Madeira’s culinary treasures: weird fruit, espetada, poncha, wine…

“Brisa de maracujá, por favor,” I said, attempting to order one of Madeira’s famous drinks.

“Nāo, nāo,” corrected our smiling waiter. “MaracuJÁ.”

I tried again. “MaracuJÁ, maracuJÁ!!” I thought I was putting enough emphasis on that last syllable, and rolling the ‘R’ sufficiently, but he made me say it several more times before he finally gave me the thumbs up.

Brisa – a passionfruit (maracujá)-flavoured, slightly fizzy pop – is one of many must-try drinks and foods of Madeira, the Portuguese island just off the coast of Morocco that we visited in March.

We love to try new and especially off-beat food and drinks, so that was a big part of Madeira’s attraction for us. We looked forward to trying espetada, weird fruit, bolo de caco, bolo de mel, poncha, limpets, ugly scabbard fish, and, of course, Madeira fortified wine. It didn’t all go according to plan, but here’s what we tasted and learned.

Weird fruit

Deliciosa – the long, green scaly fruit shaped like a zucchini – is the most peculiar-looking fruit, but we tasted other weird fruits as well, such as the anona (round, green, dimpled) and tabaibo (dark pink with black seeds). Madeiran bananas (protected by blue plastic bags) grow in terraced fields and back yards all over the island.

We made a rookie mistake our first day. Walking through Funchal’s Mercado dos Lavradores [Farmers’ Market], we succumbed to the siren song of sampling weird fruits. A fruit vendor had us hold out a closed fist and, next to the crook of our thumb, placed a bite-sized piece of fruit. Mmmm. We liked them all: deliciosa, maracujá banana (shaped like a banana but tastes more like passionfruit), tabaibo, anona.

Then came the hard sell, as she pressured us to buy way too much fruit. We didn’t get the deliciosa since it wouldn’t ripen in time, but ended up with some small Madeiran bananas, two tabaibo (red and green) and one anona. Then the cashier weighed it and told us the price: 24 Euros!!! We were stunned, especially since prices at our neighbourhood frutaria in Alcobaça are so low.

Instead of walking away, we stupidly paid the 24 Euros, trundled off, and THEN remembered advice we’d picked up somewhere to never buy fruit at the market. It’s much cheaper in street stalls and grocery stores. We laughed at ourselves. Lesson learned. We made sure we ate every bite so none went to waste.

• Anona – custard apple or soursop in English – was my favourite, and Bill’s too. The round, green, dimpled fruit hides a mild, creamy white flesh, with big black seeds that are easy to pick out.
• Madeiran bananas are quite small, with denser flesh than the Costa Rican bananas we usually eat. “It’s a more banana-y taste,” said Bill. We both preferred our “regular” bananas.
• Tabaibo comes in three colours and flavours, all similar to dragon fruit in taste and with its tiny seeds. It’s easiest to eat by cutting it in half and scooping out spoonsful.  

Later, our Guru Walk tour guide, Eduardo, took us through the market. We steered clear of the fruit stalls but watched from afar as members of our group were swarmed.

“Don’t do it! Run away!” I whispered. 

Eduardo also directed us to UauCacau artisanal chocolates in the market. Many of these gorgeous morsels are flavoured with Madeira’s familiar and weird fruits. I appreciated a white chocolate-coconut combo while Bill savoured dark chocolate with maracujá (even though he didn’t pronounce it correctly).

Madeira fortified wine

A slightly sweet vanilla-ish aroma followed us through the Blandy’s Wine Lodge tour, which ended with two tastings of Madeira, m’dear. I like Madeira, but concluded I prefer Portugal’s other famous fortified wine: port.

The Blandy family has dominated the madeira fortified wine industry for two centuries, starting with John Davis Blandy, an Englishman who arrived in 1808. He wasn’t around for the discovery of this unique wine but he certainly helped spread its popularity by exporting to England, U.S.A., India and Russia, as we learned during our tour of Blandy’s Wine Lodge in Funchal.

