The name Portugal refers to the orange fruit, not the country. Orange in many parts of the world (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and I think some Arabic countries) is still called something like "Portucalle". This is due to the fact that the sweet variety of oranges we now consume was first brought to Europe by Portuguese sailors / merchants. (Before that, oranges were like lemons are now, just used for cooking)
This differs from Orange in many other countries where the name comes from "Apple from China"..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_%28fruit%29#Etymology
Oranges, were introduced into Portugal by the Moors (current day Moroccans and Algerians) when they invaded Iberian Peninsula. It spread from there to the rest of Europe.
Funny thing is that the Persians knew citrus fruits (originated in Central Asia) long before the Portuguese but they also call it portqale while the Portuguese name (laranja) comes from the sanskrit "nāraṅga" brought by the Persians themselves.
The reason is that the Portuguese discovered very soon that the citrus are very efficient to fight scurvy, caused by C vitamin deficiency, a disease that made impossible to travel long oceanic voyages. So during 15th and 16th century they established a lot of trading posts around the world where they could get a supply of fresh oranges.
Oranges were one of the secrets discovered by the Portuguese to enable long sailing ships. Like land and celestial maps and gun powder, they were one of the most essential technologies to enable mercantilism, European colonialism and globalization.
These "Portugal cakes", if still exist, are not popular in Portugal. We still have recipes of cakes and breads with raisins but the orange flower water, I’ve never heard about it. It might be a recipe branch that grew independently taking Portuguese traditional ingredients (raisins, oranges and fortified wine) and didn't survived in Portugal.
Interesting. I've had those in "Chinese" Dim Sum restaurants, but while they were clearly atypical for Chinese food, I had no idea they were originally Portuguese.
Strongly second the recommendation. They're delicious!
I think it's true, I heard also that they are quite easy to find in China.
Other places where for sure you can find them:
Paris (and other cities in france), Brussels, Luxembourg, Newark (US), Toronto, Petersham (Sydney), Poland (at Biedronka, a Portuguese supermarkets chain), Macau and other Portuguese ex-colonies.
The plural is "Pasteis de Nata". The usual way to make the plural in words ending in "el" is replacing it with "eis". "Hotel" and "Pincel" turn into "Hoteis" and "Pinceis".
"Pastéis de Nata" would be the plural form. Yes, they are amazing. I never understood why they were not more popular in Massachusetts, given the huge Portuguese population there.
Pasteis de Nata/Belem are most common from Lisbon on south to the Algarve. Most of the Portuguese in Massachussetts are from Porto or from the Azores/Madeira. You are more likely to find Lisboetas in New Jersey and Toronto.
Pasteis de Nata are one of my favorite foods of all time, but they were fairly uncommon where I grew up in an Azorean Portuguese community in California, although Queijadas are pretty similar.
That makes a lot of sense. But still, it is pretty rare over there. Search for "pastel de nata" on yelp for Cambridge shows only 5 results, and only restaurants who happen to have them. Not one single pastry/coffee shop.
What I think it's funny is how the Portuguese focused so much on working as real estate developers/contractors and basically never took the entrepreneurial spirit to any other industry. If I were in MA, I would look into getting a coffee shop that served only a good european-style espresso, pastéis de nata e ginjinha. I bet it would find a good number of customers.
When I moved overseas I was surprised how many dishes use currants like this one does. Or how it's used in drinks like Ribena. But it turns out that growing currants has been illegal in the US for most of the 20th century with some states lifting the ban only in the last few years. This was due to the threat of it spreading disease to trees so the logging industry had it banned. So they're pretty much never used in American recipes.
I love this kind of archeology. I feel like it really makes me connect better with people from long ago to taste what they taste and experience (if even just a little) something that they would have experienced.
I know it's been done a bit in the past, but I feel like this kind of resurrection archeology is really gaining steam recently. There's a lady in Baltimore, MD who tries to figure out fashionable Roman hairstyles for example. There's a "Medieval" restaurant not too far from me that tries to only serve meals based on recipes and eating techniques available from the period. Mt. Vernon, George Washington's Home, has recently restarted the original distillery, making whisky as close to the way it would have been made as possible (including stream cooled condensers).
I'm waiting for some of this to really take off in Europe and Asia. New World foods, especially the pepper, absolutely transformed traditional foods. I'd love to eat some original Southern Indian Cuisine from pre-1492.
I know we're living in the future...but to some extent we can also live in the past and that's awesome.
