Many South Africans associate Portuguese food with prego rolls and searing piri-piri marinades. The hotter the better, seems to be the motto. Yet traditional dishes from Portugal and Madeira incorporate wine, garlic and subtle spices. The predilection for chilli-derived heat is an African leaning from nearby Mozambique and Angola.

Portuguese-born cookbook author Mimi Jardim immigrated to South Africa in 1957. With a husband from Madeira, she comments with authority on both cuisines. She makes reference to a "chilli revolution" over time which saw piri-piri being used to heat up traditional dishes, as today many so-called 'Portuguese' menu items would be unrecognisable in the mother country.

Traditional dishes

Traditional Portuguese dishes are flavoured with cinnamon, paprika, bay leaves and nutmeg, while Madeiran dishes favour cumin or cloves and occasional heat. Piri-piri is from the bird's eye chilli used in Mozambique and from the lesser-used gidungo chilli of Angola.

The Portuguese embassy in Pretoria doesn't have official records, but estimates put first- and second-generation immigrants from Portugal and Madeira at 300 000 to 350 000 people. Fifteen years ago figures were higher.

The independence of former Portuguese colonies Angola and Mozambique in the mid-1970s swelled Portuguese numbers in South Africa. With travel opening up between South Africa and Mozambique, and immigrants returning to Portugal, chilli heat has travelled too.

"Portuguese restaurants in South Africa used to offer food from 'home' for the Portuguese communities such as rabbit, tripe and trotters or codfish bacalhau.

"Madeiran dishes included goat stews or fried and roast pork," continues Jardim.

"But these communities aren't great restaurant-goers so the restaurant owners changed the menus to include popular prawns and chicken piri-piri from Mozambique. Or beef espetada from Madeira. So-called Portuguese restaurants nowadays all have the same menus, running some of those dishes as specials."

'Afro-Lusitanian'?

Anthropologist and chef Anna Trapido uses the term 'Afro-Lusitanian' to describe this fusion of African, Asian and Portuguese food genres in Africa's former Portuguese colonies.

Many Gauteng restaurants run by people calling themselves Portuguese have these unique origins.

"South Africans always say they love Portuguese food. But they are often referring to the spicier Afro-Lusitanian dishes from their childhood holidays in Lorenço Marques (now Maputo)," Trapido points out.

"Many local restaurants are run by people with origins in Angola and Mozambique. A key indicator that you are in an Afro-Lusitanian rather than classic Portuguese restaurant would be seeing the term 'frango a cafreal' on the menu.

"'Cafreal' is a pejorative term for black Africans, yet is used in an uninhibited manner. Perhaps not very PC, but it reflects an acknowledgement that mohlo de piri-piri (piri-piri sauce) is food created in Africa by Africans."

"Frango a cafreal" refers to piri-piri chicken. Restaurateur Toni Silva left Mozambique and worked in Gauteng before setting up of Toni's on Kloof in Cape Town. He says 'cafreal' translates as local, and that ex-Mozambicans in Johannesburg will relate to the term, but immigrants from Portugal won't.

Local spices, local food?

Successful Nando's flame-grilled chicken with its faux-Portuguese branding has also fanned the debate as to what constitutes authentic Portuguese. Lovers of this "famous peri-peri chicken" (sic) at outlets in Australia and UK would be forgiven for thinking the flavours originated in Portugal.

Yet South African Robbie Brozin and Portuguese Fernando Duarte created the chicken franchise in 1987 in South Africa.

"When the Portuguese came into Africa, they used the local spices," says Duarte of African piri-piri. "So Nando's is very much a fusion of Portuguese flame-grilled chicken with local African spices. We say it's Afro-Portuguese."

Chicken piri-piri is bona fide, but chicken trinchado was a Nando's "innovation". Duarte explains: "It might not exist in Portugal, but why can't there be trinchado sauce with chicken? We're a chicken restaurant."

The larger the pockets of Portuguese immigrant communities, the greater the likelihood of authentic 'specials' in restaurants. But times are changing.

"Johannesburg offers more traditional recipes in the southern suburbs especially, although those restaurants are dying along the way. Sadly, some restaurants are going very commercial and becoming like pizza places," commented one restaurateur.

It wrong to change the recipe?

So is it wrong to adapt local dishes if flavours are improved? Lydia Nobrega at Chapmans Peak Hotel in Cape Town is unapologetic that her Madeiran father's trinchado deviates from traditional recipes — additional spicing enhances their sauce. A Mozambiquean employee modified their piri-piri chicken and prawn recipes too.

After 12 years, Adega do Monge in Johannesburg relies on non-Portuguese clientele for the bulk of business, yet old-style cooking keeps immigrant regulars returning too. Portuguese owner Jorge Cruz offers a traditional herby green sauce and embraces African piri-piri. So instead of suggesting African-Portuguese fusion isn't authentic from a traditionalist's perspective, perhaps it's time that we recognise and embrace it as different.

Portuguese menu options

Portuguese food authority Mimi Jardim says Portugal's national dish of bacalhau is an acquired taste, made from salted codfish. Chicken livers or giblets could be fried with onion and spices. In South Africa, chilli is added.

Caldo verde is a traditional thin kale (form of cabbage) and sausage soup. Espetada of beef cubes traditionally seasoned with salt and bay leaves, on a skewer with garlic butter, originated in Madeira.

In Portuguese cookbooks trinchado sauce doesn't exist but prego trinchado refers to prego (beef) sliced in cubes and fried in garlic, bay leaf, butter and wine.

Local menus modify with piri-piri, tomato paste or Worcester sauce, and unconventionally replace beef trinchado with chicken. In Portugual prego trinchado is served in a roll; bifana of pork in a roll can be ordered too. A saddled steak or steak on horseback in Portugal is any steak with a fried egg on top, locally called Portuguese steak.

Goat, rabbit or pork stews and roasts are typical in Portugal and Madeira. A Portuguese favourite is feijoada, slow-cooked beans with pork trotters or belly, fatty meat and distinctively flavoured enchidos (sausages).

Grilled piri-piri chicken is of Mozambiquean origin, as are prawns piri-piri. Traditional Portuguese seafood wouldn't include chilli. Desserts are typically rich and made with eggs.

Crème caramel is similar to its authentic variation called pudim 365 (it's a daily tradition) or pudim flan. Rice pudding or pastéis de nata miniature custard tarts also feature.

What to drink with Portuguese?

Vinho Verde is a Portuguese wine from the Minho region in the far north of the country. The name literally means "green wine", referring to its youthful freshness rather than its colour.

Light in alcohol, fresh thanks to high natural acidity and with a delicate pettilance, these wines are not overly complex and well suited to piri-piri flavoured dishes.

Meanwhile South Africans have adopted the Catembes — widely sipped in Angola and Mozambique — which mixes inexpensive red wine with Coke.

Watch this space for Portuguese restaurants featured next week: