I just like plantain.

Strolling through the shady district of Martim Moniz the other day on the way to work, I couldn't help stopping to sniff, squeeze and shake the exotic selection of fruit and veg that Lisbon's resident African population has brought with it from the ex-colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Cabo Verde.

Some particularly tasty-looking plantain caught my eye (black, yellow and green!) and I couldn't resist picking up a few sweet ones to fry up as crispy patacones.

As I apporached the till, a beaming black man came up behind me, showing off all his discoloured teeth as he grinned.
"Plantain!" He gasped in muffled African Portuguese. "You're taking home plantain!"
"Sim. Eu gosto muito das bananas." I replied in slightly more muffled Spanish Portuguese.
Without hesitation the smiley guy said "You like plantain! Es africana?!"
"Uh?" I must have misheard.
"Are you African? You're buying plantain!"
"Um, no" (I'm giggling a bit now) "I just like plantain..."

So this got me pondering, as many things do, about what it is that defines us as being from one place or another. As far as I'm concerned, I look about as English as you can get, though since moving to Portugal my tell-tale lisp and habit of saying "sabes?" or "vale?" at the end of every sentence has meant that on several occasions, and in spite of my clear lack of Latina colouring (or bottom), I have been mistaken for a Spaniard.

In Lisbon it is amusingly easy to spot the main immigrant nationalities. The Brazilians always wear beachwear, even on the chilliest December morning (hey, if you've got an authentic pair of Havaianas, you might as well show them off) while the Africans simply refuse to take off their enormous black quilted coats, even while the rest of the city swelters in the Mediterranean heat and humidity.

But what is it really that defines us as being where we are from? I know ex-pats who have lived in their adopted country for longer than in their native land, married foreigners, changed their passports. They've had foreign babies whose first words are not English, and have subsequently grown up to be fully fledged foreign adults. But these ex-pats always seem to be the most exceedingly English people you could ever hope to meet, as if they wish to compensate for their self-imposed exile with an excess of patriotic beaviour. I know people who were born and raised in one country by foreign parents, whose nationality they still claim to feel closer to than their own. And then there are the swarms of 20-30-something nomads, who have spent a few years roaming the planet, lose touch, need a couple of days' practice before feeling fully comfortable using their own language again, and yet have not managed to adopt any other nationality as their own and are now stuck in some kind of limbo. It's a fabulous, exciting, curious state to experiment with for a while, but when does it start to become draining, confusing, unsatisfying?

We don't choose where we are from. We choose where we are. We choose what we eat, what we wear, where we shop. So maybe a plantain, catching my eye in Martim Moniz, is just as good a clue as any other as to who I am.