SC - fried fish and other foods

[Philip W. Troy]

Ron Martino Jr wrote:

>         Batter coated deep frying, agemono (tempura, etc.), was introduced to
> Nippon by Europeans in the 16th century, and the Japanese took the idea
> and made it their own, as they do with many things. I don't know any
> details, though, such as what the Portuguese were frying, what was used
> for the batter, or what oils were used. 

There are various Iberian versions of the shrimp fritter that still
exist today, made from little brown shrimp too small to be individually
peeled and deveined. Kind of like whitebait pancake in Britain. The fish
being too small to individually batter and fry, you just mix them into a
batter and fry it as a cake. That may well be what  the Portuguese
version of Tempura would have looked like. By the way, the word
"tempura" seems to be a variant on a Latin term, and not a Japanese word
at all. It may well be a corruption of "tempora" as referring to the
time of Lent, or possibly that it is fried for a certain time, and no
more. I don't have the information in front of me or I would tell you
more.

Adamantius