PENIS CAKES

I've never had much faith in academics who explain away ancient mysteries with vague theories about religion and sex magic.

Actually, it's more like a thick stick of bread, but its shape-testicles intact-is unmistakable. In fact, the words 'penis' and 'phallus' are far too prim to describe it; it's the kind of image you'd expect to see scrawled on a toilet stall, not baked and sold as a delicacy at a religious festival in a country as deeply conservative as Portugal.

I've come here to see São Gonçalo, a saint who can supposedly cure whatever ails you, though the payback can be a bit embarrassing, to say the least. Gonçalo is also renowned as a marrying-and partying-saint: he's specifically associated with phalluses... and fish.

On the first weekend of June, the romantic town of Amarante, less than an hour from Porto, throws a festival in his honour, with people strewing red carnations in the plaza to thank St. Gonzalo for delivering them from illness.

At the same time, so the guidebooks say, young swains woo their loved ones by presenting them with pastries known as Doces Fálicos-Phallic Sweets.