About
For hundreds of years, Portuguese ships crisscrossed and connected the world: from Europe to India, West Africa to Brazil and beyond. Spices, coffee, knowledge, gold and, most tragically, enslaved peoples, filled their ships as fortune and settlements grew. In colonial kitchens, a hybrid cuisine developed, combining local and Portuguese influences, adding in new materials arriving in the hold of Portuguese ships. Today, almost 50 years after Portugal’s colonial era officially ended, Lisbon benefits immensely from the presence of communities from the country’s former colonies, which are so intertwined with Portuguese history. The story is complicated, the populations are diverse and the food is – across the board – delicious. On this full-day tour, we will explore the complex story of post-colonial Portugal through how it’s expressed in the kitchens of central Lisbon. We will start the day with a taste of Brazil, stopping for the city’s best pastel de vento (a popular meat- and cheese-filled pastry), made by an immigrant chef from Minas Gerais who has worked hard to set up her own business. Here, in Lisbon’s “little Brazil,” we’ll also get a chance to taste a variety of other classic Brazilian snacks, both savory and sweet. From there it’s on to Cape Verde and a taste of its signature stew, cachupa. Packed with hominy, studded with Portuguese chorizo and topped with an egg, the version we’ll try is prepared by the self-proclaimed “King of Cachupa” himself. While here, we’ll also get a sip of locally-distilled grog, a Cape Verdean spirit made from sugar cane (in this case grown on the outskirts of Lisbon). As we continue our walk, we’ll also have coffee from Angola and chocolate from Sao Tome, learning about these commodities’ roots in slavery and their current move toward free-trade standards. We’ll then visit a shop selling religious icons from Brazil and learn about how African religious traditions were disguised within Catholicism for centuries by colonial subjects of the Portuguese crown. Though Portuguese language and the Catholic faith were once the cornerstones of Portugal’s colonies, in all of these diverse kitchens the real object of devotion is piripiri, the chili pepper. Along our tour, we will sample a few versions of the chili-based sauce that reflect a range of tastes, from Africa to Asia, and stop into one of the best spots in the city for a taste of piripiri chicken, based on a recipe brought over from Angola. Up one hill and down another, we’ll reward ourselves with the city’s finest samosas and meet a family that’s protecting Goan culinary tradition by serving up bojés (chickpea fritters), sanná (steamed rice cake with coconut) and bebinca, a unique multi-layered cake. Finally, sunset will find us at a beautiful viewpoint overlooking the city, giving us the chance – with one more surprise bite – to honor the survival of such rich and diverse traditions, all at home in little old Lisbon.
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