In 1834, Portugal shut down every monastery in the country. The monks of Jerónimos, in Belém, were thrown out with almost nothing, and one secret recipe walked out the door with them.

Three years later, a tiny shop next to a sugar refinery started selling those pastries. Since then, Portugal has lost its king to an assassination, turned into a republic, lived through a 41-year dictatorship, a revolution with carnations in rifle barrels, a bankruptcy and a flood of tourists that is reshaping Lisbon.

The shop is still there. Same address, same family, same recipe, known today by only a handful of people.

This is the story of how a pastry survived everything that happened around it, and what it tells us about the country that made it.

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#Portugal #Lisbon #PastelDeNata #History #Belém