Magusto has come and gone - e agente esquecerem de participàr!
Que desgraça!
Oh well - ficam mais castanâs para Natal assim!
As Google itself celebrated it - for it was extra special this year, falling upon the triple eleven calendar date - and as specialist Monica Bagagem summarized it so well, "Magusto" is a Portuguese tradition celebrated for generations and by all age groups of the population, indeed. Grandparents, moms and dads, little children - well, as long as they can handle chestnuts, that is. For Magusto is all about them, in large part: as Monica summed it up, on this day, people come together to eat chestnuts, drink new wine and mingle with friends and family.
And, hopefully, nobody chokes on anything!
Que Deus Nos Livre!
Wine is indeed a vital part of the deal, too: Portuguese love their wine, make it themselves and are experts in it. And we are not talking about just Porto either here...!
O meu pai fazia o seu vinho todos os anos - e era uma delicia! Ele deu garafas e garafâos de vinho em oferta pelas festas um bilião de vezes: e toda gente queria vir nos ver quando ele fazia o seu vinho, especialmente! Porque eles sabiam que ia ter um calzinho de vinho pela aquela altura, nâo é... Que gentinha, mesmo...!
But enough reminiscing: back to Magusto we go now! As Monica reminds us all, via Google Doodle #57564838, this "event" tends to happen around a bonfire, with the younger generation energetically jumping over it... She warns that kids shouldn't try this at home, without permission, supervision or both! The whole exercise reeks too much of paganism for my taste and can easily be dismissed altogether as far as I am concerned - but it's just me, eu, o Canadense, nâo é...!
Then Monica makes the nostalgic statement of the day by mentioning, in a burst of genuine saudade, that all have great memories of coming to school on this day with a bag of chestnuts, learning how to prepare them and, of course, ending the afternoon eating them together... Portuguese kids, maybe, but in the immigrant Portuguese families, and their kids, immersed in a often-wretched foreign culture that has no love lost whatsoever for time-honoured traditions of any sort, that does not apply, alas... Portuguese immigrants' kids are born into a different environment with vastly different values, mindsets, priorities. Chestnuts, togetherness and bonfires? They want electronics, consumer goods, their own private space! Portuguese second-generation kids are no longer Portuguese: they are Americans, Canadians, something else: something mixed, something that much more difficult to define...
Having said all that, one still would like to join the endeavour here and wish everyone willing to partake in it a Happy Magusto - Feliz Magusto, Gente!
Great doodle by Mike Dutton - and a fine post by Monica Bagagem - but really: Magusto is not spreading throughout the globe anymore.
It was nice of you to talk about it though.
Muito obrigado.
