Hungertime! (Dum dum dum dum, da dum, da dum)

Portugal is a nation cheerfully and completely obsessed with food. Lost your job? Eat a steak. Had your heart broken? Go to your mother’s house and get force-fed litres of soup. Just enjoying being alive? The Portuguese will celebrate with you by shoving half a cow on your plate and beaming at you over the pile. We use food to express concern, love, affection and pretty much every other emotion going and there’s no such thing as an overloaded plate in our culture. Generosity and hospitality are two of the most highly-prized Portuguese characteristics. This can be slightly overwhelming for the first-time visitor, who might be somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer size of the portions and the vehemence with which they’ll be encouraged to clear their plate. Food also serves as a useful marker for time. The Portuguese day is divided up by the proper meals and their accompanying hours. Ask a Portuguese person what time they’d like to meet you somewhere and they’ll pin the time to the nearest meal – “before lunch” for example, or “after dinner”. They also tend to get very agitated if they don’t know where their next meal is coming from and it’s not uncommon to overhear them planning dinner whilst halfway through lunch. All of this is why I’ve fallen in love with this clock by Portuguese designer Pedro Silva Dias. The time is divided up into “before lunch”, “lunchtime”, “after lunch” and similar and would be a PERFECT housewarming present for a friend of mine. You know who you are!