Statues Without Plinths

A Collection of Plinthless Statues, Starting in the Caribbean and Moving East to the Shore of the China Sea

Introduction

There was a time when effigies of ‘the great and the good’ stood on plinths so pigeons could perch on their heads and the rest of us could look up to them. The ultimate was Admiral Nelson whose plinth – or column - is 52m high. The figure itself is over 5m, but for the sculptor (Edward Hodges Bailey) it must be galling to have worked so hard on something that very few people ever see properly.

Nelson's column, Trafalgar Square, London in November sunshine

I don’t know where or when the fashion started but I think I first saw statues of normal sized people standing on the pavement (or, in this case, sidewalk) in Tacoma, Washington (the western US state, not the eastern city) in 1998. The next summer, in the south of France, we found them in several towns; whichever side it started the idea had already jumped the Atlantic. Over the last twenty years it has spread to most corners of the Earth.

I like these statues. Most (but not all) are light hearted, and I appreciate being able to look a statue in the eye. So here is a selection of writers and musicians, ordinary people and eccentrics, cats, dogs and more. My (arbitrary) rules for inclusion accepts a pedestal up to knee height, but the figure must to be roughly life size. I also feel free to bend my rules whenever I want.

Cuba

No doubt I took some photos in Tacoma in 1998, but prints are so much easier to loose than digital photos, so I will start in the Caribbean, in Cuba to be precise.

Havana
(visited March 2020)

When not physically looking up at a sculpture, there is no pressure to metaphorically look up to the person portrayed, you just have to enjoy their company.

El Caballero de Paris outside San Francisco de Asís

El Caballero de Paris (real name José María López Lledín) stands outside the former Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi. Brought to Havana from Spain by his parents aged 11, he had mental problems in later life and lived on the street while believing he was a French aristocrat. Despite his loose grasp of reality, his charm and education made him a well-known and popular figure. He died in 1985 aged 85. Such statues, appreciate being touched and Lynne earned good luck, as many had done before, by stroking his beard.

Ireland

Dublin
(visited 25 June 2014 - Joyce and Famine Memorial)
24 June 2014 - Oscar Wilde)

The Prick with the Stick (more formally, James Joyce) is arguably the foremost writer in a city of writers, though he spent most of his adult life on the continent of Europe. I am overlooking his plinth as it is (just) below knee high.

Lynne and James Joyce, Earl Street, Dublin

His statue is one of four with rhyming nicknames. The Queer with the Lear is Oscar Wilde who sits on a slab of quartz (not a plinth) in Merrion Square Park opposite the house of his father, an eminent Dublin surgeon.

Lynne and Oscar, Merrion Square Park, Dublin

We missed The Tart with the Cart (Molly Malone) as she had been temporarily removed to allow for the construction of a tramway, and The Floozie in the Jacuzzi (Anna Livia Plurabelle, James Joyce’s personification of the River Liffey) due to my poor research.

The Famine Memorial stands beside the River Liffey. Most of the statues in this post are light-hearted, but not this one. The group of ragged people and their equally thin dog stand on the quay, almost staggering to the point of embarkation. Dublin has plenty of public art, much of it very good, but this is at another level. You can almost feel these people's misery as they embark on a journey they may well not survive. For some it will be the gateway to a new and better life, but as they stand here, on the very edge of Ireland, they have few dreams and little hope.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

And here is a photo from behind - I felt the sculptor wants us to see them this way, too. They stand facing the sea with their backs to their old lives knowing there can be no return as the cringing dog realises that he will be left behind.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

Galway
(visited Jul 2016)

Meanwhile, over on the west coast, the city of Galway also has an Oscar Wilde. He shares a seat with his Estonian contemporary and near namesake Eduard Vilde. They never met and as far as I have been able to ascertain, their lives had little else in common. The sculpture was a gift from the people of Estonia when they joined the EU in 2004.

Lynne with Oscar Wilde and Eduard Vilde, Galway
The original (minus Lynne) is in Tartu the 'intellectual capital' of Estonia

United Kingdom

I have a 2013 post entitled Commemorating Comedians in Caerphilly, Morecambe and Ulverston - which I whole-heartedly recommend (well I would, wouldn't I). It consists of statues of four comedians and their background stories. One of them has a plinth, the others would be appropriate here but I don't wish to repeat myself, so please click on the link.

Edinburgh
(Visited July 2021)

Greyfriars Bobbyis by far the oldest work in this post. He has stood patiently, with an ever-shinier nose, atop a substantial plinth since 1873. Only it isn’t really a plinth, it’s a double drinking fountain, people at the top, dogs at the base. As Bobby is a small dog, he needs a plinth or passers-by would trip over him.

Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh

Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier. After his owner died in 1858 the dog kept a vigil at his graveside in the nearby Greyfriars Kirk cemetery, until his own death 14 years later. This demonstrates the heart-warming loyalty of man’s best friend - or perhaps the pathetic neediness of dogs; a self-respecting cat would have raised its tail and stalked away

Burwash, East Sussex
(Visited Sept 2021)

For most of his adult life Rudyard Kipling lived in house called Batemans (currently owned by the National trust and open to the public) just outside the village of Burwash. He now sits in perpetuity on a bench beside the main road through the village.

Lynne and Rudyard Kipling, Burwash

Kipling had the instincts and attitudes of any man of his class born in the latter half of the 19th century. As an unabashed imperialist and the Poet of Empire, he should be out of fashion, but isn’t. He cannot be blamed for the circumstances of his birth, but he should be celebrated for the humanity which shines out of so many of his works. People may argue about his qualities as a poet, but he was undoubtedly one the greatest versifiers in the English language.

Portugal

Loulé
(Visited Oct 2022 and many times previously)

We have been frequent visitors to the Algarve, and for many years Loulé market was our first stop, directly from the airport. In 2006 and 2007 we found the market closed. When it reopened the familiar handsome neo-Classical/Moorish façade fronted a bright, clean and airy new market. Everything was back as it was, only its soul was missing. Revisiting Loulé in 2023 for the first time for several years we found a market trader from the old days, sitting on the steps outside, wondering what had happened to it all.

Bewildered market trader, Loulé

North Macedonia

Stepping lightly from one side of Europe to the other we arrive in a land that was once part of Yugoslavia.

Skopje
(visited May 2015)

Nikola Gruevski (Prime Minister 2006-16) initiated the‘Skopje 2014’ project and ‘Antiquization’. These were exercises in nation-building, promoting a Macedonian identity with unbroken continuity since antiquity and involved, among other things, the building of many large, nationalist statues and memorials. There were two problems. The Macedonia of antiquity, the land of Alexander the Great, was Greek and modern North Macedonians are mostly descended from the Slavic tribes who settled here some 900 year later. Secondly, he spent a great deal of money the city did not have. He resigned after riots in 2016, was subsequently charged with corruption and sentenced to two years in prison. He fled to Hungary and claimed political asylum.

Gruevski’s statues have enormous plinths, but Skopje also has several plinthless statues. A necessary antidote to Gruevski’s bombastic monstrosities, they exemplify a pleasanter and more approachable side of the Macedonian character. The Musicians can be found near ‘Warrior on a Horse’ (under an agreement with the Greeks it is not called ‘Alexander the Great’)

The Musicians, near Macedonia Square, Skopje

While The Divers are on one of the piers of Skopje’s 6th century Stone Bridge. Not great sculpture, perhaps, but it makes you smile, and that is good enough for me.

The Bathers, Stone Bridge, Skopje

Lithuania

Vilnius
(Visited July 2011)

I am always surprised how far east the Baltic States are. Vilnius is actually east of Skopje, but never looks it on a rectangular 2-D map.

After achieving independence from the USSR in 1990 Lithuania had a wealth of statues it no longer wanted, so Lenin and friends were retired to a park near the Belarus border. New statues were raised to various medieval heroes and, in a car park beside an anonymous apartment block in a residential area near the city centre, to Frank Zappa. The bust was erected in 1995 after funds were raised by civil servant Saulius Paukstys. A man blessed with an individual world view and a keen sense of irony, Paukstys commissioned the sculptor of many of the Soviet heroes, to produce the bust. Zappa has no connection with Lithuania, has never visited and before the bust was largely unknown, but the project caught people’s imagination as a wryly ironic gesture in a country that had seen enough of political monuments. (Rough Guide)

Frank Zappa,Vilnius
I know he has a plinth (or column?) but, like Greyfriars Bobby, he would be a trip hazard without it

Armenia

Yerevan
(Visited July 2003)

Mesrop Mashtots (Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց) (362 – 440CE) sits outside the Matenadaran (Մատենադարան) at the top of Mashtots Avenue, one of Yerevan’s main throughfares. The positioning is appropriate, the Matenadaran is a museum and research institute specialising in ancient Armenian manuscripts, and Mashtots is the man credited with inventing the Armenian alphabet (examples above). The (rather weathered) 36 letter alphabet is engraved on the stela to his right.

Mesrop Mashtots, Yerevan

The Fat Cat. I am breaking my own rules here, the plinth is small enough, but the figure is many times life size, but if you are going to portray a Fat Cat it has to be a very large and very fat cat. I hope this is a political statement, but I don't know if fat cat has the same meaning in either the sculptor's native Colombia, or Armenia.

Fat Cat, Yerevan

Georgia

Tbilisi
(visited August 2014)

The Tamada.

Modern Georgia includes the ancient land of Colchis, where Jason and the Argonauts rowed to steal the Golden Fleece.

