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Episode 206: Acadian History & Food
Had you heard of the Acadians before?
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An Egg Tart’s Journey From Lisbon to Macau
By Miriam Foley
Visitors to Lisbon need an extra stomach to try all the delicious pastéis de nata that, complete with flaky crusts, creamy yellow centers, and carefully golden-brown caramelized surfaces, beckon from every bakery window in the city. The iconic sugary treats, which literally translate to “cream pastries,” are easy to find today, but once upon a time they could only be found behind the walls of a monastery in Lisbon’s Belém parish.
According to historians, the original pastéis de Belém date back to 17th-century monks at the Jerónimos Monastery: they used egg whites to starch clothing and fabrics, and decided to put the leftover egg yolks to good use by making cakes and pastries.
When the monastery closed in 1834, the secret recipe for the little egg tarts was sold to a local shop owner. Three years later, La Fábrica de los Pastéis de Belém opened its doors and today, the famous Pasteis de Belém makes up to 50,000 tarts a day in peak season and is the most famous place to try the cream tarts in all of Lisbon. Not just that, but bakeries across the city have been long inspired to recreate the tarts, albeit without the original recipe.
The pastéis de nata have traveled further afield than Lisbon, becoming a staple sweet on the menus of cafes across London and a Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan. They’ve also become a must-try for tourists visiting another corner of the world: Macau. Lord Stow’s Bakery in the quaint village of Coloane produces more than ten thousand of its own version of the tart every day.
But the tarts aren’t a direct Portuguese import. It was in fact Andrew Stow, an Englishman and industrial pharmacist, who opened a bakery there, dedicated to European bread and cakes, in the 1980s. Inspired by the pasteis, he decided to do something for the local Portuguese community. He set to work and experimented until he got just what he wanted, a Portuguese-English hybrid.
The final creation, featuring a richer center as an ode to England’s very own custard tart, held in a puff pastry nest, was called Lord Stow’s egg tart. The tarts weren’t an overnight success: Portuguese locals saw them as inferior to their national pastéis, while the Chinese were suspicious of the brown spots on the top. But decades later, Stow is celebrated as the creator of Macau’s iconic egg tart, and hailed for making it famous across Asia.
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As always, great content! Loved the egg tart history.
Thanks for sharing Amy's great story, Katherine!!