A student from Macau who went to study in Portugal shared an interesting experience. When he arrived in Lisbon, he went to a restaurant and ordered what he thought was a typical Portuguese dish: Portuguese chicken, which left the restaurant owner confused, because there is no such dish in Portugal. In fact, Portuguese chicken is a classic dish of Macau cuisine, and a local adaptation of Portuguese dishes. In Macau, it is common to refer to all dishes influenced by Portugal simply as “Portuguese food”.
In the last edition, we talked about the Macanese, a mixed-race Portuguese-descendant ethnic group residing in Macau. This community preserves a culinary culture that is based on Portuguese cuisine, enriched with gastronomic elements from different regions.
The emergence of this culinary tradition dates back to the 15th and 16th centuries, a time when the Portuguese sailed towards the East, passing through Africa, India and Malacca, arriving in the Chinese region of Macau. During this long period, the Portuguese used in their cooking not only easily preserved ingredients such as dried cod, Portuguese chorizo, olive oil, wine and black olives, but also ingredients and spices from various places they passed through, such as African chilli, Indian curry and coconut milk from Southeast Asia, managing to perfectly combine the traditional methods of Portuguese cuisine with those of Asian and African cuisines. This is how this fusion culinary style was born.
