Wherever you go in Portugal, you’ll see stylized rooster souvenirs. Usually made of pottery and painted in bright colors, this folk art rooster has become the symbol of Portugal, representing, honesty, justice, and good luck. But it has also come to represent a fast food chain specializing in spicy chicken. Let’s see if we can find out how all this came to be…

Legend of the Portuguese Rooster

Why Is This Rooster a Symbol of Portugal? It all stems from an old medieval legend about a roasted rooster saving a pious pilgrim…

Many years ago, in the town of Barcelos, in northern Portugal, a terrible crime was committed… Someone stole a silver candlestick. 

The quiet little town, which sat on the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela, was shocked! 

Crimes just didn’t happen there, and worse, the police didn’t have a single suspect.

A Pious Pilgrim and a Suspicious Sheriff

But as it happened, a pilgrim from Spain was passing through and staying at an inn in Barcelos at the time of the crime. The police had to arrest someone, and he was from out of town and therefore suspicious. They decided he must be their guy, so they went to his room and broke down the door. 

“What’s going on?” the pilgrim kept asking as the police rifled through his room.

“We know you stole that silver,” the sheriff said. “Where is it? Where did you hide it?”

But the pilgrim kept insisting that he had no idea what they were talking about. “I’m just a humble pilgrim making my way to Santiago de Compostela to pray at the tomb of St. James. I’m an honest and pious man. I didn’t steal anything.”

The police had to admit that he did look like a pilgrim. And they couldn’t find anything in his room except his pilgrim bag, one tattered shirt and a dusty, floppy hat with a scallop shell on it (the sign of St. James and pilgrims). But who else could have done it? The sheriff shrugged off his doubts and arrested the man.

A Hungry Judge

They led him over to the village court and the judge listened to the story. Like the sheriff, the judge wanted to get the town back to normal quickly and, in addition, he wanted to get home to his dinner. So the judge banged his gavel and declared the pilgrim guilty.

In those days, justice was swift and the punishment for theft was hanging. So, the sheriff started off toward the gallows with the pilgrim. But the pilgrim wasn’t going quietly. He kept insisting he was innocent, and he demanded to see the judge again. 

The sheriff didn’t want to be responsible for hanging an innocent man, and he saw no harm in letting him talk to the judge one more time. Besides, the judge’s house was on the way to the gallows, so they made a slight detour.

They found the judge already at the dinner table with some friends. They were laughing, drinking, and just about to enjoy a big chicken dinner. 

“Your honor,” the sheriff said, “This is the pilgrim who was just convicted of the theft. He’s still declaring his innocence and he insists on speaking to you one more time.”

“Alright,” the judge said addressing the pilgrim with an annoyed expression. “What do you have to say for yourself, man?”

The pilgrim again declared his innocence. He said he was a devout man making his way to Santiago de Compostela to pray at the tomb of St. James. 

The judge was eager to get back to his dinner and he just laughed at the pilgrim and said, “Of course, you are.” Then he waved his hand at the sheriff, “Take him away.” 

A Cocky Declaration

But the pilgrim wouldn’t go. He looked at the feast laid out on the table and said, “When I am hanged, that cockerel on your table will stand up and crow to declare my innocence.” 

At that time, people were quite superstitious, and everyone at the table looked sideways at the platter holding the plucked and roasted rooster. And it seemed that most of them suddenly became vegetarian.

The sheriff gave the pilgrim a shove and off they went toward the gallows. The hangman placed the noose around the pilgrim’s neck, and, sure enough, back at the judge’s house, that roasted rooster rose up on the platter and crowed. Everyone jumped up and ran out to the gallows.

There was the pilgrim with a noose around his neck, but the hangman was having a hard time getting the job done as the knot kept coming untied. 

“Stop!” the Judge cried. “This man is surely innocent! A cooked cockerel on my dinner table stood up and declared it.” 

A hush fell over the crowd as the hangman lifted the noose off the pilgrim’s neck. The poor man’s belongings had already been claimed by some in the crowd, and the man who had his pilgrim bag handed it back to him. Next the man who was already wearing his tattered shirt took it off and gingerly placed it in the bag. The little boy who was wearing his dusty hat with the scallop shell walked up to the pilgrim and handed it up to him.

The pilgrim nodded to everyone and went off on his way toward Santiago de Compostela. It was clear to everyone that he was surely a holy and innocent man.

The Cross of the Lord of the Rooster

But that wasn’t the last time that particular pilgrim visited Barcelos. Some time later he returned, and carved a stone cross to commemorate how he had been saved by the rooster – and St. James, of course. 

Even today, this seventeenth-century cross stands in Barcelos and proclaims the story. The top is a typical crucifix, but the base tells the story in images. The bottom figure is St. James, shown in his pilgrim clothes. Above him is a hanging man representing what almost happened to the pilgrim, and above him sits a crowing rooster. It’s known as the Cruzeiro do Senhor do Galo or “Cross of the Lord of the Rooster.” 

Because of this story, the rooster became a symbol of justice, honesty, and good luck in this region of Portugal.

Rooster Becomes Symbol of Portugal

At some point during the following centuries, the potters in the local area began making clay roosters and painting them with bright traditional colors and designs.

Then in the 1950s the stylized ceramic Barcelos rooster became a symbol for all of Portugal and began to be sold as a souvenir all over the country. If you are visiting Portugal today, you can’t escape this ubiquitous chicken.

What Does the Rooster Have to Do with Nando’s?

Many of us are familiar with the image of this Portuguese rooster because it’s the symbol of Nando’s. But what does a Portuguese rooster have to do with a fast-food chain which was started in South Africa by a South African and a Mozambican? 

Well, one link between the Barcelos rooster and the restaurant is that Nando’s specializes in chicken. But the real link is in the sauce.

In the early 1500s, Portugal had colonies on two different continents: Brazil in South America and Mozambique in Africa. It was in Brazil where they found the spicy bird’s eye chili pepper growing. At that time, spices were highly prized, and the Portuguese took the chili pepper back home as well as to Mozambique where it also migrated into neighboring South Africa.

It seems that it was in Africa that the peri-peri (or piri-piri) sauce was perfected and named. Piri-piri means pepper-pepper in Swahili. By the 20^th century, the sauce was a staple in Mozambique and South Africa. And it’s from these two nations that peri-peri sauce returned to Portugal to be paired with chicken.

A restaurant in Guia, in the south of Portugal claims to have been the first piri-piri chicken restaurant in Portugal. It originally served chargrilled chicken. Then in the 1970s there was a wave of immigration from Mozambique to Portugal, and the new immigrants began to add their spicy piri-piri sauce to Guia’s chargrilled chicken, and piri-piri chicken was born. 

From Portugal, the spicy bird made its way back to Mozambique and South Africa where, in 1987, the two founders of Nando’s licked their lips and decided that people the world over would like this saucy chicken. 

And what better symbol could they find for their restaurants than the Portuguese rooster that represents honesty, justice, and good luck?

What do you think? Let me know in the comments section below. And if you want to read more of my curious histories, subscribe to my blog (at the top or bottom of this page).

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