Barbaric tastes: The pickled Portuguese dish that won over Japan
When Portuguese merchants and missionaries arrived in the southern port of Nagasaki in the late 16th century, they brought with them escabeche — a fried and pickled seafood delicacy popular in their homeland.
Over time, Japanese locals adapted the dish to their own tastes and began referring to it as nanban-zuke, or “marinated in the style of the southern barbarians.” When European sailors first began appearing on Japan’s shores, they almost always approached from the south after following common sea routes from India, Southeast Asia and coastal China — earning the name nanban (literally “southern barbarians”).
Why did this particular Portuguese dish find an appreciative audience in Japan? While local epicureans took quickly to sweet dishes brought by the same sailors (for example, castella sponge cakes and konpeitō [hard sugar candies]), the easy acceptance of nanban-zuke might be best explained by an extant love for vinegar, an ingredient that had been commonplace in Japan since at least the Nara Period (710-94). By the 16th century, pickling fish in vinegar was a common sight, so the added step of deep-frying in oil may have come across as nothing more than a “barbaric” twist on an old recipe.
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