The myth of the Golden Fleece has historical origins. Many of the streams flowing down from the high Caucasus bear gold, and it was traditional extracted by damming the flow with fleeces so the shiny metal adhered to the sticky untreated wool. This practice may date back to the 3rd millennium BCE, and archaeologists have found huge quantities of golden grave goods, many of which can be seen in the National Museum in Tbilisi. Among them is a seated figure, less than two centimetres tall, holding a drinking horn.

Tamada and us, Tbilisi

The supra (feast) is an essential part of Georgian culture and every supra need a tamada, (toastmaster) who proposes toasts for others to elaborate upon and so keep the wine flowing. Cast in bronze, many times the size of the original, the little fellow has become Tbilisi’s permanent honorary toastmaster. Every visitor to the city poses with him, those small enough sitting on his lap.

China

With a long eastward leap we reach the final country of this post, and two very different cities.

Pingyao
(visited Sept 2014)

600km southwest of Beijing, Pingyao is an old, walled Qing/Ming city, an artfully pickled oasis among the usual Chinese urban sprawl. We visited during the mid-autumn holiday when the town was packed and the Chinese tourist machine was turned up to eleven.

During our perambulation on the city wall we met the night watchmen…

The Night-watchmen, Pingyao city walls

…and the city governor holding a writing brush and about to get down to work. Nothing is taken too seriously here.

The city governor gets down to work, Pingyao

Hangzhou
(visited Nov 2016)

200 km southwest of Shanghai, Hangzhou is the centre of a metropolitan region of over 10m inhabitants. It is the home to Alibaba, one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies and the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company. If Pingyao is China’s past, Hangzhou is its future. Street statues here are not primarily to amuse, though they may make older people smile.

Workers, Hangzhou

For many they are images of a past they do not remember.

Street market, Hangzhou

I have more, but this as probably as much (or more) than most would want at one sitting, so I shall stop. I do like these statues, I like to see who or what the locals wish to commemorate, or how they view their past. Most are not intended to be taken too seriously while one is very serious indeed, but all add to the interest of the towns or cities they call home. And can I have a bonus point for for a post which references Greyfriars Bobby, Frank Zappa and Alexander the Great?

Possibly also of Interest

Statues Without Plinths (2023)
Socialist Realism: In Praise of Bad Art (2022)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)

Sculptors and Dates of Installation (when known)

Liverpool
Duke of Wellington by George Anderson Lawson, 1865
Havana
El Caballero de Paris by José Ramón Villa Soberón, 2001
Dublin
James Joyce by Marjorie Fitzgibbon, 1990.
Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne, 1997
Famine Memorial by Rowan Gillespie, 1997
Galway Wilde and Vilde by Tiiu Kirsipuu, 2004
Edinburgh
Greyfriars Bobby by William Brodie, 1873
Burwash
Rudyard Kipling by Victoria Atkinson, 2018
Loulé
Market Trader by Teresa Paulino and Pedro Felix
Vilnius
Frank Zappa by Konstantinas Bagdonas, 1995
Yerevan Mesrop Mastots by Ghukas Chubaryan, 1968
Fat Cat by Fernando Botero
Tbilisi
Tamada by Zurab Tsereteli, 2013

Drinking the Algarve 2022

A Great Place to Drink Wine, So Why Ignore the Local Producers?

Who Cares About Algarve Wine?

Portugal

Even a cursory glance at Eating the Algarve shows that a glass of wine is the essential accompaniment to any Portuguese meal. Fish being our usual choice in most restaurants, we have inevitably absorbed a considerable quantity of ‘house white’ over the years.

There goes another bottle of house white

You cannot travel far in the Algarve without stumbling over a vineyard, but a far more intensive search is required to find a restaurant with an Algarve house wine; the locals, it seems, do not rate their own product. Portugal is awash with wine, with something to suit everybody’s taste and pocket, so who cares about the Algarve's wines?

The Comissão Vitivinícola Regional (CVR), That’s Who

Portuguese wine regions

Before Portugal joined the European Community (now EU) only a few wine regions had been designated and the system was rudimentary. Since joining in 1986 they have developed a system as all-embracing and intricate as those of France or Italy. Twenty-six regions have Denominação de Origem Controlada (DOC) status, several with multiple sub-regions and ‘special designations’, 4 regions have Indicação de Proveniência Regulamentada (IPR) status and should be upgraded to DOC eventually, and there are 11 Vinho Regional (VR) designations for more basic wines, or for winemakers who do not want to play by the strict DOC rules.

The adjacent map shows the DOC and IPR areas. The Algarve, ringed in red has four DOCs, from west to east Lagos (pronounced LAH-gush and definitely not the largest city of Nigeria), Portimão, Lagoa and Tavira, and these areas, have been designated almost as long as there has been a system. Why the Algarve received such special treatment is a mystery, but they have failed to take advantage of it. We have stayed in Carvoeiro, in the Lagoa municipality, every year for the last 17, so have drunk several Lagoa wines, enjoyed a couple of good Portimãos but never seen a bottle of DOC Lagos or Tavira.

