The surprising culinary connections between Portugal and India—seen through history, travel, and a shared love of spices.
Lucknowi biryani is “a poem,” while Hyderabadi biryani is “a powerful symphony.”
This evocative quip, presumably put forth in social media chatter by prominent Indian food historian Pushpesh Pant, neatly captures the barrage of friendly fire between generations of Hyderabadis and Lucknowis, both of whom are famously smug about the superiority of their biryanis.
Lost in this good‑natured ribbing are the historical roots of this famous dish, which would require both sides to acknowledge that their beloved biryanis would never have been possible without culinary influences from far beyond Indian shores. The pride many Indians feel for having given the world the rich Mughlai cuisine, with its indulgent, aromatic offerings such as biryanis, kormas, kebabs, and more, is rarely accompanied by an awareness that this lavish culinary tradition would not have been possible without the chili peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and cashews that the Portuguese introduced to India.
Childhood Clues to a Shared History
Growing up in India, I learned in school that the country’s colonial history began with the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in the 15th century. And that Mumbai, my hometown, had once been passed into British hands as part of the 1662 dowry of the Portuguese queen Catherine of Braganza when she wed Charles II of England, cementing a political alliance that linked two empires across oceans.
Yet surprisingly, we learned very little about the culinary connections that came about from the Portuguese colonial rule in India. I had not realized that so many of my fond food memories from childhood had roots in this chapter of Indian history—such as the memory of a Pao‑wala bicycling through town with freshly‑baked bread, particularly ladi pao, which resembles a slab of dinner rolls and forms the base of pao bhaji or vada pao.
Pão is, in fact, the Portuguese word for bread, and until the Portuguese arrived, making leavened bread, using fermentation, was less common in India. In Goa, bakers adapted Portuguese bread‑making techniques and began using the locally‑produced toddy (fermented palm sap) as a leavening agent to make the iconic pao.
Food historians like Lizzie Collingham trace the arrival of everyday ingredients, such as chilies, potatoes, and vinegar, in Indian kitchens to the Portuguese period in India. Yet the culinary and cultural exchange was never a one‑way journey. Spices and artifacts from India show up in Portuguese cuisine and life just as much as Portuguese influences in India.
Lisbon: Where India Echoes in Unexpected Places
During my recent trip to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, I began to notice how those connections popped up in the most unexpected places. Peacocks, which are not native to Portugal, roam freely in city parks. I even saw them at the grand monument, the Sintra National Palace, at the outskirts of the city. Seen as symbols of wealth and affluence, peacocks were brought back from Asian colonies, including India, in the 14th‑15th centuries. I also spotted old tiles painted with peacocks at the Museu Nacional do Azulejo, or the Tile Museum.
Through walking food tours and museum visits in Portugal, it quickly became clear to me that the Indo‑Portuguese connections run deeper than chilies, potatoes, and vinegar.
Potatoes for Spices, And The History Behind It
In the early modern period, spices were so highly valued that they sometimes rivaled gold in worth. Indian ports, like Mumbai, Kochi, and Diu, became key stops in a vast trade network linking Asia, Africa, and Europe. What passed through these ports did more than fill ships; it also reshaped the foods and flavors of the places those ships were sailing toward.
By the late 15th century, as trade wars between the European powers intensified, Portugal’s King Manuel I (1495‑1521) recognized the importance of establishing a robust maritime route to connect Portugal with the world’s spice‑growing regions, including India. Portugal’s imperial ambitions were deeply tied to spices—particularly black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg—which served not merely as flavorings but as powerful economic drivers and key motivations behind colonial expansion.
Vasco da Gama reached the Malabar Coast in the southwestern region of India in 1498, opening a direct sea route between Europe and India. While we usually associate Portuguese colonies with Goa and Panjim in Maharashtra, and with Diu and Daman in Gujarat, many cities in eastern India—such as Hooghly, Dhaka, Chittagong, and Bandel—were also major Portuguese hubs. So were numerous coastal towns up and down both the eastern and western shores of the Indian peninsula, including Cochin and Puducherry.
Cashews to Paneer: New Ingredients Transform Indian Kitchens
Just as the Portuguese chased the allure of Indian spices, they also brought with them food staples from their part of the world. Through their strong hold in South America, they introduced cashews from Brazil to India, which soon became a staple ingredient in Indian sweets and Mughlai cuisine. They also brought chili peppers and many other vegetables from the nightshade family, including potatoes and tomatoes.
