Reflecting on the 30 years she has spent researching Macanese cooking, university lecturer and writer Annabel Jackson says: \u201cI wonder whether a more helpful way to define Macanese cuisine is to see it as a product of the domestic kitchen, cooked by different women of different nationalities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson has published several books on Macau and its cuisine, which is known as the world\u2019s first fusion food. When asked what ingredient can be used to represent Macau\u2019s culinary heritage, she chooses tamarind.<\/p>\n
Tamarind, a sweet-sour fruit that is native to Africa and commonly used in Southeast Asian cooking, first made its way into the kitchens of Macau via the Portuguese maritime trade centuries ago. Although it is not as prevalent in Macanese cooking compared with spices such as turmeric, Jackson says it still offers a glimpse into how the local cuisine came to be.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\u201cTo have a deeper understanding of Macau, I think it\u2019s really important to understand that the Portuguese colonial project was to marry locally,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Jackson explains that because Macau was one of the ports on Portuguese trade routes, women sailed there on the ships coming from other outposts like Malacca and Goa. \u201cSo all of these women arrived in Macau, all with Portuguese bosses or husbands, possibly. And all these ideas started to co-mingle in the kitchens of the Macanese,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Jackson points out that tamarind makes more subtle appearances in local recipes. For example, Worcestershire sauce, one of the British influences found in Macanese food, contains tamarind extract. The sauce is used in minchi, a signature dish of minced meat stir-fried with potatoes.<\/p>\n
\u201cTamarind pops up quite a lot in dishes, but I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s the star of the dishes,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s just one way of adding layers of flavour, especially when we are not using a tremendous amount of spice.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, there is one dish in which tamarind does play a starring role: porco balich\u00e3o tamarinho. \u201cFor me, it is a quintessent Macanese dish, because it shows quite clearly what Macanese food is,\u201d Jackson says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/div>Just the name of the dish alone conveys the rich cultural tapestry behind Macanese food. Porco is the Portuguese word for \u201cpork\u201d, while balich\u00e3o is a pungent local sauce that resembles belacan, a Southeast Asian fermented shrimp paste.<\/p>\n
Tamarinho refers to the use of tamarind in the dish, with the local spelling differing slightly from that of the Portuguese word for the fruit, which is tamarindo. \u201cHere, we spell it with an \u2018h\u2019, and it\u2019s part of the Macanese patois,\u201d Jackson explains.<\/p>\n
Porco balich\u00e3o tamarinho is a slow-cooked braised pork belly dish that is rich in flavour. Jackson was joined by her friend Otilia R. Novo, a chef and lecturer at the Macao University of Tourism, to prepare a more health-conscious version of the dish that uses pork collar instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cMacanese recipes are traditionally handed down orally within the family, so each family would have their own particular recipe for porco balich\u00e3o tamarinho,\u201d Jackson notes. \u201cBut as it goes down the generations, we might change the cuts of pork, or we might substitute onions for shallots, which were a bit more sophisticated. We might add in other elements such as ginger.\u201d<\/p>\n
This can present a dilemma to a researcher like Jackson, who has been exploring Macau and its gastronomy since 1994, when she wrote her first book, Macau on a Plate<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is some kind of conflict with the desire today for cookbooks and to have definitive, authentic recipes written down. And I do believe there\u2019s a space for having one recipe as a kind of historic document that can sit in a museum,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think we have to allow cuisine to flow freely. And a hybrid cuisine, by definition, uses substitutions and changes in different people\u2019s hands, so we can\u2019t cling to a sense of one recipe.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Jackson, cuisine is a cultural product that will always evolve because people in society will never stand still. But therein lies a paradox: how can a cuisine be preserved when it is actively changing?<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to argue that there\u2019s a very good case for preserving the memory of Macanese food, but it must be allowed to continue to develop,\u201d Jackson says.<\/p>\n Just as the local cuisine grew from the kitchens of people from different cultures who made Macau their home, it is individuals like Jackson, Novo and the chefs, bartenders and bakers who are now putting their own marks on the city\u2019s culinary heritage, to help redefine it for the years to come.<\/p>\n