Sir Cliff Richard, That’s Who Else

I am old enough to remember Cliff Richard as a lip-curling teenage rebel somewhat unconvincingly marketed as the British Elvis Presley. In the 2011 version of this post, I wrote that the same girls who screamed at him in 1960 have recently been queuing overnight for tickets for his new tour. The ‘girls’ may now be grandmothers, the teenage rebel has become Sir Cliff and an official national treasure, but little else seems to have changed. If such longevity seemed unlikely sixty years ago, it was an even more remote possibility that the same Cliff would play a major part in revitalizing Algarve winemaking, though that, too, came to pass. (I say re-vitalizing, but no one remembers when it was ever vitalized.)

Sir Cliff planted a vineyard on his estate near the village of Guia in 1997. He built the Adega do Cantor, a state-of-the-art winery, next door and suddenly premium wine was being made in the Algarve. In 2006 I described Cliff's Vida Nova as the best and most expensive Algarve wine I had ever drunk - though the bar was not set high in either case. In June 2019 Vida Nova Reserva Tinto 2015 was judged ‘Best Wine of the Algarve’ at the 12th Algarve Wines Competition (see Algarve Resident 13-Jun-2019).

Sir Cliff, the granny's heartthrob, hawks his wares on the streets of Lagos 2014

Cliff has now sold the Adega do Cantor to businessman Joaquim Pires who has great ambitions for the winery (Portugal News, 14-Apr-2022), but by creating a ‘boutique winery’ in this previously unloved corner of the wine world, Cliff opened the door for those who follow.

Some Boutique Wineries

By 2011 most supermarkets had a ‘local wine corner’ now they have a whole shelf or two. Prices vary widely, as does the quality. As a general rule you get what you pay for, but like all rules there are exceptions.

In previous years, from the boutique-y end of the market I have enjoyed the wines of Herdade de Pimenteis near Portimão, and Borges da Silva and Monte da Casteleja in Lagos. With an oenology degree from Montpellier University and a masters from Wagga Wagga in Australia, Guillaume Leroux (French father, hence the name) at Monte da Casteleja epitomises the new wave Algarve wine farmer. The peasant winemaker – indeed the Portuguese peasant – died out last century.

Monte de Casteleja's Maria

Ironically in a region famed for its fish, the red wines are more reliable. Other sun-drenched seaside areas, like Provence and Corsica, specialise in rosé, and maybe the Algarve could, too. In 2011 I enjoyed rosés from the Quinta dos Vales in Estômbar and João Clara in Alcantarilha (about whom more later). They are both crisp and bone-dry. Those as old as I am will remember Mateus Rosé from their early wine drinking days. The bottles made fine bases for lampshades, but the contents, slightly fizzy and slightly sweet, were regrettable. The modern rosés are different beasts.

No doubt there are many new wineries since 2011, and many older ones I missed, so absence from the short list above is not an implied criticism. All the producers above are still in business (and may or may not accept the description ‘boutique winery’).

2022, Trickledown Treats

Traditionally wine regions grow from the bottom. Wine is produced in bulk, some favoured vineyards or more careful winemakers acquire a reputation of quality, others attempt to follow their lead and a quality wine industry develops. The Algarve is trying to do this in reverse, balancing new wineries with an accent on quality on a rickety base of a modest quantity of modest quality wines. Will it work and will there be some trickledown, encouraging all the region’s winemakers to strive for higher quality?

This year I decided that all the wine we drink ‘at home’ (i.e. in our rented apartment) would be Algarve wines from the cheaper (€4-8) end of the market. Alentejo just to the north (region 20 on the map) produces a vast quantity of very drinkable wine in this price range, but what about the Algarve?

Reds

2018 Lagoa Estagiado Tinto

According to Google translate ‘Estagiado’ means ‘Intern’ - maybe something is lost in translation. This is from the cheaper end of the price spectrum, but nonetheless a DOC Lagoa wine (DOP on the label means the same) produced by the Lagoa Co-opera⁹tive winery. It is made from a typical Portuguese blend of Castelão, Trincadeira and Tinta Negra Mole.

Lagoa Tinto

According to the back label this garnet red.. wine..,exhibits… aromas of red fruit and jam. The soft tannins give… a balanced and enjoyable structure and finishes with notes of ripe fruit. (their translation)

My verdict: A host of flavours wander round in this meagre soup of a wine, some enjoyable, some less so. A thin and mean tannic finish.

2018 Porches Tinto, Vinho Regional Algarve

Another wine from the local cooperative, this one named after a village in the Lagoa region.

A dark red with a pleasant warm nose and gentle tannins. A little more acidity would improve it, but there is a pleasing depth of flavour. An Aragonez, Trincadeira and Castelão blend and as Aragonez is Portuguese for Tempranillo, some quality would be expected. Easy drinking, full of warmth and sunshine with a hint of sweetness in the finish.

