João Vieira

78-year-old João Vieira is a lively, passionate encyclopedia on agriculture in general and barbela wheat in particular. Every week he makes his own bread from this kind of wheat rich in oils and nutrients that has almost disappeared from the national crops - hence ‘undead wheat'. Already the grandparents planted it in those sandy lands, difficult for most of the cereal varieties. "This was the only one around here," he explains. He was one of the great drivers of its recovery, together with his friend Adolfo Henriques, from the Granja dos Moinhos, in Maçussa. And he does not excuse itself to enumerate its virtues: it has 40 times less gluten than the modern kinds of wheat, it is rich in oils and selenium, it dispenses with the use of herbicides and, he adds, "it is one of the few that will withstand climate change." Should be ground in a stone grinder to preserve the properties and the bread that results from it, guarantee is unique. And it's even better the next day to be cooked when it "releases the aromas." For diabetics like him, then, it is not even said: "Before I had to eat every two hours or else my legs would start to weaken. But if I eat a piece of this bread in the morning, I can walk up and down the land, and I can handle it without problems until lunch. "