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Cape Verde’s national dish, cachupa, is a complex stew that blends foods from four continents. It has many variations, including a simpler version called Cachupa Pobre, and is cooked slowly for rich flavors. It is also a popular breakfast dish.
At first glance, it might be easy to dismiss Cape Verde’s national dish, cachupa, as not much more than a simple rustic bean and meat stew. In fact, it blends foods from four continents into one pot, and the result is both a point of national pride and a dish so complex it can support a thousand variations. Cachupa is so important to Cape Verdeans that each island celebrates its own version and each cook spends a lifetime perfecting the perfect blend of flavors from a vibrant and ever-changing palette.
This West African nation, with islands scattered in the Atlantic, was a frequent port for slave traders and earlier, in the 15th century, for Portuguese explorers. Cape Verdeans were introduced to European beef, pork, and chicken, as well as New World beans, squash, and corn, long before these foods became familiar elsewhere. The Portuguese used the islands to grow New World vegetables side by side with mangoes, bananas and papayas from Asia. To these exotic flavours, the Cape Verdean chefs added seafood, vegetables and fruit and the result was magical.
The simplest version is called Cachupa Pobre, a sort of poor man’s stew that features fewer, more commonly available ingredients. This dish is easier to prepare as well as less expensive, so it is eaten with a much greater frequency. Dried beans, salt pork, and hominy, or samp, are the staples, though few cooks are likely to leave that alone. Root and other vegetables, marinated tuna or, if possible, pork, and different kinds of beans can elevate even the simplest Cachupa Pobre to a dish fit for a king.
While the ingredients in this version may be simple, the dish’s complex flavors are the result of being cooked very slowly over a constant heat. For important occasions, the cachupa can climb the economic and culinary ladder to the top, where it is renamed Cachupa Rica, or cachupa of the rich. This version includes an array of marinated meats and sausages and a wider range of vegetables in addition to the basic items.
Cachupa is not only a very frequent dish in Cape Verde but also turns into a memorable breakfast dish. Frying leftovers turns the dish into Cachupa Refogada, and adding fried or scrambled eggs, as well as locally made linguica or sausage, makes for a filling morning meal.
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