Inspired by Arab alchemists centuries ago, the cataplana became a signature dish which can be found throughout the Algavian coastal eateries. The cataplana is a handmade, airtight copper vessel, which resembles a football cut in half and hinged on one side, and is also the name of the dish created within it. It appears the cataplana is the ancestor of the pressure cooker. Part of the reason the cataplana is found only in the Algarve is probably that until quite recently communications with the rest of the country were poor. Before the proclamation of the republic in 1910, the Algarve was considered so remote that it was treated as a separate kingdom under the Portuguese crown.
The Algarve was also ruled by the Moors for more than 600 years until they were expelled in 1249. The Moorish influence is still discernible today in the architecture of the region, in the traditional dress of many rural women who are shrouded in black veils against the sun, and even in the reputation its people enjoy of being nominal Christians, much given to superstition.
But during the long period of Moorish rule, the Algarve was a noted intellectual center, known especially for alchemy and liberal Islamic thought. In the cities of Faro and Silves, 12th century Islamic scholars, called Sufi masters, investigated the similarities between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and tried to define the common threads linking them.
Another possible clue to the cataplana's origins is that to this day the two kinds of clams most frequently used are known by local people as cristaos e judeus, Christians and Jews: the former are larger and found in sand washed by the sea while the latter, smaller, more plentiful variety comes from the muddy estuaries of rivers.
There is speculation that the cataplana may have been inspired by the experiments of the medieval Arab alchemists who heated base metals in a retort, trying in vain to turn them into gold. Although the word cataplana has no evident meaning in Portuguese, some scholars think it could be derived from an old word meaning forge.