From the early 1400s, colonizers brought their grapevines from mainland Portugal and planted them in vineyards terraced on the mountainsides with basalt walls. The process for making madeira wine was discovered gradually and pretty much by accident over time in the 1600s. After loading barrels of wine fortified with cane sugar alcohol onto ships that crossed the equator, people began to appreciate the brew that had been heated and sloshed about for months during tropical voyages.

Starting in the 1800s and still today, that same heating and oxidization effect is achieved in two ways. With the canteiro method (used for the higher-quality madeiras), the wine is stored for at least four years in oak barrels in either hot attics or greenhouses. With the estufagem method, tubes of hot water (45ᵒC) wind around stainless-steel tanks storing the wine, for three to four months.

Because of this crazy process, unopened bottles of madeira are good for hundreds of years. Even after they’re opened, they can last for up to a year – way longer than any other type of wine.

Blandy’s tour took us through the barrel-making room, the canteiro aging rooms, an exhibit of how the fortified wine is made, a room with gigantic Brazilian satinwood vats, the Blandy family museum, and finally a tasting of two madeiras: a five-year-old medium-dry Verdelho and a 2016 sweeter Malmsey.  

If you’ve only ever thought of madeira as a cooking wine, try some! It’s made from several different grapes (mostly red but some white) and varies from dry to sweet. Those at the dry end of the scale (Verdelho, Sercial) are aperitifs, while the sweeter ones (Malvasia, Malmsey, Bual) are sipped after dinner as a digestif.

Madeira was famously used to toast the American Declaration of Independence, was referenced by Shakespeare and Winston Churchill, and stars in the tune “Have some madeira, m’dear.” I believe I will, thanks.

Bolo de caco

Madeira´s traditional bread is bolo de caco – a round, flat bread served warm and slathered with garlic butter. It’s perfect when you’re recovering from a stomach bug and want to ease back into eating. I speak from experience. Bill and I both got sick during our week on Madeira and didn’t get to try all the foods and drinks we wanted to. But bolo de caco quickly became our comfort food.

The best has a thin, crisp crust but a soft, airy inside. The ingredients are simple: flour, yeast, water, salt and – surprise! – mashed sweet potato. Traditionally, it was baked on a basalt stone, called a caco, that sat directly on hot embers, although today it’s baked on concrete slabs or cast-iron pans. The recipe is believed to have come with the Moroccan and other African slaves who were brought to Madeira in the 1400s to work in the sugarcane fields.

Bolo de mel

During the sugarcane harvest, the leaves are removed first and then the main stalk is cut. Then they’re trucked to the factory and unloaded before being made into sugarcane honey, rum and bolo de mel.

We happened to visit Madeira during the sugarcane harvest and saw how this grassy stalk is processed at the Calheta Sugarcane Mill [Engenhos da Calheta]. We perused the exhibits showing how the sugarcane is processed, from harvest and transport through to milling, brewing, distillation, and bottling. In the processing plant, men unloaded a big truck full of sugarcane stalks using a crane. After that, the canes are crushed to extract the juice, which is then either turned into rum or steam-cooked into sugarcane honey (similar to molasses).

Our stomachs were not quite up to sampling rum in the tasting room. It’s apparently different from other rums because it’s made by fermenting and then distilling the fresh sugarcane juice rather than molasses. However, we did buy some bolo de mel – a dense traditional Madeiran cake made with sugarcane honey, cinnamon, walnuts and almonds. Quite delicious! 

Another recommended place to buy bolo de mel is Fabrica Santo Antonio in downtown Funchal. This fifth-generation family-owned shop was founded in 1893 to bake fine biscuits to sell to the British to go with their afternoon tea. Now, they sell beautifully packaged cookies and bolos de mel.

Poncha

After madeira wine, poncha is the next-most-famous drink of Madeira, and the drink of choice in bars. The ingredients – sugarcane rum, bee honey (as opposed to sugarcane honey) and lemon juice – are muddled together with a wooden tool called a caralhinho. Variations use other weird fruit juices, such as maracujá, as well as orange and tangerine.

And wow, is it dangerous! I sampled some on our last night in Madeira (when my stomach had fully recovered). Made with a combo of lemon and orange juices, the fruity drink went down way too quickly – I could barely taste the rum but could certainly feel its effects.

