HISTORY MEME || [3/3] Inventions » The Pastel de Nata

Pastel de nata is a Portuguese egg tart pastry that was created before the 18th century by Catholic monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon. 

At the time, convents and monasteries used large quantities of egg-whites for starching of clothes and it was very common for monasteries and convents to use the leftover egg yolks to make cakes and pastries, resulting in the proliferation of sweet pastry recipes throughout the country.  After the religious orders were extinguished and in the face of the impending closing of many of the convents and monasteries in the aftermath of Liberal Revolution of 1820, the monks started selling pastéis de nata at a nearby sugar refinery to secure some revenue. But in 1834 the monastery was closed and the recipe was sold to the sugar refinery, whose owners in 1837 opened the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém. Their descendents own the business to this day.

Since 1837, locals and visitors to Lisbon have visited the bakery to purchase fresh from the oven, sprinkled with cinnamon and/or powdered sugar. Due to the pastéis’ popularity, people usually have to wait in long lines at thetake-away counters or in waiting lines for the sit-down service.