Before this influx, spice‑related heat in Indian cuisine came from black pepper, long pepper (pippili), garlic, and ginger. The nightshade family of peppers and potatoes flourished in India’s climate and, in no time, began appearing in dish after dish across the subcontinent.
The Portuguese also popularized the use of vinegar, encouraging experiments in preservation and the making of fresh cheeses like paneer. Soon, vinegar‑flavored seafood pickles made dishes like Goan vindaloo possible. Our friends from West Bengal and Dhaka can wax poetic and practically write love stories to paneer and its use in making mishthan, or Bengali desserts. Paneer opened the doors to new confectionery experiments, including rosogolla in eastern India.
The Maritime Museum: Exhibits of Indo-Portuguese Connections
There were two stops in particular during my Lisbon visit that offered rich history and context behind these deep connections between cuisine and culture.
The Museu de Marinha, or the Maritime Museum in Lisbon, provides a fascinating look at how maritime routes shaped the Age of Discovery during the 14th and 15th centuries. You need to crane your neck to take in the oversized maps, lined with bright red and gold and decorated to the hilt like an Indian wedding invitation. These maps capture Portugal’s grand vision to dominate the spice routes.
The first half of the museum is dedicated to these voyages, showcasing not only the routes but also maritime vessels and their cargo. Exhibits recovered from archaeological excavations of wrecks in Lisbon’s harbor, at the mouth of the Tagus River, include coconut shells and large hoards of spices such as pepper. The wreckage also yielded intact ceramic spice jars containing cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper, along with Indo‑Portuguese jewelry. The museum even houses a few examples of Kochi’s iconic canal boats, the pirogues, used in the 16th and 17th centuries.
If looking at these exhibits leaves you hungry, you can step into the café adjoining the museum. Although daily selections may vary, the menu is very likely to include sambusa, a local version of the samosa made with phyllo dough. A 10th‑century Persian dish, called sambusa, traveled to India in the 13th century and evolved into the samosa. The Portuguese adopted it in Goa as chamuça, and from there it journeyed to every region touched by Portuguese traders, including the African continent. Today, samosas or sambusas are a common snack in Portuguese bakeries and restaurants, most often filled with spinach and feta, though meatbased options are also popular.
Jerónimos Monastery and the Windfall From the Spice Trade
Make time to visit the Jerónimos Monastery next door to the museum. While the Maritime Museum shows how the Portuguese sailed across the world, the Jerónimos Monastery reveals what they did with the profits, making this UNESCO World Heritage site an essential stop for anyone interested in studying the impact of Portugal’s trade ambitions. This massive monastery, together with the Belém Tower across from it, sprawls over several acres. Its tall arched halls and columns, intricately carved with gargoyles, tropical fruits, and birds, celebrate the scale of Portugal’s trade wealth during its colonial era. The entire complex was funded by annual taxes on spices and other goods from Asia and Africa. For about a century, until their control of sea routes was challenged by the English and the Dutch, the Armadas da Índia, or Portuguese India Armadas, were fleets dedicated to making “spice runs” from India. Taxes on the sale of these Indian spices helped pay for the original construction of the monastery, which remains a cornerstone of Portugal’s robust tourism industry today.
A Shared Vocabulary of Flavor
As I dug deeper into Portugal’s connection to India, I could not resist eating my way across Lisbon. What better way to explore a city than through its food? A walking food tour was the perfect way to sample a wide slice of the city’s food culture in a single day. (Bring your best cushioned walking shoes and plenty of patience for the winding roads and cobblestones. If you have tender knees, consider hiking sticks, though they offer little relief on the steepest streets.)
Our local guide enthusiastically showcased old establishments, shared stories about how patisseries and their pastries anchor daily life, and dished on small businesses that pride themselves on their expertise in local spirits. From tinned fish to the best dessert spots, from tasting local varieties of spirits and cheeses to finding Port tastings without having to drive for hours, our guide gave us an immersive experience.
The use of warming spices, layered aromatics, and a sweet‑savory balance is especially evident in Portuguese cooking. Cinnamon, once exotic and expensive, is now commonplace in Portuguese desserts. Hotels often leave a welcome gift of pastéis de nata, the iconic Portuguese custard tart, for their guests. The tart is often dusted generously with cinnamon, a spice the Portuguese have cherished ever since they discovered it in India. Today, cinnamon’s presence in Portuguese pastries is a quiet reminder of this long, intertwined history.
