The flavors of Madeira
10 things you have to eat and drink in Madeira
1. Bolo do caco
In Portuguese, bolo is a cake, and caco refers to a flat, basalt stone in which the dough was kneaded. Bolo do caco is actually a small, round bread made of rye flour, corn flour with sweet potatoes. It is served cut across as a garlic butter snack or as a sandwich filled with ham, sausage, cheese or even chocolate. In bars or in a restaurant, the bolo do caco can cost between 1.90 and 2.50 Euro.
2. Bolo de mel
Bolo de mel is nothing more than gingerbread, but made of sugar cane molasses and inside with nuts or candied fruit. This cake is usually baked for Christmas, but is available all year round. We didn’t like it, but rather the taste – it was dry and hard, but maybe it depends on where you buy the cake. A small bolo de mel costs around 2.70 Euro in the shop.
3. Espada
Espada is a fish called black broadsword. It occurs only in 2 places in the world – around Madeira and in Japan, and lives at longer depths of 100 to 500 meters. It looks like something between a sea monster and an eel.
The fish is served fried in breadcrumbs with halved, fried bananas (espada com banana in a restaurant costs an average of 9-12 Euro, including sweet potatoes and salad). The meat of this fish is very delicate and tastes like cod.
4. Lapas
Lapas are limpets or mollusks attached to coastal rocks. They are served as a snack in a pan with garlic butter and lemon. In a restaurant, a serving of lapas can cost around 6 Euro. They taste a bit like oysters, but are more delicate.
5. Espetada
Not to be confused with espada it is something else – it is a beef shashlik (although it can also be chicken). The meat is previously marinated in vinegar and garlic and grilled on a charcoal grill. It is common for meat to be strung on laurel sticks or served on a metal sword on a special stand. Before ordering, please specify what type of meat you would like to cook. In a restaurant, an espetada costs about 10 Euro on average.
6. Poncha
It is a drink based on sugar cane vodka (aguardente) – sugar, honey and lemon juice are added to the basic version, i.e. regional poncha. There is also a poncha with passion fruit juice, and in the place where it was made, in Camara de Lobos, the most popular is poncha a pescador, i.e. without honey and only with lemon juice.
It is very similar to the Brazilian caipirinha and the grogue-based poncha from Cape Verde. A special wooden stirrer (mexelote) is used to prepare the poncha. Poncha is considered to be good as…. cold remedy. In a bar, a glass of poncha costs around 2,50-3,20 Euro.
7. Madeira wine
Madeira is a fortified brandy wine originating from the island of Eternal Spring. It was discovered by accident when wine was tasted in barrels that had been aged for a long time during sea voyages. There are Madeira bottles that are even 200 years old – the older the wine, the better it is and…. more expensive. There are 4 basic varieties of Madeira (depending on the grape varieties) – sercial is dry, verdelho is semi-dry, boal is semi-sweet and malvasia is sweet. In the shop, a small bottle of Madeira costs an average of about 3.70 Euro. The taste of wine is heavy and not everyone will like it, but being in Madeira and not trying Madeira is… .
8. Other alcohols
In Madeira you have to try Nikita – it is a drink based on vanilla ice cream, vodka or beer and white wine and pineapple – it looks more like a dessert than a drink – at a bar it costs about 3 Euro on average. Also worth tasting is “Tim Tam Tum” – a liqueur associated with Christmas and containing Madeira, tea, rum, dried plums and raisins.
There are also liqueurs such as aloe vera, passion fruit, and in Curral das Freiras you should try the chestnut liqueur – very good in taste.
9. Drinks
The best drink is Passion fruit Brisa – produced since 1970 exclusively in Madeira and based on the natural passion fruit juice. There is also a pineapple, apple, orange or lemon Brisa. In the store, a 1 liter bottle of Brisa passion fruit costs around 1.39 Euro, and a can of drink in a bar costs around 2.20-3.00 Euro.
In Madeira, freshly squeezed orange juices are available and very cheap, as in mainland Portugal (a glass of about 2 Euro).
10. Fruit
Madeira is a fruit paradise – at the markets in Funchal (here prices are 3 or 4 times higher than in other places) or in Santa Cruz or in shops, e.g. “Pingo Doce”, you can buy fruit that are unusual in Poland, for example, several varieties of passion fruit, cherymoja or monstera fruit.
In the case of monstera fruit (or ceriman/banana-pineapple), it should be considered that the whole plant, including its unripe fruit, is poisonous. You can only eat fruit that has flaking, yellowing green scales – under the scales there is a tasty, white flesh.
One of the tastiest fruit, however, is cherymoja (Peruvian soursop in Polish and annona in Portuguese) with white flesh and large, black seeds (apparently poisonous). Madeira has the most varieties of passion fruit – you can get banana, lemon and even tomato passion fruit.
