When the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut in 1498, he was restoring a link between Europe and the East that had existed many centuries previously. The first known connection between the two regions had been Alexander the Great's invasion of the Punjab, 327–325 BC. This territorial contact in the north was succeeded by lengthy commercial inroads with the south, which continued until the decline of the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD. Trade with the East then passed into Arab hands, and it was mainly concerned with the Middle Eastern Islamic and Greek worlds until the end of the Middle Ages.

Thus during the 15th century, the land routes for the Indian trade—via the Red Sea and Egypt or across Persia, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey—had become increasingly blocked, mainly by Ottoman action. The surviving Egyptian route was subject to increasing exploitation by a line of middlemen, ending with the Venetian monopoly of the European trade, and in 1517 it likewise passed under Ottoman suzerainty. The motive for finding a new route was therefore strong; this task fell to the Portuguese

For Europe in 1498, therefore, India was a land of spices and of marvels handed down from imaginative Greek authors.

Francisco de Almeida and Afonso de Albuquerque established the Portuguese empire in the East. Almeida set up a number of fortified posts; but it was Albuquerque (governor 1509–1515) who gave the empire its characteristic form. He took Goa in western India in 1510, Malacca in the East Indies in 1511, and Hormuz (Ormuz) in the Persian Gulf in 1515, and he set up posts in the East Indian Spice Islands. The object of these moves was to establish for Portugal a strategic command of the Indian Ocean, so as to control the maritime spice trade.

The Portuguese method was to rely on sea power based on fortified posts and backed by settlements which provided a resident population for defense. While Malacca was the nerve centre for the spice-producing islands of Indonesia and the exchange mart for the trade with the Far East (East Asia), Goa, not Malacca, was the capital because of Portuguese concern with the Ottomans of the Middle East.

Intermarriage was encouraged. At the same time, Christianity was encouraged through the church. Goa became an archbishopric. The new mixed population thus became firmly Roman Catholic and provided a stubborn resistance to attacks. Its period of empire—lasted through the 16th century. During this time it attained great prosperity. Goa acquired the title of Golden, and it became one of the world's wonder cities. Trade with Europe was a royal monopoly, and, in addition, a system of licenses for all inter-Asian trade enriched the royal exchequer. Inter-Asian trade was free to individual Portuguese; and it was the profit of this, combined with trimmings from the royal monopoly, that gave them their affluence.

This first modern impact on India has left distinct though not extensive traces. The first is the mixed population of Luso-Indians, or Goanese, along the western coast of India and in Sri Lanka and with them, a lingua franca in the ports and markets. Then came Roman Catholicism, which today has some 12 million followers and an array of churches, convents, and colleges all over India.

More tangible traces include imported articles such as tamarind from tropical Africa. Tobacco, potatoes, pineapples, Gavaurs from Ecuador, tomatoes the wild species originated in the Andean area of South America, probably mainly in Peru and Ecuador, papayas, two varieties of chilies from Mexico. Pepper from Sri Lanka, cashew nuts from Brazil. Portuguese missionaries brought the cashew from Brazil and they knew that the toddy of the Indian palm trees had immense potential as a base for hard liquors thus enabling Goans to distil feni from cashew apples and palm feni and vinegar.

Thus the spices and fruits came from various parts of the world that had a big impact on eating habits of the Goans and providing the Goans with a rich cuisine, which is a mixture of east and west.