Broa de Avintes: the bread women rowed across the Douro to sell

It comes out of the oven dark, damp and almost crustless, with a flavour that wavers between sweet and sour. Broa de Avintes looks like no Belgian bakery loaf, and that is exactly why you recognise it among a thousand.

White corn, rye and a sourdough starter

Avintes is a village in Vila Nova de Gaia, on the left bank of the Douro, just across from Porto. This is where this broa is made: a blend of white corn flour and rye flour, kneaded with water, salt and a starter. The rye gives it a discreet sweetness, the corn a dense, soft crumb. The result is a dark brown, damp loaf shaped like a domed cylinder.

The official register of traditional Portuguese products (DGADR) lists two sizes: the large broa, 8 to 9 kilos, shaped in bowls, and the small one, about a kilo. For a loaf of bread, that is a respectable weight.

A northern bread, between corn and rye

Corn contains no gluten and rye very little: that is why the crumb is so dense and damp, so unlike a baguette. With no gluten network to lift it, the dough needs a good starter and time, hence the blankets and the bakers' patience.

A bread with almost no crust

The secret is in the oven. The broa bakes in a wood-fired oven, with the loaves packed tightly against each other: because they touch, they barely form a real crust. In the past, Portuguese food writers say, it was baked on cabbage leaves and dusted with flour on top. The gesture lives on: a cabbage leaf covers the broa de milho in the photo for this article, a corn bread from northern Portugal and a cousin of the one from Avintes.

A cross with the peel, before the door closes

For the bakers of Avintes, a batch is a ritual. The dough is marked with a cross, covered with blankets to rise, then shaped. And just before the oven door is closed, the baker traces a cross with the peel and speaks a blessing: "Deus te acrescente dentro do forno e fora do forno como pelo mundo todo!", "May God make you grow inside the oven, outside the oven and across the whole world." Enthusiasts say it all begins around three in the morning, when the fire is lit.

The padeiras who crossed the Douro

For a long time, this bread did not go to Porto by van. It went by oar. The padeiras de Avintes, the village's women bakers and sellers, were often boatwomen too: they crossed the Douro in traditional boats, pangaios and valboeiros, to the Ribeira quays, with the loaves under a white linen cloth. A people's bread, born "from everyone, for everyone", as the Revista de Vinhos puts it.

Picture the scene: the left bank of the Douro at dawn, the loaves under their white cloth, and across the water the quays of Porto, waiting.

In writing since 1563

The first written mention of Avintes broa is an alvará, a royal decree, dated 16 September 1563, which speaks of "bread of corn and rye". The country has been putting it in writing for more than four and a half centuries, and baking it for far longer.

And in Brussels?

At Wooly, our Portuguese bakers mostly work on the sweet side, but Portugal also eats savoury: think of our bifana and the whole range of typical Portuguese pastries. If broa makes you crave bread from the north, step into our shop in Stockel or in Etterbeek, in Brussels: people there happily talk about bread, corn and the Douro.

Fancy more breads from elsewhere? Read how Madeira's bolo do caco took the name of its stone, or why Coimbra's arrufada was carried to engagements.

Photo: María Alabau, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (broa de milho from northern Portugal).

Sources: Direção-Geral de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural, “Broa de Avintes”; Wikipédia (pt), “Broa de Avintes”.