What to eat and drink in Madeira: espetada, bolo do caco, limpets, scabbardfish with banana, and poncha.
Espetada is beef rubbed with garlic and coarse salt, threaded on a stick of laurel and grilled over embers. It comes to the table hanging from a hook, with bolo do caco: a flat round bread cooked on a hot stone and served with garlic butter.
From the sea come lapas, limpets grilled in their shells with garlic and lemon, and espada, black scabbardfish, traditionally served with fried banana. Milho frito, cubes of fried cornmeal, goes with almost everything.
Poncha is sugar-cane spirit beaten with honey and lemon juice, made to order. Bolo de mel is the dark cake of cane molasses and spice that keeps for months, and Madeira wine is the fortified wine that carried the island's name around the world.
A tipPoncha is stronger than it tastes. Have it after the tattoo, not before: alcohol thins the blood and makes a session harder on you.
- The dishespetada on a laurel skewer
- The drinkponcha
- The fruitthe small Madeira banana
At the end of the route, in Funchal, four artists draw whatever you bring back from the island: a place, a flower, a word, a set of coordinates.
Sardines
Two of them, with the drawing still beside the skin.