the way. Packed with local cuisine and customs, tales of language barriers and bureaucracy, and threaded with that irresistible need to connect with the culture of our birth, How to Clean a Fish is for readers curious about life in Portugal and for anyone who has moved from one place to another and is seeking their own version of home.

Genres: Travel, Memoir, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

Published May 16, 2023

Reviews

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book. I loved reading the stories of her family, her history and the adventures they had in Portugal. We have plans to visit Spain and so I started a list of foods to try based on all the ones she listed.

[Sheri Radford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir was an enjoyable (if a bit forgettable) read.

[Nicola Ross]

Simple Stories Tell the Tale

I like simple paintings of fish so the cover of How to Clean a Fish appealed to me. I know, that’s not a great reason to read a book, but I also love stories about adventuring in other countries. I also like Portugal. And the colour orange on the cover was another plus.

So it was with some disappointment that when I delved into the book, the author chose mundane topics to describe her family’s decision and efforts to move for about a year to Portugal. Cabral, who was born in the Azores so Portuguese is her first language, wrote about getting passports and booking flights and renting their house in Vancouver. She explained in detail about transporting their dog. When they arrived in Costa da Caparica, a beach town that is a short ferry-ride away from Lisbon, the ordinary continued. Cabral wrote about going to the grocery store, complained about the neighbour’s barking dog, raved about shopping in a real market and generally kept up the mundane.

But I continued.

I would look at the cover of the book and then drool over the very cool hand-drawn map on page XVI and hope. Hope that things would improve. And they did – a lot. The stories the author tells are never earth-shattering. They move beyond mundane, but they are pretty much about the kind of things you might expect to happen. Problems reading menus, misunderstandings with landlords, too many houseguests. Typical. But somehow Cabral’s straightforward prose began to resonate with me. She wasn’t trying to impress me with far out stories or turn what happened to her, her husband and daughter into anything more than what they were.

In the end I learned a lot about Portugal, especially its cuisine.

It’s a great read. Informative. Interesting. Insightful. Simple pleasures for simple folk.

[Rossa Sung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional book! I rarely give a 5-star review. This gem of a book encapsulates everything you want from a travel memoir: humor, insight, personal misgivings in a foreign land, as well as grief. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a break from daily grind. Recipes are great addition as well. :)

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this memoir with its sunny travel, well articulated, heady nostalgia, and exploration of family relationships. It piqued my curiosity about all things living. I will definitely check out future offerings by Cabral and I look forward to hearing her speak, later this month.

[Devin Meireles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being an aspiring expatriate, I was drawn to this book for the romantic notion of moving to Lisbon. The author introduces their adventures in Portugal with how the proposition came to be—that was a handful of logistical elements that serendipitously fell into place as if it were preordained. I realized that moving abroad, even if a temporary arrangement, comes with a lot of planning to be made. Coordinating a working visa, familial obligations, accommodations, passports and flights was seemingly a lot, providing much uncertainty and stress along the way, however it all worked out.

When the author and their family finally arrived in Lisbon, they describe a sentimentality for their birthplace, although they were raised many kilometres offshore, in the Azores archipelago. Even so, the city was all too familiar for them and that atmosphere brought them a nostalgia of their childhood. The Portuguese call that saudade.

It was easy for them to fall in love with such a beautiful place and their storytelling encapsulated what living in Portugal is really like. The sights, the sounds, the people, and of course the taste of traditional food. Experiences all within walking distance from their apartment. There are scenes where they paint a magical picture of finding your home away from home. It’s during those organic moments that relationships are formed with the country and their extended stay had many more opportunities to develop that connection. The author makes new friends and memories while discovering new parts of themselves along the way.

Throughout this trip, the author describes an understanding of what their Portuguese parents missed about leaving their homeland. That’s a sentimentality for what they recognized to be their identity. In this case, the author alludes to themselves being the hyphen between Portuguese and Canadian. There is a duality between both countries that has them feeling out of place wherever they may be. However, that feeling of saudade was probably the heaviest thing they brought back to Canada at the end and of it all. The author’s husband poetically put it into words, “It’s whatever you feel that you are”.