Seeing Goa in Portugal
Time and again, Indians say that Lisbon feels fa‑ miliar, even if they cannot quite explain why. In addi‑ tion to the shared food history, many people from India migrated to Portugal during the colonial period and also after the 1961 annexation of Goa. Those born in Goa, Daman, and Diu before 1961—and many of their descendants—have been offered relatively easier pathways to Portuguese citizenship.
Today, many city streets in Portugal feel like replicas of Panjim, with its colonial‑style bungalows, profusely blooming bougainvillea, and the pinks and purples of nerium and jacaranda. Shirley Peries (54, Sweden), who grew up in Mumbai, observes that “Portugal felt strangely familiar, perhaps because of the low‑hanging vines of bougainvillaea draped over old walls that I was so accustomed to seeing in Goa, our favorite family vacation destination.”
Speaking of culinary similarities, Peries points to caldeirada de peixe, which she describes as a milder version of Goan fish curry, and carne de vinha d’alhos, the Portuguese precursor to vindaloo, which is a bit drier. The Portuguese beef stew reminds her of Goan beef curry—both are slow‑cooked, deeply flavored, and unmistakably comforting, naturally inviting that classic susegad mood after a meal.
Goan food writer and culinary consultant Joanna Lobo also notes these resonances. “In addition to the vindaloo,” she explains, “Goan sorpotel comes from their sarrabulho, a stew made with pork and other meats. Desserts like custard tarts, pastel de nata, and serradura (biscuit pudding) remain popular in Goa today.”
Two spirits were of particular interest to my food history research. The first was the popular ginjinha, a brandy‑based liqueur made by infusing sour cherries, sugar, and cinnamon. The second was Licor Beirão, a beloved local spirit flavored with more than a dozen herbs and spices, including cinnamon, pepper, mint, and cardamom. Beirão, as it is popularly known, was developed in the 19th century and was built on spices that Portugal obtained through its colonial networks, including those in India. One sip of this sweet, spicy liqueur wakes up every taste bud; it is reminiscent of a sweeter version of drakshasav, an Ayurvedic tonic that blends grapes with herbs and spices.
A Living Culinary Relationship
History shows that foodways are rarely con‑ fined to political borders. They are shaped by people, movement, and memory. Indian cuisine, too, has been shaped by countless powers, colonies, rulers, and trade networks. The best cuisines are those that continue to innovate and evolve.
And so, whether we champion the Lucknowi “poem” or the Hyderabadi “symphony,” we might pause to acknowledge the quiet Portuguese notes that make both these compositions possible. In every fiery chili, every tomato‑rich gravy, every cashewstudded korma, and every fragrant biryani, the shared history of India and Portugal continues to be cooked, remembered, and savored.
Nandita Godbole is an entrepreneur, cookbook author, and culinary speaker. Masaleydaar: Classic Indian Spice Blends is her most recent award-winning cookbook.
Bebinca: Goa’s Luscious Layered Legacy
Few desserts capture the layered history of Goa quite like bebinca. This iconic dessert is tra‑ ditionally made with egg yolks, coconut milk, sugar, and flour, baked one thin layer at a time until it forms its characteristic stack of caramelized strata. Each layer must be cooked separately before the next is added, making the process both labor‑intensive and time consuming. The result is a silky, custard‑like confection that is usually served warm, often with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
According to legend, Bebinca was created by Bebiana, a Catholic nun in Goa during the Portuguese colonial period. Bebiana experimented with ingredients commonly available in Goan convent kitchens— eggs from poultry farms and coconut milk from the surrounding groves—to create a dessert that could satisfy both local tastes and European preferences.
Over time, bebinca became synonymous with Goan celebrations, particularly Christmas and weddings. Variations have emerged as well: some versions incorporate nutmeg or cardamom, while modern adaptations add chocolate, coffee, or caramel flavors. Though traditionally baked over wood‑fired heat with dozens of layers, contemporary kitch‑ ens sometimes simplify the process.
Ironically, the dessert that symbolizes Goan culinary heritage has recently gained renewed popularity in Portugal, where pastry chefs have embraced it as part of the shared Indo‑Portuguese culinary legacy. In Lisbon and Porto, bebinca now appears in upscale restaurants and fusion bakeries—sometimes reimagined as a plated dessert or paired with Portuguese custards and wines.
That a Portuguese‑era convent creation became Goa’s most iconic dessert—and may now be enjoyed more widely in Portugal than in Goa—beautifully illustrates how culinary traditions can travel, evolve, and return home in unexpected ways.