Ask anyone to name a Japanese dish and tempura is in the first five answers. Light, lace-crisp batter, vegetables and prawns fried so delicately they barely feel fried at all. It’s served in centuries-old Tokyo restaurants where chefs train for a decade before they’re allowed near the fryer.
And it isn’t originally Japanese.
Tempura arrived in Japan on Portuguese ships in the mid-1500s, carried by traders and missionaries from a small country on the opposite edge of the world — mine. The history of tempura is really the story of a 100-year encounter between Portugal and Japan that changed how Japan eats, speaks, and sees the world. This is that story.
The Day Portugal Landed in Japan
In 1543, a Chinese junk carrying Portuguese traders was blown off course in a storm and landed on Tanegashima, a small island south of Kyushu. They were the first Europeans ever to set foot in Japan.
The timing mattered. Portugal was at the height of its Age of Discovery, running trade routes from Lisbon around Africa to India, Malacca, and Macau. Japan was fragmented by civil war, and its regional lords — the daimyō — were very interested in two things the Portuguese carried: firearms and access to Chinese silk.
Within a few years, Portuguese ships were arriving regularly. In 1549, the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima and began Japan’s first Christian missions. By 1571, the sleepy fishing village of Nagasaki had been opened as the main Portuguese trading port — the beginning of its transformation into Japan’s window to the outside world.
The Japanese called these newcomers nanban — “southern barbarians” — because their ships arrived from the south. The century that followed, roughly 1543 to 1639, is known as the Nanban trade period. It’s one of the most fascinating cultural exchanges in food history, and tempura is its most famous child.
Fried Food and Fasting Days
So how does a fried dish travel from Lisbon to Nagasaki?
Through the church calendar, of all things.
Portuguese Catholics observed the Quatro Têmporas — the Ember Days — quarterly periods of fasting and abstinence when eating meat was forbidden. In Latin, quatuor anni tempora: “the four seasons of the year.” On these days, Portuguese cooks turned to fish and vegetables, often dipped in a simple flour batter and fried.
Portugal still eats this way. We have a dish called peixinhos da horta — literally “little fish of the garden” — green beans dipped in batter and fried until golden. The name is a wink: they look like little fried fish, but they came from the vegetable patch. It’s a humble, everyday dish you’ll find in Portuguese homes and tascas to this day, and it’s widely considered the direct ancestor of tempura.
When Portuguese missionaries and traders settled in Kyushu, they kept cooking this way. The Japanese watched, tasted — and adopted it.
Most food historians trace the word tempura itself to those fasting days: from the Latin tempora (the Ember Days) or the Portuguese têmpero (seasoning) and temperar (to season). Either way, the etymology is Portuguese. A dish born from Catholic fasting rules became one of Japan’s national foods.
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How Japan Made Tempura Its Own
Here’s the part I find most beautiful: Japan didn’t just copy the dish. It refined it into something new.
Portuguese fritter batter is dense and hearty — flour, water, sometimes egg, seasoned, mixed until smooth. It’s peasant food, designed to be filling. Japanese cooks took the concept and steadily stripped it back:
- The batter got lighter. Ice-cold water, soft flour, egg — and crucially, mixed as little as possible. Lumps are welcome. Overmixing develops gluten, and gluten makes batter heavy. The Japanese version is deliberately imperfect, and that’s what creates the shattering, lacy crust.
- The seasoning moved out of the batter. Portuguese cooks season the batter itself. Japanese cooks left the batter almost neutral and moved the flavour to the table: tentsuyu dipping sauce (dashi, soy, mirin) with grated daikon, or simply fine salt — sometimes matcha salt or yuzu salt.
- The frying became a craft. Oil temperature, ingredient by ingredient. Sesame oil blends in the Edo tradition. Frying prawns so the tail fans out. In high-end tempura-ya, the chef fries one piece at a time and places it in front of you at the exact second it peaks.
This is a pattern you see across Japanese food culture: absorb an outside idea, then refine it relentlessly until it becomes distinctly Japanese. Tempura may be the single best example of it.
The shogun who (maybe) died for tempura
Japanese food lore says Tokugawa Ieyasu — the unifier of Japan and founder of the Tokugawa shogunate — died in 1616 after a meal of sea bream tempura fried in sesame oil. Modern historians mostly blame stomach cancer rather than the fried fish, but the legend stuck, and it tells you something: within 70 years of the Portuguese arriving, tempura had reached the most powerful table in Japan.
From Street Stalls to High Cuisine
Tempura’s golden age came in the Edo period (1603–1868), and it didn’t start in fancy restaurants. It started as street food.
Edo (now Tokyo) was a city of labourers, and open-air yatai stalls sold skewers of freshly fried tempura — often made with fish and shellfish pulled from Edo Bay that same morning — to workers who ate standing up. Fast, cheap, hot, delicious. Fire regulations even pushed frying outdoors: after Edo’s devastating fires, cooking with large amounts of oil indoors was restricted, which accidentally made tempura the city’s iconic street snack.
