Lisbon -- Start with stale, leftover bread. Add to this some of Portugal’s most decadent, richest ingredients, and you have açorda de gambas, a dish that manages to bridge the gap between poverty and indulgence.

The Portuguese are masters at transforming leftover or stale bread into new dishes. In the north, leftover slices of bread are dipped in eggs, fried in oil and sprinkled with sugar in the dessert known as rabanadas. In the south, açorda is a soup made from slices of day-old bread topped with hot water, garlic, herbs, and a poached egg. The south is also home to migas, bits of stale bread and fat that are cooked into an almost omelet-like form.
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