Feijoada Santomense

the island feijoada, beans cooked with palm oil and greens instead of Portuguese pork and olive oil

Origin: São Tomé & Príncipe

From the journey of Oil Palm.

Every Lusophone country has a feijoada and no two of them are the same dish. The Portuguese original is a bean and pork stew cooked in olive oil; the Brazilian is black beans and salted pork, the national dish; the Santomean version replaces the olive oil with red palm oil and the pork with whatever the island has, which historically meant smoked fish, and adds leaves and vegetables in quantity. What survives from Portugal is the word and the idea of a bean pot. Everything else is African. This is what creolisation looks like at the level of a single dish, and São Tomé is where the process began for the Atlantic world. The islands were empty when the Portuguese arrived in the 1470s, they became the first sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans, and the food that emerged had no prior local tradition to negotiate with. It was assembled from what the settlers brought and what the enslaved population knew, in roughly equal measure, and the balance shows in the pot. It is eaten with rice, with angu, or with boiled breadfruit, and it is a household dish rather than a restaurant one.

Ingredients

500 g dried red kidney or butter beans, soaked overnight
120 ml red palm oil
250 g smoked fish, flaked, or 300g smoked pork (omit both for a vegan version)
2 onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, crushed
4 tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp tomato purée
300 g pumpkin or sweet potato, in chunks
200 g spinach, chard, or sweet potato leaves, torn
2 malagueta chillies, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 lime, juiced
2 tsp salt, or to taste
1.2 litres water

Method

Drain the beans, cover with the fresh water, add the bay leaves, and boil hard for ten minutes, then simmer for forty-five minutes to an hour until tender. Do not salt until soft. Keep the cooking liquid.
Warm the palm oil gently in a large heavy pot until it liquefies and brightens. Do not allow it to smoke.
Soften the onions and garlic in the oil, about eight minutes, then add the tomato purée and cook it out for three minutes.
Add the chopped tomatoes and chillies and cook down for ten minutes until thick and the oil separates.
Add the smoked fish or pork and cook for five minutes.
Tip in the beans with enough of their liquid to come just level with them. Simmer for twenty minutes.
Add the pumpkin and cook for fifteen minutes more, until soft and beginning to break down and thicken the pot.
Fold in the greens and cook for a final five minutes. Finish with the lime juice and taste for salt.
Serve with rice, angu, or boiled breadfruit.

Notes

Palm oil quantity is what makes this a Santomean feijoada rather than a generic bean stew, so do not reduce it far: 120ml for six is about right and the finished pot should be visibly orange. Warm the oil rather than heating it hard. The vegan version, with the smoked protein dropped and a little extra chilli and lime, is genuinely good and is eaten on the islands during Lent.

The Gastrographer

Name: Feijoada Santomense
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: São Tomé & Príncipe
Ingredients: 500 g dried red kidney or butter beans, soaked overnight; 120 ml red palm oil; 250 g smoked fish, flaked, or 300g smoked pork (omit both for a vegan version); 2 onions, chopped; 6 garlic cloves, crushed; 4 tomatoes, chopped; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 300 g pumpkin or sweet potato, in chunks; 200 g spinach, chard, or sweet potato leaves, torn; 2 malagueta chillies, chopped; 2 bay leaves; 1 lime, juiced; 2 tsp salt, or to taste; 1.2 litres water

Mapping Culinary History

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control