Tag Archives: Madeira

Travel

Cozinha de Madeira e Azores

Quero um pastel de nata. Translation: I want a pastel de nata. That’s an egg custard tart I consumed, uh, several times, on our recent trip to Madeira and São Miguel, Azores. Pastel de nata has the right amount of sweetness and creamy texture, plus the crisp pastry flakes in your mouth. The photo above has two pastel de natas along with another delicious pastry stuffed with apples. After my last post, subscribers wrote they wanted to read about the food of those two islands. So, why not start with dessert?

What else did our family eat on our recent trip? Seafood and lots of seafood, which makes sense since we were on two Portuguese islands. Plus, whatever was grown there, such as passion fruit and pineapple. 

We ate in a restaurant for all but one of our meals, thanks to the culinary talents of Brian and Julia one night in our rental. We took our time eating and chatting. Afterall, we were on vacation. 

Here are some highlights:

EXOTIC FRUITS: I developed a new interest in pineapple, even on pizza. I admit shaking my head when people ordered pineapple on pizza in the U.S. But it worked in the Azores, where I ate it for the first time. Of course, the pineapple was grown locally. In the photo above, that’s me standing in a pineapple plantation’s greenhouse in Ponta Delgado, São Miguel. I learned later from a childhood friend the plantation was owned by her late husband’s family. 

We had pineapple on hamburgers and as a side dish. The best was pineapple cake — twice. There were other exotic fruits such as bananas, oranges, and passion fruit. The passion fruit mousse served in a restaurant in Funchal, Madeira was outstanding, as was the mixture of orange and passion fruit juice. 

FISH: We encountered a new one: black scabbard fish, deep sea creatures found in the Atlantic between latitudes 69 N and 27 N. It appeared to be a go-to fish for most restaurants although there were options such as tuna and sea bass. Then there were prawns. I admit having to take a break from fish and shellfish after eating it twice a day for seven days straight.

NIGHT OUT: Brian, who accompanied our family, treated us to an elegant meal out at Avista in Funchal, Madeira run by prestigious chef Benoît Sinthon (Il Gallo d’Oro, two Michelin Stars). Service was excellent, as was the food. Ingredients were from the island. Yes, I opted for a fish dish. We shared the appetizers, which included steak tartare, and desserts.

INSTRUCTIONAL MEAL: We had a seven-course meal and an instructional experience at Azores Essentials, where our daughter Emily ate on a previous visit. The building is an historic thermal bathhouse — Furnas is filled with natural hot springs. The evening was described as a gastronomic cultural experiences Azorean style accompanied by the appropriate wine. Ninety-five percent of the ingredients were local. The best part was Rich’s entertaining demonstrations about green tea, the local waters, and how each course was expertly prepared by Paula Aguiar. The posole and artichokes were cooked geothermally. (Alas, the restaurant doesn’t have a restroom, so we had to walk to a public restroom in a nearby parking lot or a bar, part of the experience.)

HOT LAVA ROCK: The last dinner on São Miguel was an interesting one at A Quinta in Furnas, which was essentially open-air seating beneath a large roofed structure. My son Zack and I shared a steak cooked over a hot lava stone. The meat came sizzling to the table. We flipped it on the stone to the raw side, slicing it into pieces and then cooking each one to what we wanted.

WINE: Lots and lots of it with meals. 

Next post I will tell you about São Miguel.

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Travel

Bom Dia Novamente de Madeira

I have in my possession two small notebooks my late mother Algerina took with her when she visited Madeira and the Azores. In the neatest handwriting, she recorded what she and my father did, saw, and ate. I brought both with me on our recent trip to those Portuguese Islands.

My mother’s first trip was in 1983 to Madeira, where her parents lived before they emigrated separately to the U.S. Times were tough then. So, like so many immigrants, they were seeking that so-called better life. My grandmother, Angela, was 16 when she came by a ship with her sister. I don’t know how old my grandfather, Manuel, the name traditionally chosen for the oldest boy in a family, was when he left the village of Gaula. 

Flying to Madeira in 1983 took effort. Their brother-in-law drove them to Providence, R.I. to catch a bus to Logan Airport in Boston, where they flew to JFK in New York, and then via TAP Air Portugal to Lisbon, where they stayed fa ew days before flying to Funchal. On the other hand, my fellow travelers and I took a direct flight from Logan to Funchal. (The seating aboard the plane was tight, but we got free red wine and a nice meal.)

My ever observant mother wrote “Men wear jackets on shoulders and carry pocket books to carry all those escudos, lots of paper money.” My parents went on tours, but they also visited her Uncle John, who was 83 then, and other family members in Guala. “He kept saying my name and saying that the other Algerina (nun in Africa) was stronger than me.” Her Uncle Paul, the youngest who had emigrated to the U.S., had notified them. My mother saw the home where her father was born. “Took pictures of the bedroom where my grandparents slept and all the children would sleep on the floor.” It appears my parents got their fill of what Madeira had to offer, including taking one of those basket sleigh rides down steep, cobblestone roads. My mother notes that was how food was once transported, but someone smartly decided to put a seat in them as a tourist attraction.

