There is a vast menu in Vila Real de Santo António of tuna recipes, but one of the most characteristic is the muxama. It is a product made with the same recipe that Phoenicians and Romans made two thousand years ago already using the "best salt in the world", that of Castro Marim. The term comes from the Arabic musama, which means "dry." It results from an old way of processing the fish, using the loins of the tuna, which are passed through coarse salt and then washed to remove excess salt. It consists then in the salting and subsequent drying of the noble parts of the tuna in controlled environment and temperature. It is said to be a kind of sea ham ...
