Maria Lawton is a cookbook author and host of the series "Maria's Portuguese Table" on PBS.

She's passionate about sharing her Portuguese heritage, especially Portuguese culture and culinary traditions.

Today we're joining her at Portugalia Market to shop for and taste some of her favorite ingredients.

- Welcome, Tracy, to Portugalia.

- Thank you, Maria.

Super excited.

- Yeah.

- To be here.

- So today I wanna show you all the ingredients that I use in my recipes and where I source them.

- Fantastic.

- Let's go see the first place.

Let's go.

Follow me.

Now we're gonna go into the cod room.

Wow.

- It's, it's incredible.

- The whole room.

- The whole room.

- Hi, Frank.

- [Frank] Hey, Maria.

- When you think of Portugal, cod is the national dish, but cod is not fished in Portuguese waters.

- Right, that was my question.

- Our fishermen would go to Norway, go up to Canada, and fish in those waters.

They would bring it back and it was called Our Faithful Friend, because you could always depend on having cod.

Look at this, look how beautiful this is.

- And huge.

- And huge.

- [Tracy] So nice and plump.

- [Maria] Nice and plump.

This is gonna give you a lot more cod when you rehydrate it, when you desalt it.

- And how do you say it, for those who don't know?

(Maria speaking foreign language) (Tracy speaking foreign language) - Yes!

- Yow, yow!

- Yow, yow!

All right, we've got more places to go.

We've got more things to see.

- Right.

- [Both] Cheese.

- Oh my goodness.

- My favorite.

- It's my favorite thing.

We have fresh cheese here, which is a staple, I think, in every Portuguese breakfast.

- Delicious.

- And then we have the cured cheeses, and the creamier, the younger it is.

It gets sharper as it gets older.

- Right.

- So the next thing I wanna show you is the red-hot chopped peppers.

- Fermented.

- It's fermented.

And my dad would make this, and you could hear the popping going on.

- [Tracy] Popping?

- Yes, 'cause it's fermenting, it's making all those wonderful noises.

The more you see seeds in it- - [Tracy] The hotter.

- [Maria] Oh, the hotter it is.

- [Tracy] Always, right.

- [Maria] Yeah, the hotter it is.

- Perfect.

- That gives you so much flavor when you're cooking your meats, and your chicken, or any of that.

(bright music) (customers chattering) - Olive oil.

- Here comes the olive oil.

Ta da!

Olives have been grown in in Portugal for centuries.

And we produce the most wonderful olive oil.

It needs to be in a dark bottle.

- Right.

- It's something where, like wine, you need to taste test all of these things.

- Delicious.

- Yes.

- [Tracy] Olive oil.

- And now ta-da, the tinned fish.

I grew up having tinned fish, right?

- [Tracy] So what kind of fish?

- We would do tuna, sardines- - [Tracy] Sardines.

- Squid, tuna pate.

Tracy, you know what goes really great with tinned fish?

- What?

- Wine.

- Perfect.

- Let's go for some wine.

- Love wine.

- Let's do that.

Wine, wine, lots of wine.

So you have Douro region, you have Alentejo, you even have Lisbon.

I still feel that Portuguese wines are undervalued.

- Mm.

- So I think people need to find out about Portuguese wines.

And the best way to do it is when you have wine tastings.

So I highly recommend coming for wine tastings.

I'm so happy that I've been showing you all my favorite things, and how I procure all the stuff when I'm making my dishes.

- [Tracy] Thank you so much.

- Oh, yeah.

Now the question I have for you is, would you like to taste some of the things that I've pointed out today?

- I would definitely like to taste.

- Oh, that's awesome.

I think we need to try this one.

And that is the (speaking foreign language).

So let's take this.

Let's take some of the stuff that we picked out and let's try it.

- Let's do it.

- Let's go, Tracy.

- Yum.

Thank you, Maria.

- [Maria] Thank you.

(cork popping) - I'm just gonna do a little pour.

Ching-ching.

(glasses clinking) (happy music) Ooh, that's good.

That's real good.

Oh my goodness.

The cod is here.

- Wow.

- Thank you, Colleen.

- You're welcome.

- Thank you so much, honey.

And this is the codfish (speaking foreign language).

But before we try that, I want us to try some of the cheese.

This is now four months, okay?

- Beautiful.

Buttery.

- Buttery, and then comes the woohoo.

Nice little kick.

Then we're gonna go to the seven-month.

And then we have fig, the fig jam that's gonna go with it.

Okay, so let's try that.

- [Tracy] Okay.

- That just opens up your palate.

It is salty, it is sweet.

- Oh, that's delicious.

- It is just, it's divine.

- Mm.

- Isn't it?

Mm, mm, mm, mm.

I mean, cha-ching again.

- Mm hm, yum.

- And then- - [Tracy] This wine is really good- - [Maria] With that- - With the cheese.

It's perfect.

- So now when we were downstairs, I also showed you the fresh cheese.

This is a whole milk cow cheese with rennet.

If you were to go into any Portuguese home, whether it's breakfast, or they'll serve it to you as an appetizer.

- Mmm, that's delicious.

(Maria laughing) Oh my gosh, everything's- (happy music) - And then the piece de resistance, right here, right now is the codfish (speaking foreign language).

- How is this prepared in terms of hydration, rehydrating?

- Take out the excess salt.

I put it, I layer it in a bowl, put fresh water in it, I put the bowl in the fridge, that's in the morning with fresh water, and you would change that water two, three times a day.

I do it for two days.

- Labor of love.

- Labor of love.

The way you cook it for like something like this is you're gonna be boiling it in water.

So you need to take off all the bones, you need to take out the skin, you need to shred all the pieces of cod.

And then you would saute that cod, that shredded cod, with onions.

And that's one step.

And then what you do is literally layers of cod and onion, olive oil, potatoes, olive oil, cod and and onions, little olive oil, potatoes, little olive oil.

- Nice.

- And then you're just making that layer of all of that.

And this is- - [Tracy] The flavors, just layers.

- [Maria] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

(both speaking foreign language) (speaking foreign language) is wow, yeah.

That's so good.

- [Tracy] So thinking about all of this rich history.

- [Maria] Yes.

- How does it feel to be part of the preservation and sharing of all of this?

- I feel really grateful to be able to do that because it needs to be preserved.

When you grow up in this nationality, you know, you don't think twice.

You don't think twice about the food.

I mean, but no matter what, and I don't care, even with any nationality, you need to preserve your food, your culture, your art, your music, your all of the above.

- Agreed.

- [Maria] There's a lot of food history in our plate right here, right now.

- [Tracy] Hmm.

- And you're tasting the same dishes that have been eaten centuries.

You know, this has been- - What a beautiful history.

- Isn't it?

It really is.

- And it's all art.

It's all art.

- And it's all art.

- The cooking, the presentation- - Oh, absolutely.

- The ingredients.

- Absolutely.

- Maria- - Yes, hon?

- Thank you so much for sharing your history and traditions with me.

Thank you so much for this whole day.

- Thank you for doing this.

I really appreciate it.

- Of course, my pleasure.

- And I- - Cheers to you.

- Oh my goodness.

We have to put our plate down and we have to cheer this.

We have to cheers this.

- Ching-ching.

- Ching-ching.

Cheers, sweetheart.

- Thank you.

(suspenseful music)