With their flaky pastry casing, creamy custard filling and brulee topping, Macau’s Portuguese egg tarts are as much a part of the Chinese enclave’s fabric as its casinos — but their origin is surprisingly British.
Across the city it is not uncommon to see long lines of tourists patiently queuing for the sweet treats, a sight that might not seem all that surprising given the former Portuguese colony’s most famous dessert is based on Lisbon’s equally renowned pastel de nata.
But the current craze for Portuguese-style egg tarts — which has spread across China and parts of Asia in recent years — owes much of its success to a Briton who blundered into the business.
Photo: AFP
The tale began three decades ago when Essex-born industrial pharmacist Andrew Stow opened Lord Stow’s bakery at the southern harborside village of Coloane.
“In 1989, recognizing there were no Western street-side bakeries... he decided to do something for the local Portuguese community, which was to create a pastel de nata for them,” said Eileen Stow, Andrew’s sister, who now manages the business.
With no original recipe for pastel de nata to use, Andrew experimented with a heavier British custard filling, based on a family recipe, and Portuguese pastry techniques.
The creation initially raised a few eyebrows among Andrew’s Portuguese friends in Macau, but the local Chinese community became hooked.
Courtesy of the British, Cantonese cuisine already had a version of an egg tart, made with shortcrust pastry and a more jelly-like filling.
“To differentiate it from what they recognized in dim sum, a dan tat [egg tart in Cantonese,] they call it a po tat,” meaning Portuguese egg tart, Eileen said.
The creamier, flakier, richer versions were a roaring success.
“That’s how it grew before the days of ‘likes’ online. It’s just word of mouth,” added Eileen, who took over the business after her brother’s death in 2006.
The business now churns out 21,000 handmade egg tarts per day from three bakeries in Macau, and it also boasts two franchises in Japan and Manila.
A string of rivals have cropped up in the last three decades in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.
One of the best-regarded Macau competitors was set up by Andrew’s ex-wife Margaret Wong.
She sold her recipe to KFC, which now offers Portuguese egg tarts at outlets across China, a move that has introduced Macau’s Portuguese-British hybrid to hundreds of millions more hungry mouths.
After Jurassic Park premiered in 1993, people began to ask if scientists could really bring long-lost species back from extinction, just like in the hit movie. The idea has triggered “de-extinction” debates in several countries, including Taiwan, where the focus has been on the Formosan clouded leopard (designated after 1917 as Neofelis nebulosa brachyura). National Taiwan Museum’s (NTM) Web site describes the Formosan clouded leopard as “a subspecies endemic to Taiwan…it reaches a body length of 0.6m to 1.2m and tail length of 0.7m to 0.9m and weighs between 15kg and 30kg. It is entirely covered with beautiful cloud-like spots
Just after 6am, I walked up to the ticket gate at Taipei Main Station and entered the Taiwan Railway platform without scanning any ticket; instead, I flashed the Sanrio Fun Rail pass on my phone to the gate worker and was admitted. I found my train and prepared to board. My destination? This very same station. I was embarking on a 13-hour journey on one of two round-the-island trains operated by ezTravel. They run each day, one counterclockwise around the island and one clockwise. They differ in a number of ways from an ordinary Taiwan Railway train and can make for
Jason Han says that the e-arrival card spat between South Korea and Taiwan shows that Seoul is signaling adherence to its “one-China” policy, while Taiwan’s response reflects a reciprocal approach. “Attempts to alter the diplomatic status quo often lead to tit-for-tat responses,” the analyst on international affairs tells the
On Thursday, former Taipei mayor and founder of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Seven others related to the case were also handed prison sentences, while two were found not guilty. It has been a bad week for the TPP. On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) with suspicion of taking part in Beijing-directed election interference. Xu has strong links to the TPP, which once offered her a party list legislator nomination. Tuesday also
RSS