2018 Porches Tinto, VR Algarve

A Vinho Regional from the same producers as the DOC Lagoa, but a much better wine. In the Algarve DOC does not always mean very much.

Rosés

2021 Villa Alvor Rosé, VR Algarve

Avelada are a major Portuguese wine producer based in the far north. They opened Villa Alvor in 2019, nestled, according to their publicity, between the Ria de Alvor and the Serra de Monchique - more prosaically on the flatland north of Alvor between the N125 and the A22 motorway. It is, though, pleasantly surrounded by vines and orange trees.

Villa Alvor Rosé - it's a wine that causes silly grins

It is a thin-bodied fully dry rosé. More acidity would give it crispness, some fruit would make it smile, but as it is, it is not particularly pleasant. The back label, oddly, calls it a true Mediterranean rosé. The Portuguese version later mentions an influencia maritima, the English and French versions more honestly Atlantic influence of influence atlantique.

It shows growing faith in Algarve wines when the corporates start to arrive. The spelling of Villa (Portuguese has a single ‘l’) and the use the word ‘Mediterranean’ suggest they are looking for a style from elsewhere. They have a long way to go yet.

2021 Herdade Barranco do Vale, Negra Mole Rosé Reserva, VR Algarve

Herdade Barranco do Vale is a family business in São Bartolomeu de Messines, well away from the coast and tourist hordes. Their philosophy, they say, is to create their own style of wines, using the ‘Algarve’s Mediterranean and Atlantic influences’ and its traditional varieties. At €8 this was one of the more expensive Algarve wines I tried.

Herdade Barranco do Vales, Negra Mole Reserva Rosé

It is a pretty salmon colour. Well chilled and with crisp acidity its initial impact is delightful… then it just fades away to nothing. Negra Mole is certainly a traditional variety; grown all over Portugal and known as a large-cropping workhorse grape useful for blending. For €8 I don’t expect Shergar, but I was hoping for something better than Dobbin.

2021, Monte da Ria ‘Estate Blend’ Rosé, VR Algarve

Monte da Ria seems to be an Algarve off-shoot of the Douro based Dom Vicente company, though I have been unable to locate their Algarve base. This is the pale ‘Estate blend’ they also do a darker ‘Field blend’ rosé, both are priced at €6.99 on their website.

Monte da Ria, Algarve rosé

A pale salmon rosé. A lot of fruit on the nose by Algarve standard and a distinct strawberry aroma. Crisp and clean on the palate, and the flavour persists, unlike like the Barranco do Vale above. A well-made and enjoyable rosé.

Whites

Quinta da Francês, Odelouca Branco, VR Algarve

Quinta do Francês is a family estate, with 9 hectares of vineyard, in the Odelouca River Valley a little north west of Silves. Some of their wines sell for surprisingly large sums (Tanners of Shrewsbury sell their top red cuvée for almost £20) but not this example.

Odelouca Brance, VR Algarve

Brighter than many Portuguese whites with a nice shine and the faintest greenish tinge. A fresh nose with plenty of fruit, perhaps gooseberry, maybe greengage. It starts well on the palate, crisp and fruity, then it fades and disappears. Wine needs acidity, but this has a little too much for my taste.

Quinta de Penina, Foral de Portimão Branco, VR Algarve

Vinhos Portimão own the Quinta da Penina vineyards, north of Alvor and adjacent to those of Villa Alvor (see above). The first wines under the Foral de Portimão brand were made in a borrowed winery in 2005. Since 2021 the company has a new winery between Portimão and Lagoa, equidistant between their estate at Quinta da Penina and vineyards at Quinta Palmeirinha.

Made from Viognier, much grown in the Rhône Valley and the rarer Arinto de Bucelas, used mainly in Vinho Verde in the north. A pleasant nose, plenty of fruit at the front of the palate and enough body to hold it together to the end. The Arinto provides acidity and a squeeze of lemon. A well-made and well-structured wine.

And last, but by no means least,

João Clara Branco, VR Algarve

I have already said that I enjoyed João Clara rosé in 2011. This year (2022) we went for lunch on our final day (traditionally chicken piri-piri) at O Barco on the little square by the beach in Carvoeiro. This year, for the first time, their wine list was proudly headed by two Algarve wines, the cheaper of which turned out to be unavailable, so we went for the João Clara Branco. I paid €23 for an Algarve wine! Madness? Well perhaps...

João Clara Branco, O Barco, Carvoeiro

… but we enjoyed clean fruitiness, crisp acidity (so often baked out by the southern sun) and enough body to carry a hearty rather than elegant meal. We felt very happy with our choice.

Conclusion

These 8 wines are a mixed bag. None were actively unpleasant, though one verged on it. Three more were best forgotten, another three made pleasant drinking and one was outstanding. Most were inexpensive but… and this is a rather important but… at every price point there is a better wine available from neighbouring Alentejo. I think Algarve wines are improving, I will continue to check out one or two each year, but most of the wine we drink in Portugal will be, as they were in the past, from Alentejo.

