Does ‘pork porridge’ originate from China, Spain or Portugal?

In Spain and Portugal, churros – lengthy truffles, typically twisted into pigtails after which deep-fried and dipped in chocolate. In China, youtiao (could be interpreted as .) stir-fry, spring rolls/porridge porridge) There can also be an identical means of processing, normally to eat with porridge or dip with soy milk. The similarity of those two dishes makes specialists ask: Are they associated? Which comes first, which comes after?

Spring roll porridge can also be a well-recognized snack or aspect dish in Vietnam. Usually, quart is served with some type of porridge or pho, vermicelli or eaten with out.

Where do churros just like porridge spring rolls come from?

It is recommended that churros originated in China, via the Portuguese who first arrived there within the 1500s.

Many different culinary students object to this. According to them, recipes within the cookbooks of Andalusia (autonomous neighborhood of Spain) comprise recipe notes for churros. This recipe existed earlier than the primary contact between the Portuguese and the Chinese, sometimes in the course of the founding of Macau (Macau) in 1557.

Other students consider that the Chinese youtiao and the churros are literally distant cousins, with a potential frequent ancestor being Zulabiya truffles from Islam.

Spanish chef Jose Antonio Navarro Cortes, who has labored for a few years in Hong Kong at La Paloma restaurant and now lives in Mula, in Spain’s Murcia area, believes the cake churros influenced by China.

“The Portuguese may have brought this recipe to Spain, and over the centuries we have found our own way to make churros. In some parts of Mexico, they claim to be the creators of this cake. But we have mastered a recipe that originated in China before that.

While living in Hong Kong, I saw ‘churros’ in China. It’s basically the same as our churros, just with an older recipe.”

Navarro, who now works at Iberica, a UK-based restaurant, says they’ve changed the shape of the original “pork porridge” to make it look better, and added sugar and chocolate to upgrade something that’s capital. It is the food of the poor to become a famous confectionery around the world.

Miranda Brown, professor of Chinese studies in the department of Asian languages ​​and cultures at the University of Michigan, USA, disagrees with the idea that churros came from China: “I have yet to see a European of the century. XVI or XVII left a written statement that the churros came from another country…”.

In fact, similar-looking donuts are still consumed throughout North Africa, Brown says, and there is a similar variant in Algeria called banana zlabia (or zlabiat) – a hot dough fried, then soaked in syrup.

Maria Paz Moreno, professor of Spanish language and culture at the University of Cincinnati (USA), author of many cookbooks about the culinary traditions of Spain, said in old cookbooks. of spain, Churro’s ancestor was named zulâbiyya.

“There is a recipe for dough from flour and water, fried in oil and then honeyed in an anonymous manuscript from Al-Andalus (a Muslim-ruled region of the Iberian peninsula). So churros. may be of Arab heritage, as there are similar desserts that still exist in Iran and Syria.

“The Moors have ruled parts of present-day Spain, Portugal and southern France since the 8th century, so it’s likely that churros were a common heritage,” added Moreno.

Thanks to the Silk Road, zulâbiyya began to spread and there were many versions in the countries of Persia and India.

Gene Anderson, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a food and nutrition expert who has written extensively on China, argues that fried foods like churros or youtiao can be a “creative” spontaneous”, because only two basic ingredients, found in almost every country at that time, flour and oil were enough to create a donut.

Anderson added on the “Intermediate Theory” that it is possible that the two donuts above were perfected by both the Portuguese and the Chinese. He hypothesized that the Portuguese were influenced by and absorbed Chinese frying techniques; At the same time, they also “share” some tips for making churros with the Chinese to perfect their dishes.

A common ancestor for “pork porridge versions”?

In his extensive study of cuisine, Sean Chen, author of Recipes from the Garden of Contentment, the first bilingual (Chinese and English) edition of the Qing dynasty food book Suiyuan Shidan (1792) ), hunted down old Chinese recipes to prove donuts from Islam were a common ancestor. This dish first appeared in China two centuries before Spain, thanks to Muslim traders.

“In the Qimin Yaoshu, a 6th-century agricultural text, describes a thin, crispy ring-shaped pastry, fried in tallow or butter and coated with honey or jujube honey,” Chen said.

In addition, Chen found another recipe from the 1200s for “short, pressed, sugary pastries. This one is made from the same mixture of starches from beans and flour, and has a texture similar to churros.” This recipe says that after frying the pastries, they need to be scooped out with a perforated spoon, and in While nonetheless scorching, sprinkle white granulated sugar over the cake.

According to Chen, Islamic fried dough truffles just like jalebi had been launched to China by the Uygurs and Turks of Central Asia fairly early and had been fairly in style there lengthy earlier than the Iberians launched churros.

Chen is open to the idea of “osmosis”, linking youtiao and churros collectively. Understandably, they complement one another.

“I can’t say that the Portuguese were unknowingly influenced or inspired by the frying technique, the shape of the dough in China,” he stated. But these two truffles are cousins, probably a cross between culinary creations.”

Chen said that the cross-influence in cuisine shows the movement and interference of people, goods and ideas between the Middle East, Central Asia and East Asia at that time. This discovery is more than a story about food copyright.

Translation: Did churros, beloved in Spain and Portugal, come from China, the place fried dough sticks have been eaten for hundreds of years?