Why the Portuguese Custard Tart is Here to Stay
Anubhuti Krishna tells the fascinating origin story of Pastel de Nata, and why this custard tart holds universal appeal.
“There are two ways in which you can eat a tart,” announces Fahim, an energetic young man in a bright pink vest. “You can scoop the custard out with a spoon first and eat the pastry later, or you can bite into it in one go.”
“There is a third way too, actually,” he adds. “You can put the whole thing in your mouth, but that works only if you have been eating them for a while.” We are standing in front of the birthplace of the tart in question, and the crash course in custard-eating is meant to help us make the most of tasting Lisbon’s legendary custard tart.
Custard tarts are everywhere in Lisbon: at the corner shop, in neighbourhood cafés, at restaurants, in supermarkets, even at the airport. This palm-sized pastry, filled with gooey custard, layered with butter, and charred on top, is in a way synonymous with the city. But it is this suburb, credited with the making of the first tart, that is considered the best place to sample your first custard tart.
Pastel de Nata, or the Portuguese Custard Tart, is believed to have been invented in the convents of Jeronimos monastery, a little outside the capital city of Lisbon. Legend has it that after the Liberal Revolution of 1820, in which the state had forced all religious institutions to shut down, the nuns started to retail monastery desserts outside the convent. It helped that Belem, with the monastery, Tower of Belem, and the Cathedral was often visited by the townspeople who not only appreciated the desserts but also patronised them. While all sweets were popular, it was the nata pastry, first made in the 1830s, that became most famous.
Making the tart was inexpensive: sugar was manufactured nearby and was cheap; eggs yolks, left over after starching the habits of nuns and masts of ships with the whites, were aplenty. Many hands meant moulding them was a community effort, and baking happened in the monastery ovens. Initially, the nuns would sell these tarts outside the monastery. It was, however, not considered proper for them to stand on the street and peddle their product. And so the retailing was outsourced to a sugar shop nearby. The rest, as they say, is history.
That shop is a 450-seater restaurant today. Overflowing with locals, travellers and TV cameras, the café-cum-patisserie works non-stop from 8 AM to 11 PM. Takeaway queues run for blocks; waiting for dine-in lasts up to an hour. Those who aren’t in the queue or inside the restaurant are often strolling the district with the ubiquitous blue and white paper bag with the sign: Pasteis de Belem.
The recipe at Pasteis de Belem is a closely guarded secret. Believed to have been unchanged since the 1830s, it is apparently still followed to the T. Only three people know it at any one point, and not even workers in the factory are present during the making of the custard. This mystery certainly adds to the charm of pastries at Belem, but an outsider can hardly differentiate between the tarts from Belem and tarts from other legendary institutions in Lisbon. “If you ask a Portuguese person, they will tell you that the tarts at Pasties de Belem are a bit overrated,” discloses Ruthy Guez, co-founder of Treasures of Lisboa, a food tour company that does culinary tours in Lisbon. Smaller family-run bakeries, feels Ruthy, often make better nata than the more commercial places.
A walk through Lisbon’s metropolitan area — the old town and the newer districts — brings you face to face with these patisseries: tucked between tailoring shops and boutiques, located inside train stations and hypermarkets. Rua Augusta, one of the streets that runs through Praca do Comercio is home to several such, some large and ornate, others small and functional.
Manteigaria, for example, is known for its light, fresh, and fragrant tarts. Unlike Belem, there are no secret recipes or steel doors here. Men dressed in white chef coats cut out rolls of buttery dough on the counter and swirl them expertly inside aluminium moulds. Blobs of custard are poured in and tarts are baked at extremely high temperatures. With every batch that comes out of the oven, the store signals its availability by ringing an old-fashioned bell. Eaten hot with bica, Portuguese espresso, these tarts are lighter than those at Belem and also age well for a few hours after.
Nata pastries have to be eaten fresh, preferably just out of the oven. Carrying them back home may look like an attractive proposition but it is not a wise choice. Heavy on egg yolk, they tend to spoil quickly and can make you sick. This could be the reason why the Portuguese created local versions of Pastel de Nata in every country they settled. Hong Kong, Macau, Brazil, China, Japan, even Toronto and New York has versions of the Portuguese tart. All dating back to the late 18th and early 19th century when Portugal’s colonisation was at its peak.
Image credit: Tastes of Portugal
“Custard tarts have been a part of the teahouse menus in Hong Kong and Macau for decades.” Chef Vivek Rana, the executive chef and at The Claridges, says. “Egg Tart first came to Macau with the Portuguese,” says Rana who has travelled extensively through South East Asia to research its cuisine. “But the tarts stayed back long after they left, and travelled into the mainland.” Here it was modified by the locals to accommodate local and regional ingredients. Expensive butter was replaced with lard, more eggs were added and the flaky pastry became short crust pastry. In short, while the name remained the same, the character changed almost entirely. It is another matter that they are still referred to as Portuguese Custard Tarts in most parts of Asia and the world.
India, despite being a Portuguese colony, oddly never became home to the nata. In Goa, the largest Portuguese colony in India, one finds local versions and adaptations of several Portuguese desserts but the custard tart is conspicuously missing. There are no mentions of Pastel de Nata in the state’s culinary history and no one who grew up in Goa remembers eating them.
“During our extensive research on Goan-Portuguese cuisine, we found no evidence of Pastel de Nata in Goa,” says chef Heena Punwani of O Pedro, a Goan-Portuguese restaurant in Mumbai. “Since the nata pastry is synonymous with Portuguese cuisine, we decided to put it in the menu anyway.” And so, long after the Portuguese left India, the custard tart made its maiden appearance here.
Delhi, meanwhile, got its taste of the nata pastry entirely by chance, when Mandakini Gupta, a baker, decided to make a batch to satisfy her own cravings. Custard tarts, asserts Mandakini, were never known to India. “It was only recently, when Indians started to travel to Portugual, that they came back looking for them,” she says, quite like she did herself. This quest for the tart had Mandakini carry a handful of nata moulds back from Lisbon. The moulds and a workshop she did in Lisbon came in handy.
“The first time I tried making Pastel de Nata, it was for myself,” smiles Mandakini. “When they turned out okay, I wanted others to taste them.” Such is the demand that in a matter of 18 months the number of tarts Mandakini makes has grown exponentially. Among the many people who wait for her to announce a batch (she cannot make them daily given the technicalities), is the ambassador of Portugal himself. “I was surprised when I found out that one of the orders had come from the Portuguese Embassy,” says Mandakini. “They regularly order their nata from us now.” That the Indian version of pastel de nata is as good as the Portuguese can be attested to by the fact that His Excellency Mr. Carlos Pereira Marques, the ambassador of Portugal, feels that the pasteis made by Madakini “…excel the highest standard in terms of taste, texture, and freshness.”
“Nata is very much like Indian mithai,” feels Mandakini. “That’s why it is easy for us to appreciate it.” The contrast of texture, sweetness of the custard and buttery crisp layers, appeal to the Indian palate. The novelty of the pastry makes it attractive to the well-travelled, well-read millennial who is also its biggest consumer. That could explain why, in just a couple of years, pastel de nata has gained such popularity in the Indian market.
The Chinese version of the egg custard tart has only just started to take off in the country though. “No one pays attention to desserts at Asian restaurants,” feels chef Prashanth Puttuswamy, Executive Chef at Cantan, Bangalore, who has recently introduced the Chinese Custard Tart in his menu. The Chinese recipe, he says, uses lard, and is heavier on eggs than its Portuguese variant, which may not be suitable for the Indian palate. To ensure his tarts meet Indian standards, Puttuswamy modified his recipe without losing authenticity —and yet, he is uncertain if guests will appreciate a simple tart in the times of plated desserts. Looking at the history of the tart though, he shouldn’t be worried, for in the simplicity of the tart lies its strength. Chinese or Portuguese, Delhi or Lisbon, made with butter or lard, the 200 year old tart is here to stay for a long, long time.
Anubhuti Krishna is a writer based in New Delhi. Passionate about travelling and eating, she finds ways to combine the two. Her work has been featured in major dailies and monthlies. She hopes someday it will find home in a book.
Banner image credit: Food Republic
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