Inspired by my mother, I kept my own little notebook during our trip. Here are some of my observations:

Views from the patio include the tiled roofs of the homes below and the ocean beyond — at night, an impressive display of lights.

Roosters are aplenty and up early. Their crowing sets off the dogs. 

Cristiano Ronaldo, the football aka soccer superstar, who grew up here is big with his own museum and a life-sized bronze statue. Strange but true: the area around his prominent jockstrap is rather polished. 

The roads are narrow, steep, and winding, many cobblestoned, not surprising given the island is volcanic. Navigating them was a challenge for Brian, the designated driver in our group, especially since we had a car that fit five rather snuggly. Well done, Brian.

Before our trip, I learned rudimentary Portuguese via audiobooks, enough to be polite and say what I want. But everywhere we went, except for one exception I will mention later, everyone spoke English well. Of course, it was a friendly gesture to greet and thank them in Portuguese. In one restaurant, I guess my accent was good enough for the maître-d’ to think I was fluent. Desculpe.

Coffee is served stronger in small cups than I could handle. Hank said, “This coffee will make you stand straight up.” One time when I order decaf, it was thick, a bit bitter, and served black in a tiny cup. 

Food was exceptional, lots of seafood, exotic fruits, and wine, so was the service. Brian treated us to dinner at Avista, which had exceptional cuisine.

Unlike my mother who had to deal with escudos, the currency was euros. It was easy to draw money from an ATM  (I had notified my bank ahead of time) or pay with credit card.

The taxi cab drivers are super chatty. One was local, the other from South Africa.

I had limited access to the internet, but when I did, the Google entries were written in Portuguese.

Bars are everywhere including at the bus stops in our neighborhood.

Smoking is popular. Lots of smoking in public.

The air smells of ocean. The waters, as we found when we swam in the ocean at Porto Moniz Bathing Pools, surrounded by black volcanic rock, are blue and clean.

We stopped at a small restaurant in Guala on our way to the airport for breakfast beverages and a variety of pastries, including pastel de nata. The rest of my fellow travelers were making their way to the car when I went to talk with an older woman who sat at a table with a man I assumed was her son. What struck me was how much the woman looked like a younger version of my grandmother, Angela or Vovó as I called her. I shared who I was, my connection to their island, and how she resembled my grandmother. The man interpreted. At the end, the woman smiled and thanked me: Obrigada.

My parents only went once to Madeira. I want to return and see more of the island. The members of my family in the U.S. who still had connections to those living in Madeira are no longer with us. But I would like to see who I could find and what else I could experience on this island.

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Memoir

My Grandmother Learns to Read

As a girl in the Portuguese island of Madeira, my grandmother Angela Ferreira was a companion to the child of a wealthy family. Her older sister was a servant in the household. My grandmother or Avó was the youngest of a large, poor family. I am guessing her parents didn’t mind having one less child to feed at home.

My grandmother’s job was to play with the little girl and carry her books to and from school. While the girl was in class, she sat in the back of the room until it was time to return home.

One day, the teacher caught my grandmother trying to read with the rest of the class. But instead of getting her into trouble, the teacher approached the wealthy parents, who consented to let her attend the school. That was how my grandmother learned to read when so few did then.

When she was 16, Avó left with the same sister, Maria, to live in the U.S., and never saw her family in Madeira again. I heard the story of the large storm their ship encountered in the Atlantic, how people were swept overboard and everyone prayed to get through it. My grandmother and her sister stayed mostly below. The photo on this post shows my grandmother Angela, on the right, and Maria shortly after they arrived in the U.S.

My grandmother settled in New Bedford, Mass., where she worked as a weaver in a textile mill when that industry was booming there. She married a man, Manuel, from her village in Madeira and raised three daughters, and later a grandson.

She and my grandfather moved to a small town where they lived off the land while they continued to work in the mills. They took classes to learn English. It was not a happy marriage, however, due to my grandfather’s problems. I am surmising it was a struggle for him to adjust to life in a new country. There’s more to that story, but this one is about my grandmother.

We called her Vovó out of affection. She was an interesting grandmother, with a goat barn, grape arbor, a field for ballgames, and interesting nooks in her home. We saw her almost every weekend. She baked us chocolate chip cookies, always enough to take home when we were done visiting. However, I can’t say my sisters and I enjoyed her main dishes, which always had an odd flavor. We used to say it had “grandma’s secret spice.”

Avó had a poodle named Sonny Bono, a series of shelter mutts called Lassie, and a bird named Bobby Vinton. She loved TV wrestling, Elvis, and because she could read, the National Enquirer. She saved the copies for me since she knew I loved reading about celebrities.

It’s been many years since Avó left us, but I am still inspired by her quest to read.

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