I WONDERED WHY THE RICH VARIETY OF PORTUGUESE PASTRIES HAD COLLAPSED INTO THE NEVER SUFFICIENTLY D*MNED PASTEL DE NATA:  Cultural malapropagation.

I mean my kids were in their teens and I thought it would be nice to take them to some of the Victorian-looking coffee shops where my grandfather took me for high tea. Because I thought — being in the hollow leg stage — they could safely enjoy all the strange pastries available. But of course it was full of English tourists which we don’t object to, and pasteis de nata, which I did, since we were in Porto and the never sufficiently d*mned pasteis de nata are a Lisbon specialty. And it collapsed everything onto itself like a baking black hole.
And now they’re doing something repulsive — glares at picture — involving some kind of frosting to the bolos de arroz that were my breakfast during my college years. Look, I realize that I no longer have a claim to the country and its culinary arts. But would it be possible for you zanies to leave me my memories.  I guess I’d best buy a book of conventual Portuguese baking. In case there are grandkids at some point. They won’t be taught the language (well, the kids — and my husband — never learned). They don’t much care for the history or the culture. And I don’t mind any of that. They’re Americans. But we have to stop the British destroying the cookery. We must appropriate it first!