Now, after all that wine what I need….

Well sometimes a beer is necessary

… is a beer.

Algarve Posts

The Algarve: Delights and Depredations(2010)
Mexilhoeira Grande and a Long Lost Cousin (2013)
The West Coast (2013)
Lagos (2014)
Castro Marim and Vila Real do Santo António (2015)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)
Mertola and Alcoutim: Strongholds by the Guadiana River (2017) - Also under Alentejo
Silves, Former Capital of the Algarve (2018)
Drinking the Algarve (2022)
Eating the Algarve (2024)

I Don't Really Have a Sweet Tooth, but.....

.... I Used to Like Desserts

Time was we would go out and eat a three-course meal, today it is usually main course only (though in the Time of Covid we have not been out since we took up that nice Rishi Sunak’s invitation ‘to eat out to help out’). Part of the problem is the increasing size of pub main courses, but most of it is our increasing age – we just can’t eat like we use to.

So, this post is a celebration of all things sweet. It is not quite a fond farewell, we are still in 'one dessert, two spoons' territory, and of course there are many occasions where the casual purchase of something small and sweet is deemed appropriate.

My dessert at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant, Padstow (2007)

So where to start?

Portugal, Obviously

Why obviously? Because we have spent a week or two in the Algarve every October this century, and would be there right now if our flight had not been cancelled by the Curse of Covid.

The Algarve to us means, first and foremost, sea-food, fresh from the briny and expertly cooked, but a meal should not stop there.

Dessert menus generally involve a large glossy folded card produced by a manufacturer of synthetic desserts and ice creams. Stuck somewhere on the card there will be a small, sometimes hand-written, list of desserts for grown-ups, many of which will have been made in-house. Ever present is pudim flan, a rich eggy caramel custard, which is perfect when you have too little room for anything heavier. Sometimes it is just perfect.

Lynne and a pudim flan, Martin's Grill, Carvoeiro

Many residents of the dessert menu are equally at home with a morning coffee - another of the pleasures of Portugal and the reason why each trip is traditionally followed by a diet.

Coffee and Cakes, Ferragudo (2012)

An assortment of bolos (cakes) and tartes (translation unnecessary) are made from local produce including (but not limited to) almonds, figs, carobs, oranges and apples. The cakes will always be made with one egg more than would be normal elsewhere and are universally wonderful.

Different cakes (and cups) but at the same place in 2011

Apple Cakes

Portuguese apple cake is moist, flavourful and lovely. Elsewhere apple can be a little dull, though Lynne’s Dorset apple cake is always a delight and a French apple tart can be a thing of beauty. So is Moldovan apple cake – who knew there was such a thing? We made it our lunch in the ambitiously named Eco-resort, actually a clutch of traditional painted houses, in the village of Butuceni. Butuceni sees few visitors – it deserves more (click here to find out why).

Lynne and a Moldovan apple cake, Butuceni Eco-Resort

Pasteis de Nata

Our favourite and most frequent accompaniment to morning coffee is the pastel de nata (literally, if misleadingly, ‘cream pastry’)

Cafe con leite and a pastel de nata

Baked fresh every day – the supermarket version is cheap but a shadow of the real thing - the pastry is crisp and flaky, the filling rich with vanilla and egg. It can be enjoyed anywhere, but I know of nowhere better  than the Pastelaria Fabrica Velha in Carvoeiro, one of our favourite Algarve coffee spots.

I will also briefly mention Lord Stow’s Garden Café in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, just across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong. (Click here for our visit and ‘Lord Stow’s’ unusual back story.)

Lord Stow's Garden Café, Coloane, Macau

Lord Stow’s egg tarts are based on the pastel de nata; the pastry is first class, but they look a little too tidy and the oversweet filling lacks the subtlety of the real thing. Expanding from the Garden Café, Lord Stow bakery franchises can now be found in several east Asian luxury hotels.

Lord Stow's egg tarts, Coloane, Macau

SE Asia (and Mexico)

Vietnam

Having reached Macau we shall stay in Asia. There are many sweet foods in China, but there are no desserts because there are no courses. Dishes are ordered, arrive when they are ready and are shared by everybody.

The same is not true in Vietnam which has its own distinctive style. Finishing a meal with soup seems odd to us, but why not? In Hanoi (click here) our first dinner ended with che bo bo, a soup (though che means ‘tea’) described on the menu as a sweet southern dessert consommé.

Lynne and Nhu (representative of Haivenu Travel) at the Ly Club, Hanoi - we had not quite reached the dessert soup yet

At the other end of the country, Ngon is a Saigon institution. The huge restaurant is housed in a colonial mansion where tables fill the entrance hall, atrium, courtyard and every ground floor room. It was packed with office workers, students and suburban ladies on shopping expeditions; everybody, it seemed, headed for Ngon at lunch time.

