Portuguese pastry, Lisbon, artisan craftsmanship
Batata-doce de Aljezur: a legend three centuries too early
It comes out of the ground still wearing its sand, heavy and oddly fragrant. In Aljezur they say it won a battle in 1249. The trouble is that the calendar says…
Read more
Malassada: the Azorean doughnut that became a Hawaiian icon
The sugar sticks to your fingers before the first bite. No hole in the middle, no glaze: just a golden ball, still warm, rolled in sugar. The malassada looks…
Read more
Portokali: the orange named after Portugal, from Athens to Tehran
Ask for an orange at a market in Athens and you will be handed a portokali. In Istanbul, a portakal. All across the eastern Mediterranean, the fruit still…
Read more
Castanhas de ovos: the chestnuts of Viseu made from egg yolks
Small golden chestnuts, ridged, a little scorched on top. None of them has ever seen a chestnut tree: in Viseu they are shaped by hand from egg yolks and…
Read more
Pão de rala: the fake loaf of Évora that the nuns offered a king
It has the shape of a country loaf and the name of a poor man's flour. Under its crust, though, there is nothing but almond, egg yolks and doce de gila: pão de…
Read more
Pêra Rocha: the pear that turned up by accident in a Sintra garden
It has a neck, a skin freckled with russet, and it reaches Portuguese market stalls in September. Every Rocha pear in the country descends from a single tree…
Read more
From Flagey to Stockel: how Portuguese pastry reached Brussels
The hiss of the coffee machine, the cup set down with a click, two words of Portuguese across the counter: that counter reached Brussels by train in the 1960s,…
Read more
Bolo Dona Amélia: the maize cake where the spices stopped
A veil of icing sugar, a dense crumb the colour of maize, a scent of cinnamon and clove. The bolo Dona Amélia comes from an island in mid-Atlantic, and it…
Read more
Madeira sugar: the sweet route that linked Funchal to Bruges
In a display case in Funchal stands a cone of hardened sugar, greyish white, as tall as a forearm. That was the shape Madeira sugar took when it went to sea,…
Read more