Only later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, did tempura climb the social ladder — moving indoors, becoming a specialist craft with dedicated restaurants, and eventually a fixture of high-end Japanese dining. A dish that began as Portuguese fasting food, became Edo street food, and ended up in Michelin-starred counters.
Beyond Tempura: Portugal’s Other Gifts to Japan
Tempura is the headline, but the Nanban century left Japan with far more:
Castella cake (kasutera). A golden sponge cake from pão de Castela — “bread of Castile” — brought by the Portuguese to Nagasaki, where it became the city’s signature sweet. Every gift shop in Nagasaki sells it to this day. I’ve written the full story of Castella separately, because it deserves one. (→ link the Castella article here once published)
Konpeitō. Those tiny, star-shaped sugar candies you see in Japanese sweet shops and Studio Ghibli films? From the Portuguese confeito. Portuguese missionaries famously presented konpeitō to the warlord Oda Nobunaga.
A surprising amount of vocabulary. Japanese still carries Portuguese words from this era: pan (bread, from pão), tabako (tobacco), kappa (raincoat, from capa), botan (button, from botão), koppu (cup, from copo), birōdo (velvet, from veludo). When a Japanese person asks for pan at a bakery, they’re speaking 16th-century Portuguese.
Kabocha squash. The beloved Japanese pumpkin takes its name from Cambodia — because Portuguese traders introduced it to Japan via their Southeast Asian routes.
It ended abruptly. In the 1630s, the Tokugawa shogunate — alarmed by Christianity’s spread — closed the country. The Portuguese were expelled in 1639, and Japan entered over two centuries of sakoku, near-total isolation. The people left. The food stayed.
Nagasaki has never forgotten the connection. The city still celebrates its Portuguese heritage, and if you ever visit, you’ll find it baked into the architecture, the festivals — and the Castella.
Tasting the Connection: Tempura vs Peixinhos da Horta
Put the two dishes side by side and the family resemblance is obvious — and so is 500 years of divergence.
| Peixinhos da horta (Portugal) | Tempura (Japan) | |
|---|---|---|
| Batter | Flour, water, egg — smooth, seasoned, denser | Soft flour, ice water, egg — barely mixed, lumpy, unseasoned |
| Texture | Golden, substantial, fritter-like | Pale, lacy, shatteringly light |
| Classic ingredient | Green beans | Prawns, sweet potato, shiso, kabocha, seasonal fish |
| Seasoning | In the batter; eaten as-is | At the table: tentsuyu + daikon, or salt |
| Role | Home cooking, tascas, petiscos | Street food origins → everything from teishoku to haute cuisine |
Neither is “better.” One is comfort; the other is craft. But they are unmistakably parent and child.
Make It at Home (UK Kitchen Notes)
You don’t need a specialist kitchen to cook either dish in the UK — you need about five ingredients and one rule: don’t overmix the batter.
For proper tempura you’ll want soft plain flour (or Japanese tempura flour, which takes the guesswork out), ice-cold sparkling water, a neutral oil (add a splash of toasted sesame for the Edo-style aroma), and the tentsuyu basics — dashi, soy sauce, and mirin. All of it is available in the UK online or in larger supermarkets; I keep a full breakdown of what to buy and where in my Japanese pantry guide.
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And if you want to taste where it all began, make peixinhos da horta first — green beans, a simple batter, five minutes of frying. Cook them the same evening as tempura and you can taste 500 years of history in one meal.
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FAQ
Is tempura originally Portuguese or Japanese?
The technique and the word arrived with Portuguese traders and missionaries in the mid-1500s, rooted in Catholic fasting-day fritters like peixinhos da horta. The dish as the world knows it today — the featherlight batter, the dipping sauce, the frying craft — is entirely a Japanese refinement. It’s fair to call it a Portuguese seed grown into a Japanese tree.
What does the word “tempura” mean?
Most historians trace it to the Latin tempora, from the Quatro Têmporas (Ember Days) — the Catholic fasting periods when the Portuguese ate battered fish and vegetables instead of meat. A related theory points to the Portuguese têmpero (seasoning). Either way, the root is Portuguese.
What is the Portuguese dish that inspired tempura?
Peixinhos da horta — “little fish of the garden” — battered, fried green beans still eaten across Portugal today. It’s widely regarded as tempura’s direct ancestor.
When did the Portuguese arrive in Japan?
In 1543, at Tanegashima — the first Europeans to reach Japan. The Nanban trade period lasted until the Portuguese were expelled in 1639, when Japan closed itself off for over two centuries.
What else did Portugal give Japan?
Castella cake (kasutera), konpeitō sweets, kabocha squash, and dozens of loanwords still used daily in Japanese — including pan, the word for bread.
Enjoyed this? The Portugal–Japan food story runs far deeper than tempura. Start with the tale of Castella cake — or if you’re new here, start here.