Dinner Cooked by a Volcano

On the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, there is a village called Furnas where the ground itself is alive with heat. Steam rises from holes in the soil, and the earth feels warm under your feet. This place sits on top of a volcano, and the people here have learned to make the volcano work for them in a delicious way.

Na otoku São Miguel, na Azorima, nalazi se selo zvano Furnas, gdje je sama zemlja živa od topline. Para se diže iz rupa u tlu, a zemlja je topla pod nogama. Ovo mjesto stoji na vulkanu, a mještani su naučili natjerati vulkan da za njih radi na ukusan način.

Early in the day, a cook fills a tall pot with meat, sausage, cabbage, and other vegetables. Then, wearing thick gloves, the cook lowers the covered pot into a hole dug in the hot ground and packs the soil back over it. There is no fire and no stove. The heat of the volcano alone will do the cooking, slowly and gently, for about seven hours.

Rano ujutro, kuhar napuni visoki lonac mesom, kobasicom, kupusom i drugim povrćem. Zatim, s debelim rukavicama, kuhar spušta pokriveni lonac u rupu iskopanu u vrućem tlu i pokrije ga zemljom. Nema vatre ni štednjaka. Sama toplina vulkana obavlja kuhanje, polako i nježno, otprilike sedam sati.

When the pot is lifted out again, the food inside is soft and tender, full of flavour from the long, slow heat. The air carries a faint smell of sulfur from the steaming ground. Families and visitors gather at long tables, and steam curls up from their plates as they eat a meal that the earth itself prepared.

Kad lonac ponovno izvade, hrana unutra je mekana i sočna, puna okusa od dugog, sporog kuhanja. Zrak nosi slabašan miris sumpora iz zemlje koja se dimi. Obitelji i posjetitelji okupljaju se za dugim stolovima, a para se diže s njihovih tanjura dok jedu obrok koji je pripremila sama zemlja.