Portuguese Hospital Food

I always find other country's foods interesting, even hospital foods.  :)  I recently came across a blog from an American girl living in Germany, and she shared photos of a German hospital's food, and I found it fascinating.  So, I tried to take photos during my recent hospital stay.  I did have a roomate, and felt too awkward at first to take photos, so I missed pictures of my first dinner:  2 small fish steaks, with cauliflower and potoates.  I got photos of everything else, though.

Above:  2 hard rolls with butter and a cheese spread, and apple juice.  This was breakfast every day.  I don't drink coffee, so they started bringing me an apple juice box instead when my coffee kept going untouched.  I also got bottled water often.  Room temp, though, not cold.  A lot of the drinks are not served cold here.  Thankfully, the apple juice was cold- it was nice to have something cold to drink since the hospital was hot with no AC.  (I had to give birth during the hottest month of the year here- darn it!)

They ended up bringing a lot of food every day; the breakfast rolls, and then 2 hours later, a yogurt (above) every day for a snack.  I wish I had remembered to bring my homemade granola.  After the morning snack was lunch two hours later, which was the same amount of food as dinner.  Two hours after lunch was a snack of another roll and coffee.  Then, two hours later, dinner, and in the evening, around 9pm, they brought coffee again with some Maria cookies.  I was almost asleep when they brought the evening snack, but I got up and snatched the Maria cookies to eat later.  :) 

Above is a picture of my lunch.... actually, I got this for lunch two days in a row!  Not sure if that was a fluke or what, lol.  It's a steak with an egg over top, and rice and french fries on the side.  They love steak with an egg on it over here in the Azores..... it's on every restaurant menu, sometimes prepared a few different ways.  I looked it up online and according to this, it's called bife com um ovo a cavalo, or "Steak with an egg on horseback." 

There was a different kind of veggie soup every day for both lunch and dinner.  A friend had warned me that the hospital soup needed salt, so I brought a salt-shaker with me to the hospital.  It's in the upper right-hand corner of the photo above.  :)  I ended up sharing it with my Portuguese roomate and we bonded over salt.  Good times! 

PS:  I prefer the Portuguese hospital food to the hospital food I've had in the US!  :)

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