LISBON AND THE FAR EAST

The cyclical development of food culture gives and takes

Wdistillation, oven baking and yeasted doughs, sugarcane processing and sweet making to Asia. he Portuguese developed a taste for Indian pickles, and hinese soy sauce and it was while in India in the th century that these traders discovered sweet oranges and so brought the fruit back to urope.

Of course, the culinary traffic hasn’t always been in one direction and today, Portuguese chefs are renowned when it comes to marrying the tastes and techniTues of the ar ast with more traditional homegrown ingredients.

“I must say that the Portuguese mercantile history has been a fascination of mine over the years and it did instil a curiosity in me to explore the world,” said Michelin starred chef and creator of the new restaurant, A 5, at the recently refurbished five star airro Alto otel in Lisbon, Nuno Mendes.

aving trained with brothers, Albert and erran Adrii at the infamous l ulli restaurant, olfgang Puck and -ean eorges ongerichten, Mendes is no stranger when it comes to marrying global cuisines to deliver delicious food.

“I grew up in Lisbon during the 80’s when things were very different from today. ecause of my curiosity with food, which was shared by my father, I was introduced early on to the flavours from the places where we passed time. oa, -apan, Macau, ra il, Mo ambiTue and Malaysia, to name a few, have strong cultural and gastronomic ties with Portugal, and these cuisines were abundant in the city in those days.” hen we long for warm evenings eating delicious food and Tuaffing excellent wine in outhern urope, most thoughts turn to pain and of course Italy when it comes to these most recognisable culinary cultures.

owever, it is not the panish or indeed, the Italians that a lot of Asian countries have to thank for many of their own delicious national flavours and dishes. In fact, it was the Portuguese who were the maMor influencers on some of our globally beloved favourite dishes from the ast.

ow does a food culture develop and grow or example, can you imagine a delicious bowl of steaming spicy beef noodles in ietnam without the addition of chilies

Or perhaps you long for a vindaloo in oa Or tempura in okyo

ell, without the Portuguese merchants who arrived in India and -apan over 00 years ago, these much loved taste sensations, which are synonymous with Asian cuisine might never have developed as we know them today.

It was, after all, the Portuguese who first brought the chilies east from Mexico, the black pepper from Africa and tomatoes from the New orld. In fact, you will find the hands of these Portuguese influencers at work from ambodia, India, Macau, ri Lanka, Myanmar, hailand and yes, even -apan.

he Portuguese also introduced their cooking techniTues, such as viticulture,