Hahaha, i actually laughed when he showed the churros card and the location said "Portugal OR Spain"
chubigans Its clear you read the wikipedia article (that brings theories as sources from the huffington post from all places), but its really Spain. Hey at least you didnt put Mexico, thats were the majority of people from the USA think they are from lol
While one of the theories says it was brought by the portuguese from China, what they brought, if they did, was "
you taio" something similar, but with a totally different shape and made with salt and not sugar.
Then theres the theory that it was created by spanish shepards but using a arab receipt in 1800 (which would make a lot of sense becuase we got a ton of arab culture the iberian peninsule was conquered by them for 500 years and a lot of food already comes from them). Both of these theories come originally from an english speaking article, which is not really the best source (and the problem seems that all things in the interent are using this article as the source).
So those are 2 theories, but what we know as fact is that the word churro was coined in the Spanish Royal Academy of Language in 1884, as a synonim of "cohombro" that was another way of saying cucumber in spanish, and here comes the interesting thing, in the dictionary it was also added «Frying pan fruit of the same dough as the "buñuelos" and which, after fried, is cut into pieces that resemble a cucumber» or what the the makers at the time more commonly called "syringe buñuelos". By the end of the XIX Century, the cohombro started to get thinner, giving it the traditional size spanish churros have, and people that attended Madrid's Buñolerías just starting using the word churro to call this fritter different from the "buñuelo".
BTW this are buñuelos and can be made inside of different ingredients like pumpkins (the valencian version) or sweet potato.
Churros became so popular during the 1900 that the name of the place were they were made, Buñolerías, changed to Churrerías, and the word cohombro fell in disuse and changed to "porras" (churro's bigger, thicker and softer borther, or what people in the US usually call churro).
So the actual word Churro is officialy coined in 1884, but we can find in actual written cooking books that before they were called cohombros and churros, "syringe buñuelos" already existed in a Royal Kitchen book called "Arte de Cozina" from 1611, and theres even similar recepeits from before the portuguese went to China in 1513. A castiallian manuscrit from the XV century called "Vergel de Señores" already talks about a similar elaboration and use of ingredients and calls it "fried fruit", and even before that an anonym manuscrit from the "andalusí" time period (XIII century) that while it doesnt talk of the shape and adds honey, it does use a similar type of elaboration and ingredients for a food called zulâbiyya (that comes from the arab kitchen).
So yeah, thats why, no matter the theories, the only fact is that the name of churro didnt appear until around the 1850 in Spain (it takes some time until the royal academy coins a word in the dictionary) and that the food could be traced even to the XIII or XV centuries. Would be cool if you guys changed it, but if not, is not that serious, but I always find it cool to learn more about food and culture in this type on more open media and stop misinformation from shady sources.
BTW this is the article that mentions all this books as sources of were the word and food came (the article is in spanish). Its a pity that the article of wikipedia hasnt been changed with real sources.
https://www.degustalarioja.com/vienen-churros-20180330004435-ntvo.html