Editor's note: What are Macao's real "specialties"? Is there any "Macanese cuisine"? In fact, in Macao, there is a flavor food called "Macanese cuisine". Not only can it be tasted only in Macao in the world, but it also has a long history and has experienced a thousand sails, which is truly a gastronomic adventure.
Photo 1: Macanese enjoy afternoon tea in the garden of Villa Le Thean, Macau. Source: The Origin and Evolution of Indigenous Cuisine (by Antonio M. Jorge da Silva).
Portuguese dishes produced in the diet "Smash Bros"
The spices used in today's Portuguese and Spanish cuisine date back to the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. In addition to building the infrastructure for what was once a tribal society, Roman settlers brought their habits, lifestyles and languages, introducing onions, garlic and olives, ingredients that were essential to the cuisine of the Portuguese.
Figure 2: Battle between Scipio Africanus and Hannibal. 1616-1618, Cesari, Bernardino (1565-1621). Image source network.
In the history of Portugal, the Arabs occupied almost the entire Iberian Peninsula for about 770 years. It was the Arab invasion and their long occupation that left a lot of their culinary legacy. Although saffron was known and used by the Romans, it was the Arabs who reintroduced Portugal and Spain, who also brought rich desserts made with many eggs, but also oranges, lemons, almonds, figs, grapes, sweets and many other things. It can be said that both Portuguese and Spanish cuisine are heavily influenced by Arabic cuisine.
...... While all medieval European cuisine benefited largely from Arabia, the Iberian Peninsula was more directly affected. The Portuguese language is full of Arabic words such as: eggplant, saffron, orange, lemon, rice, almonds, spinach, and sugar. Sugar and rice grown in the southern Algarve province are also imported commodities from Arabia.
The influence of Jews on the Portuguese people cannot be ignored either. In the fifteenth century, anti-Semitism gradually extended from Spain to Portugal. The two countries ordered tens of thousands of Jews to gather in Lisbon and force them to be baptized or leave Portugal. Many were thus baptized, while others retreated to the mountains of northern Portugal. These Portuguese and Spanish Jews of the Iberian Peninsula were known as "Sephardic Jews". Sephardic Jewish practices of cleansing and preparing food are evident in Portuguese cooking.
In the eyes of Jews, shellfish are one of the banned ingredients, and the consumption of pork is also condemned. So to test whether new Christians are truly converted, anti-Semites use pork, ham, and pork sausages to cook shellfish dishes such as "copper pot clams" and "potato pork." Coimbra's cake is a Jewish-influenced unleavened sweet bread made from cinnamon, which is very popular in many pastry shops. In addition, ingredients such as turmeric powder, cumin, cinnamon, celery, coriander and mint are used in Saffadi Jewish cuisine and Portuguese recipes.
The "Freedom Box" from Portugal
This is the context of a people: they set out to discover new lands, spread the Christian faith, seek gold and other treasures, but are driven by the need for spices. Navigators and gentlemen set sail from Portugal, all equally hoping to return rich.
The Portuguese king never gave their navigators a proper salary, so they substituted boxes full of spices for adequate wages. (Food writer Michael Crond)
The box called the "freedom box" was filled with spices, such as pepper and cinnamon, and the value of the box of spices was worth several years' wages. These journeys circumscribed the African coast to India, Malacca, China and Japan, not only enriching the tables in Portuguese homes, but also bringing an evolution of fusion cuisine to places far from their homeland.
Figure 3: At the beginning of the 15th century, Portugal began the Age of Discovery. Image source network.
During the journey, Portuguese boats carried rations of food, including biscuits, wine, vinegar and garlic-marinated pork (garlic pork), oil and water. In the days that followed, voyages became more frequent, ships became larger, and crews from west to east, adding plenty of fruits and vegetables to the sea supplies, which would change cooking in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
Pineapples, guavas, peanuts, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, all introduced from South America by the Portuguese. When they sail back from east to west, they bring back mouthwatering spices, ginger, and later tea. Bananas, native to tropical Asia, were brought to Brazil and South America by the Portuguese from West Africa, and Guinea brought bananas called "Banema" to Brazil and South America. It is likely that the Portuguese first discovered them in India and then brought them to Africa. Although rice was introduced to the Portuguese by the Arabs, rice became more popular in a few years as the Portuguese sought out and determined to control the spice trade hub.