No one really knows poncha’s origins but Eduardo said it was invented by fishermen to fight scurvy – similar to English sailors sucking on limes, hence the nickname ‘limeys.’

Nikita

Eduardo also recommended the nikita – another famous Madeiran concoction. This one combines ice cream, sugar, fresh pineapple, and either white wine or beer or both. That combo sounded dreadful but I ordered one anyhow for dessert. I watched the bartender muddle the ingredients using the caralhinho until it was all creamy. Wow! Another delicious drink that went down as smoothly as a milkshake. I never dreamt that a mix of wine, beer and ice cream could taste so good.

Brisa

Brisa is the brand name of this popular carbonated drink that comes in a variety of flavours: mango, peach, apple, lemon, orange, and of course passion fruit – maracujá in Portuguese. Maracujá is the original flavour. If you order it in a restaurant, you may well get a spontaneous Portuguese pronunciation lesson as well!

Coral beer

Madeira’s local beer – Coral lager – is a relative newcomer in the field of alcoholic beverages, having been brewed only since 1969, although the brewery has been there since 1872. The beer came highly recommended, but Bill was disappointed. “Not good. It’s like old Molson Ex,” he said, referring to the Canadian beer that initiated many 1970s teens into the world of alcohol. He even left a bottle of Coral in the fridge of our rented apartment. And for Bill to leave beer behind…  

Espetada

Poncha and espetadas (grilled beef on laurel sticks) were the edible highlights of the Sugarcane Festival, which also included folk dancing.

Poncha and espetadas were the edible highlights of the Sugarcane Festival, hosted by Canhas, the village where we stayed. (We thought we were in for Carnival all over again, but it was a quieter affair.)

Espetada, considered the official dish of Madeira, is grilled chunks of beef on a long stick of laurel – the tree that gives us bay leaves. For the festival, the village set up booths hung with huge sides of beef and half-oil-drum-sized barbecue pits. Bill wasn’t feeling well, so I wandered alone amongst the booths observing how people ordered, paid for, and cooked their espetadas, before trying it myself.

“Uma espetada, por favor,” I said, when it was my turn. The man sliced a wedge of meat off the cow, cut it into chunks, weighed out my portion, threaded them onto the long, green laurel stick, rolled it in garlic salt, and then handed it to me. After paying 15 euros (which included a loaf of bread), I went over to the barbecue and nestled my stick amongst the others over hot coals. I turned it slowly to brown on all sides. A man standing near me must have sensed my inability to tell when it was done. He picked up my stick and bumped it against the meat of another stick; when the meat moves easily along the stick, it’s done. “Obrigada, senhor!”

To eat it, you slide the cubes off the stick with a thick slice of bread. Oh my, was that good! I could taste a hint of the laurel/bay flavour along with the salty garlic.   

I watched the folk dancing for some time, admiring the traditional woollen clothing and jaunty carapuça hats – like a skull cap with a long stalk at the peak, for both men and women. For the last dance, one of the young dancers invited me to take part. I had just bought some yogurt at the grocery store and, since Bill wasn’t with me, had no one to hold it. But, what the heck, I joined in the dance anyhow with my yogurt in a bag swinging from my wrist and bonking people with every turn. Great fun!  

See our video highlights of Madeira: toboggan ride, rock pools, folk dancing, and levada waterfall hike.

Other traditional foods

Due to our traitor stomachs, we just didn’t have enough time to try all the weird fruits, seafood, drinks and other delectables for which Madeira is known. When we return, we’ll have to try:

• Limpets: Lapas (in Portuguese) are molluscs with one cone-shaped shell that resembles a classic volcano, so it’s not surprising that they’re popular on the volcanic island of Madeira. Grilled with butter and garlic, they’re said to taste similarly to clams except chewier.
• Black Scabbardfish: This is one ugly fish, with a mouthful of pointy teeth crying out for orthodontic work. However, it’s said to be delicious, especially with grilled bananas.
• Milho Frito: This side dish is a melange of corn flour, chopped kale, salt, olive oil and herbs that is baked, cut into cubes and then fried so that the outside is crispy but the inside remains soft.

We visited Madeira in March 2023. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.