This is a wonderful book that reminded me that home is wherever you feel you belong. Portugal is certainly a beautiful country and the hospitality from the people within it can be enough to capture the hearts of everyone that visits. This book reinforced my goal to move there one day and could encourage any reader to explore historic Lisbon as soon as possible.

[Edie Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wouldn’t call this the usual travel book. That’s the main reason I started reading it, filled with hopes of going to Portugal over the summer. Unfortunately those plans fell through.

Instead, I read this book and spent a few days having wonderful adventures while sharing a rented house with a Vancouver family and their dog.

The author, born in the Azores, moved to Canada when she was seven. She speaks the language and knows the customs so you are in good hands with her as your leader. Despite her being a tad neurotic (which I found endearing and relatable) you could sense a love that seemed to flow everywhere.

It was a great vicarious vacation. I saw the beautiful scenery, took long walks on the beach, ate the regional delicacies and chatted with the locals. Although there were also a few setbacks most things seemed to work out fine.

After it ended, I felt loss. Not only from leaving the country, but in saying goodbye to these lovely people.

This book made me feel as if I’d gone to Portugal. Someday I hope to go back.

[Michael Doane · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to Clean a Fish is a delightful, immersive memoir that blends travel, culture, and family life into a charming and insightful narrative. Esmeralda Cabral takes readers on her extended stay in Costa da Caparica, Portugal, where she and her family navigate language barriers, local customs, and the pleasures of Portuguese cuisine. From wandering cobblestone streets to savoring bica and pastel de nata, Cabral paints an evocative portrait of the country that shaped her early life while exploring what it means to find or redefine home.

What makes this book especially engaging is Cabral’s ability to balance humor, warmth, and reflection. Whether sharing the gentle ribbing of fishmongers or the wonder of a fado concert, she invites readers to experience Portugal through her eyes, making the memoir both personal and universally relatable. How to Clean a Fish is a must-read for travel lovers, food enthusiasts, and anyone drawn to stories of family, culture, and the quest for belonging.

Michael

[Virginia Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emigrating to Canada with her frailly when she was 7, Esmeralda always felt torn between two worlds; thus she was delighted when her husband's sabbatical leave provided her, their two teenage children and their dog, a chance to spend six months living in Lisbon, In this delightful memoir, the author recounts her mixed emotions as she struggles to reconcile her two halves while introducing her family to the food - from pastel de nata to octopus - language and culture of the country of her birth. This book will appeal to anyone who has ever travelled in Portugal- or wants to - and to anyone who had struggled to love two countries.

[Tom Romig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildly entertaining, though there's not actually a lot here that has to do with Portugal. Little by way of places, people, history, customs, politics, and so on. The author comes across, by her own account, as lacking in self confidence and prone to anxiety and excessive worry, conditions that do not always make for a rewarding read. I did learn a good deal about the family dog, which, I suppose, somehow fits in since it's a Portuguese water dog.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look into daily life in a small town near Lisbon in Portugal through the eyes of a Canadian. Born in the Azores and moving to Canada when she was six with her family, the author now with older children of her own relives some of her memories. Her husband, on sabbatical from his position at UBC, works on a research project and she revisits customs and traditions, food and Fado. Enjoyable read.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fair warning: If you haven't yet been to Portugal, it'll make you want to go....If you've been to Portugal, you'll want to go back. Esmerelda Cabral did a lovely job of connecting this readers senses throughout the book.

[Eric Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting story about Portugal and Portuguese culture. The food is mouth-watering.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Vancouverite who lived abroad in Spain for four years this spoke to me. The process of moving abroad and the stories of enjoying life in Lisbon reminded me of my trip to Lisbon that inspired me to move abroad in the first place. Definitely something that reminded me of good times.

[Dani Ollé · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable and full of love for Portugal