My dad and I once concocted a scheme to be the first Portagee restaurateurs in Hawaii. We thought, every other ethnicity has dozens of their own restaurants (the Korean have their BBQs, the Vietnamese their pho shops), hell, even ethnicities that don’t represent Hawaii’s population have some kind of eatery (taco shops, pasta by the pound), why not the Portuguese?

We both agreed this was genius. “Okay, so what else do Portuguese eat besides bean soup, sausage and malasadas?” I asked him. He sat there quietly for a second before mumbling a few more things that sounded like bean soup. Then he admitted, “I don’t know.” 

Since I’m a sixth generation American (or Hawaii local), my family isn’t heavily invested in the motherland. No one speaks a word of Portuguese and we all just assume that Portugal is a very clean and orderly place dotted with black heads of hair and eyes drowning in dark circles because that’s what my grandmother embodied.

As I get older however, I’m slightly more interested in learning about my roots. And the best way I can think of to dive into a culture is to literally ingest it. 

So the other night, my boyfriend’s family (who is neither Portuguese, nor my own family) took me to eat at my first Portuguese restaurant. It was in Providence, a place where apparently enough Portagees have their shit together to pull off a handful of such eateries. 

While I didn’t dissect the dishes for my dad’s and my half-brained venture, I did feel a connection to my heritage. For example, I must be a traditional Portagee because: 

1. The wine list was extensive and had several Portuguese-made selections, therefore establishing that my drinking is a genetic disposition, embraced by a culture of boozy grape growers.

2. They have also their own type of fries and fried cubed polenta like things, proving that craving salty handheld goodness is also a genetic tick. 

3. The waiter was both overly trying to please (“You sure you like it? Is it what you thought it would be?”) and defensive (“I told you the cod had bones”), a demeanor typically used in my own daily interactions with others.

Though I still know very little about Portuguese cuisine, I wouldn’t rule out that my father and I could still plausibly open a business one day. Also embedded in my being via my stubborn Portagee father: the knack for getting out and doing things and then learning how to do those things after the fact, usually when we’re already deep shit in the middle of it all. Some may say that’s Portagee stupidity, I’d prefer to call it fearlessness. 

(Above: Not Portuguese sausage. Octopus drenched in wine.)