Portuguese cuisine, perhaps better said, the country's diet is largely dependent on regional, social and economic factors. Portugal is a small and poor country that relies heavily on the sea for commerce, from which much of its food is obtained. Meat was usually available to the aristocracy and wealthy, while peasants ate less needed parts of animals, such as feet, ears and offal. Many traditional recipes use a variety of vegetables, potatoes and bread, cooked with cheap meat products.
During their early voyages to Africa, the Portuguese traveled from the coast of Guinea to Angola and Mozambique, establishing their dwellings and later colonies. There, they lived with the indigenous people, leaving behind the foundations of their culinary heritage.
Okra, native to West Africa, was brought to Brazil, later to the West Indies, and then to Louisiana in the United States to become okra bisque cooked in Keauer; However, this ingredient never became part of Portuguese cuisine on the European continent.
After a thousand sails, sailed to Macao
The Portuguese crossed Africa, across the Indian Ocean, to discover India, the Malay Peninsula, the Moluccas, and then to China and Japan. On their small boats, people had pre-stocked their food from as far away as Portugal to cope with these long journeys.
Picture 4: African chicken in Macanese cuisine. Source: The documentary "Taste of Macao".
Before the arrival of the Portuguese, Macau was an insignificant peninsula, located at the mouth of the Pearl River, a small Chinese port village south of Guangdong Province and the provincial capital of Guangzhou, inhabited by a small number of Fujian fishermen and some local farmers. In 1557, when the Guangdong provincial authorities allowed the Portuguese to settle in Macau, the population grew rapidly.
Chinese are foreign to the Portuguese in every way. When they settled in the southern part of this small peninsula, Chinese had only trade dealings with them. At first, the Portuguese built farms in some parts of the fragrant hills. However, over time, this cautious move (cultivated by the Portuguese) was neglected, rural areas were abandoned, and food as one of the necessities of life had to be imported, even if it passed from the mainland through the only walled gate. Unlike Goa and Malacca, there is no local cuisine for new outsiders. Everything related to cooking, including the cutlery and the ingredients themselves, is imported. Until 1842, before the establishment of neighboring Hong Kong, the cuisine of Macau people was segregated. Until then, the Portuguese had moved in and out of Macau, while their mixed Asian or Eurasian women and children remained there. These women who accompanied the Portuguese to Australia were the founders of indigenous cuisine.
The Chinese had no interest in local cuisine, although the Portuguese introduced ingredients and agricultural products that eventually became part of Chinese cooking, such as peanuts, sweet potatoes ("sweet potatoes" in Cantonese) and tomatoes ("tomatoes" in Cantonese), which were introduced by Westerners. The Cantonese character "fan" means "foreigner in the West". Other examples such as "watercress", which literally means "the dish of the Western seas (or the Portuguese)".
This fusion cuisine is almost based on the Portuguese way of cooking, taught by their Portuguese male companions. Slave girls bought from Africa, women from Goa, Peranakan from Malacca, Japanese women in kimono and native Chinese women brought their kitchen utensils, food and mixed Portuguese speakers, and added local ingredients and made their own products in Macau. As local Chinese ingredients entered the territory, their cooking style and tableware inevitably found their way into the native kitchen, and their cuisine followed.
Figure 5: An authentic breakfast – scrambled eggs with brown sugar. Source: The Origin and Evolution of Indigenous Cuisine (by Antonio M. Jorge da Silva).
After many years, these women of different ethnicities, who have become Macanese mothers, are the ancestors of female immigrants from the Portuguese people of Macau. Over the generations, the local ingredients and cooking methods of these oriental settlements were added to the dishes introduced by the Portuguese, and eventually became the unique flavor of Macanese cuisine today.
The text is taken from The Origin and Evolution of Native Cuisine (by Antonio M. Jorge da Silva), with deletions.