Fortunately, we had a booking and a waiter led us confidently through the throng to the only spare seats in the building (for the full story click here). Sweetness is all-pervasive, so making good desserts is easy, but sublime desserts are rare. At Ngon, my glutinous rice balls swimming in a ginger and coconut milk sauce presented a combination of flavours and textures that hit that mark. I had difficulty grasping the idea that, for the locals, such delights are ordinary everyday food.

In the former imperial city of Hue, in Vietnam's narrow waist, we were treated to an 8-course imperial banquet. The food was all right, no more, but the presentation of each course was memorable. The dessert of sweetened red bean paste formed into fruits was one of the most inventive, though of course the fruits all tasted the same, regardless of colour or shape.

Fruits made from Bean Paste, Placid Garden Manor Restaurant, Hue

Malaysia

Malaysia is a great place to eat, but desserts are not a high priority. Cendol is a sort of national dessert available everywhere from 4-star hotels to street food stalls; the price varies, but the quality is much the same. It consists of shaved ice with coconut milk, green coloured rice noodles, a few red beans and a lot of unrefined palm sugar – simple, but pleasing.

Lynne eats cendol at a street food stall, Penang

Durian is popular from southern China southwards. The big, green spiky fruit smells like a chemical toilet left out in the sun, but if you can ignore that, and it is not easy, they taste wonderful (allegedly) – as the locals say ‘smells like Hell, tastes like Heaven.’

Green durian and red dragon fruit, Banh Thanh Market, Ho Chi Minh City

Malaysia is peak durian territory. There are shops entirely devoted to durian and the pastries and confections made from it. One-bite durian puffs are an easy way to approach the challenge, but the ‘one-bite’ is important. Attempting two bites deposits a surprisingly large slick of durian slurry over an extensive area (as well I know). The smell is repressed by the cooking and the flavour is actually quite pleasant.

The one-bite durian puff, Malacca

Emboldened, we tried a durian ice-cream on a stick in Kuala Lumpur, and actually enjoyed it.

Durian ice-cream. Are we beginning to develop a taste? Central Market, Kuala Lumpur

Ice Cream

So, having reached ice cream, here is a brief rant.

Ice-cream parlours figured large in my youth, or at least Borza’s on the prom in Porthcawl did. I know others remember Borza’s fondly as the last time I mentioned them complete strangers contacted me asking for further information. Unfortunately, all I know is that the Borza’s moved on, those that didn’t can be found in Porthcawl cemetery, just across the path from my grandparents.

In the late 1950s Borza’s did few flavours, but they did the most exquisite creamy-textured vanilla - a vanilla nut sundae was a once-a-holiday treat (well it cost 1/9d!*). For Borza’s, vanilla was not a synonym for ‘plain’ it meant ice cream flavoured, quite strongly, with actual vanilla. To get an ice cream that good today you have to visit a high-end restaurant where they make it in-house. (Click here for the Walnut Tree in Abergavenny).

Since then ice cream has diversified into a host of mostly synthetic flavours and lost its texture. Some American makers have gone so far astray that ice cream has become merely a filler of the interstices in pots of crumbled brownies, cookie dough or honeycomb.

Ice Cream in Mexico

Rant over, now please join me in a leap across the Pacific from Malaysia to Mexico.

To complete a street food lunch in Puebla, 100 km south of Mexico City, we ventured into an ice cream shop. We had rarely seen such a vast array of flavours.

Ice-cream choices, Puebla

But it was not the number that amazed us, it was the flavours themselves. With our rudimentary grasp of Spanish we could see the usual suspects, strawberry, chocolate, rum and raisin, even vanilla tucked in the end. But what about vino tinto? As an ice cream? And queso (cheese) or queso con zarzamora (cheese with blackberries) or chicle (bubblegum)? Our local guide helped with the translations, but even he could not render maracuyá or guanabana into English, so that was what we chose.

Eating ice-cream in Puebla

We enjoyed both. Maracuyá was familiar though we could not quite place it, guanabana remained a mystery. We googled them later; maracuyá is passion fruit, so we should have recognised it, and guanabana is soursop. No? Nor me. It is, apparently, a spikey, vaguely pear-shaped fruit that grows on an evergreen tree throughout the tropical Americas. Its flavour, according to Wikipedia is a combination of strawberry and apple with a sour citrus note. It makes a decent enough ice cream.

Now, back to Asia

India

Mava

Mava or khoya is made throughout the sub-continent by stirring gently boiling milk until its consistency approaches a soft dough. It can be sold like that…

The Bhirandiyara Mava Center, Gujarat

… and the result is surprisingly sweet.

