What is tempura? Shrimp tempura. Image via Pixabay. Cultural exchange is always exciting, but never more so than when it involves food. You might know that the Italian pasta tradition started when Marco Polo… borrowed the idea of noodles during his adventures in Asia. In the spirit of fairness, Japanese cooks on the island of Nagasaki would also create a new culinary tradition starting from European customs. A technique that Portuguese missionaries used to cope with fasting or abstinence days thus served as the cornerstone of tempura. What is tempura? The term itself refers to a type of cooking where different food items are lightly dipped in batter and deep-fried. But it can also be used to refer to the batter itself, and that’s what we’ll be doing going forward.