Growing up in an internationally recognised City of Gastronomy* – Macau, what do you think was my most exciting moment? The answer, without a doubt, is the time I was enjoying meals from different countries with their respective cultures and cuisines – Thailand, Korea, Japan, and even from various cities in the mainland. Of course, as a Chinese territory formerly administered by Portugal, how can we not mention Portuguese cuisine?
Does anyone in Macau remember what their first, or the most memorable Portuguese dish was like?
The story starts with a girl who had been wary of Portuguese cuisine and did not dare to try it again for a long time after she had had her first meal in a Portuguese restaurant in Taipa with her family.
About 20 years ago, the girl who was just about 10 stepped into the restaurant with great excitement and anticipation. What did she eat at that time? Bread and……she can’t remember clearly what else.
You may ask, having a meal in a Portuguese restaurant, why the bread impressed the girl the most, but not the other traditional Portuguese dishes or Macanese cuisine, such as Tacho, Portuguese Chicken and bacalhau (dried and salted cod). In fact, the girl never knew the reason, but whenever she passed the restaurant, she told everyone who was with her at the time that the meal there was a disaster; whenever she talked about childhood memories with her younger sister, slices of bread and butter were their only impressions of that restaurant – and of Portuguese cuisine in general.
People often say that when you want to understand a new culture, food is often the best entry point, which can take you to the history of a place. I don’t know whether you agree with this quote or not, but I think it’s true. Maybe some of you may think food is just a thing for filling up one’s stomach, but have you ever had an insight into your city’s food and how many of you know the origin of a particular cuisine?
Even though I grew up in Macau, I did not know much about Macanese and Portuguese dishes, nor their culture and differences, until I interviewed a Macanese for a graduate project.
Customarily, the term “Macanese” refers to local-born people of mixed Portuguese and Asian descent, their diaspora and their customs and, last but not least, cuisine.
The girl, who knew only bread in Western cuisine in the past, has finally broadened her horizons with a traditional Macanese dish – Tacho, through which she knows not only the name of this particular dish, but also the history and the life of the Portuguese at that time when Macau was still under temporary Portuguese administration (until the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region on December 20, 1999).
Talking about Tacho, I don’t know whether you have had the same interpretation as mine in the past, which is considering the dish to be just fried or sauteed pork skin, chicken and Portuguese sausage all together in a stew, however, there’s one thing that we never mention – the warmth from a certain group of people who can be neighbours and friends, aside from just families.
When we searched for Tacho on the internet, we learnt that it is a dish that is usually enjoyed only during major festivals due to the high prices of the ingredients and because it is not easy to prepare.
But for the Macanese interviewee who grew up in Macau with his Portuguese parents in the 1970s, Tacho is not just an ordinary dish as it reminds him of the time he spent with his parents and those who provided him with warm, happy and unforgettable memories when a group of Macanese who shared their precious food to prepare the dish and enjoy it together in a small room. This is also the reason why Tacho is cooked with different kinds of ingredients, resulting in different flavours due to the different ways of preparing it.
So, with so many different types of cuisines in Macau, which is your favourite one, and why?
*Macau joined the ranks of UNESCO's Creative Cities of Gastronomy in 2017.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