Lynne eating Mava, Bhirandiyara

Gulab Jamun

But it is also the basis of several sweets and desserts, my favourite being Gulab Jamun. Mava is rolled into balls, which are deep fried in ghee at low temperature until they are golden brown, then soaked in a light syrup, sometimes flavoured with cardamom, rose water or saffron. I have eaten many, but never photographed them, so I have borrowed this one from Wikipedia. In my experience they are rarely as elegantly presented as this.

Gulab Jamun with Saffron
Photo by Prakrutim, reproduced under CC Share-Alike 4. 0

Nimish

Nimish, a speciality of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, is another dairy based dessert. Double cream, icing sugar, rosewater and saffron are stirred together and topped with pistachios and silver leaf. The silver leaf has no gastronomic purpose, but the cuisine of Lucknow is the cuisine of Nawabs, so everything must look opulent.

Nimish at Lucknow market

Served here in an eco-friendly bowl of pressed leaves, it was sweet and lovely and slipped down very easily.

Nimish, Lucknow market

Turkey

Another westward skip brings us to Turkey. South-East Asia and India possess two of the world’s great cuisines and although few would say the same about Turkey, the country has, by my count, made three major culinary contributions; one is the donner kebab, the other two I like very much.

Turkish Delight

Turkish Delight, lokum in Turkish, really is a delight and Istanbul has whole shops dedicated to it.

A whole shop full of Turkish Delight, Istiklal Cadessi, Istanbul

The concept is simple, a gel of sweetened starch is cut into cubes and dusted with icing sugar. The ‘delight’ comes from the inclusions (dates, pistachio, hazelnuts, walnuts) and flavourings (rosewater, bergamot, orange, lemon). Other inclusions and flavourings are possible. It is not covered in chocolate like Fry’s Turkish Delight, which is a very poor approximation to the real thing inside.

Baklava

Baklava may have been developed in the imperial kitchens of Istanbul’s Topkapı Palace. Layers of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and bound with syrup or honey make a rich dessert entirely suitable for an emperor – and pretty much anyone else. It has always been a favourite of mine, but in the only photograph I have of baklava, it is already half-eaten (I wonder why?).

Light lunch with ample sugar - Baklava, Turkish Delight and sweet Turkish coffee, Istanbul

United Kingdom and Ireland

Leaping athletically across the rest of Europe, we arrive home.

Posh Desserts

Sugar is such a dominant flavour that desserts can be a problem for high-end restaurants where subtle flavours are important. One solution is to create a variety of textures, as in this dessert from the Michelin starred Loam in Galway. Called 'Strawberry, Juniper' it involved strawberry ice cream, shards of juniper meringue, sweet pickled cherry, lovage sponge, coconut butter, white chocolate mousse, white chocolate bonbon, hazelnut crumb and a hint of smoked hay. All the elements, some very small, made their contribution providing a variety of textures and flavours beneath the dominant sweetness.

Strawberry, Juniper - Loam, Galway

Another is to go architectural as in this henge of fruit and meringue from the then Michelin starred Box Tree in Ilkley.

Dessert, The Box Tree, Ilkley

Despite my garish lighting effect (it is as good as I can get it) this mille-feuille of raspberries with lemon curd and elderflower was very pretty.

There are fewer problems lower down the pecking order. While banoffee pie and tiramisu have become ubiquitous, there has also been a renaissance of the traditional British pud.

Bakewell Pudding

Nothing sounds and feels quite as traditional as a Bakewell pudding (and I mean ‘pudding’ not ‘tart’, but that story is complicated - click here for Bakewell and Haddon Hall). A two-person pudding in the ‘Old Bakewell Pudding Shop’ eaten at 11am (and not quite finished) kept us going until dinner at 8.

A Bakewell pudding for two, served with cream and custard(!)

The jammy, almondy, marzipany flavour of the not quite egg-custard was toe-curlingly lovely, at first, but it was so sweet that even this wonderful flavour became cloying surprisingly quickly.

Sticky Toffee Pudding (STP)

And finally a mention for Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding. Sadly, the only photo I have is of the factory in Flookburgh, 2½ miles from Cartmel, where STP has been made since demand outgrew the resources of Cartmel village shop. It seems wrong that a factory-made pudding that can be microwaved in minutes should be so good, but it is.

Cartmel sticky Toffee Pudding factory, Flookburgh

And finally, finally

That would be a dull picture to end on, so here is my dessert at the Makphet Restaurant in Vientiane, (the capital of Laos, as I am sure you know). Makphet exists to take children off the streets and train them for careers in the hospitality industry, so a worthy charity as well as a fine restaurant.

Top dessert, Makphet, Vientiane

Coconut ice-cream, fresh, sweet pineapple, cane syrup and a dusting of chilli powder. All my favourite flavours on one plate (although if they could have stuck in some ginger….)

*For the benefit for youngsters under 60, that is Old Money; one shilling and nine (old) pence – the equivalent of 8½p. That was expensive, in the 1950s when you could go round the world for half a crown and still have change for a fish supper.