6.ª edição de Ó sim, ó sopas - Ílhavo 2020

Ílhavo scouts' soup festival wins over more and more people (by Afonso Ré Lau, 4 February 2020).
Eight hundred people took part in the sixth edition of the food festival "Ó sim, ó sopas!" of the Ílhavo scout group.
The Mercado Municipal de Ílhavo hosted, last Saturday, 1 February, the sixth edition of the festival "Ó sim, ó sopas!" of Scout Group 189 of the Corpo Nacional de Escutas.
For five euros, participants could taste each of the about 30 different soups prepared by the invited restaurants, institutions and individuals, and vote for their favourites.
At the end, once the votes were counted, restaurante Abílio Marques again won the prize for best soup with its sopa à lavrador. Also in the professional category, second place went to Marisqueira da Barra with a seafood soup (sopa de marisco), and third to the fish soup (sopa de peixe) of the Café-restaurante "Concha do Mar".
In the non-professional category there were no big surprises either: at the sixth edition, Anabela Pequeno's chora de bacalhau was, for the sixth time, the most voted soup. Second was the "Sopa do Pai", prepared by the Expedição (the 10-14 age section) of the Ílhavo scout group, and third the cockle soup (sopa de berbigão) from Alegrete.
The first edition of "Ó sim, ó sopas", in 2015, had about 150 participants. Since then the event has kept growing and so changed venue: it has been held at the Centro Paroquial de Ílhavo, at the multi-purpose hall of the Escola Secundária Dr. João Carlos Celestino Gomes, and today at the Mercado Municipal de Ílhavo, where at this sixth edition the scouts gathered about 800 "sopeiros", 300 more than last year.
According to Paulo Gonçalves, head of Scout Group 189 of Ílhavo, half of the money raised will help fund the trip of a contingent of 18 Pioneiros (14-18 age section) and three leaders to Gdansk, Poland, where the EuroJam, a European scout camp, takes place from 27 July to 6 August. The other half goes to the group's regular activities.
The organisation was supported by the Núcleo de Ílhavo da FNA (association of former scouts), the Câmara Municipal de Ílhavo and the Junta de Freguesia de São Salvador, partner local authorities of the group, as well as the Rancho Folclórico "O Arrais", the Grupo de Jovens "A Tulha", the Associação Cultural e Recreativa Os Baldas, scout group 1021 of Praia da Barra, the GNR district command of Aveiro and the companies RIALTO, Diatosta, Publidecal, Jardins da Boavista, Vista Alegre and GRESTEL.

The 6th edition offered about 30 soups from restaurants, institutions and private cooks for 5 euros, with a public vote. Abílio Marques' sopa à lavrador won the professional category again (2nd Marisqueira da Barra, 3rd Concha do Mar); in the non-professional category Anabela Pequeno's chora de bacalhau won for the sixth time (2nd 'Sopa do Pai' by the scouts' Expedição section, 3rd the Alegrete's sopa de berbigão). The first edition in 2015 had about 150 participants and the event has moved to bigger venues since.