History
Custard tarts were introduced in Hong Kong in the 1940s by cha chaan tengs. They were then introduced in western cafes and bakeries to compete with dim sum restaurants, particularly for yum cha. During the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, Lu Yu Teahouse took the lead with the mini-egg tart. Ironically, mini egg tarts are now a common dim sum dish and are richer than those served in bakeries.
One theory suggests Hong Kong egg tarts are an adaptation of English custard tarts. Guangdong had more frequent contact with the West, in particular Britain, than the rest of China. As a former British colony, Hong Kong adopted some British cuisine. Another theory suggests that egg tarts evolved from the very similar Portuguese egg tart pastries, known as pastel de nata, traveling to Hong Kong via the Portuguese colony of Macau.
Read more about this topic: Egg Tart
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)