Lisbon’s Post-Colonial Feast

More than five hundred years ago, Portuguese explorers set out by ship and forever changed the world by opening up trading channels between otherwise disconnected places – Europe to India, West Africa to Brazil and beyond. Spices, coffee, knowledge, gold and, most tragically, enslaved people, filled their ships as fortune and settlements grew. From Brazil in the west to Macau in the East and many points in between, the Portuguese planted their flag creating a direct connection between Lisbon and those distant lands. 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 diverse and their food, across the board, is 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’ll start with the signature Cape Verdean 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. We’ll 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 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, and we will sample a few versions of the chili-based sauce that reflect a range of tastes, from Africa to Asia. Up one hill and down another, we’ll reward ourselves with the city’s finest shrimp samosa and meet the irreverent chef pushing the boundaries of both Goan and Portuguese cuisines. We’ll visit with street vendors from Guinea, and take in some hidden history on our way to a hip new spot with a Brazilian chef creating modern renditions on the food of his home country, including a puff pastry stuffed with succulent octopus. Finally, sunset will find us in a small Cape Verdean taverna run by the matriarch of her street, where we’ll have a digestive of house-made poncha, sweetened sugar cane liqueur, toasting senhora Maria and the survival of such rich and diverse traditions, all at home in little old Lisbon.