Top 10 Azorean Cuisine!
Part two… While we are fresh on the Azores topic, I couldn’t miss very important part - the food.
I’d set off to better understand these islands that lie in middle of vast Atlantic Ocean and habitat, using food as jumping-off point. I wanted to see each island with new eyes and to gauge how food forges and shoes the landscape and reflects history. To test how it can open doors to other lives and world.
Imagine you’re exactly in middle of the giant ocean. How culinary traditions are cultivated?
Two things. They have massive livestock pastures of cows living in best conditions (ever seen), roaming freely and strong due to a lot of climbing exercises. There is sea, so are fishes. But more or less, vegetation in the Azores are so stunning!
But what more fascinating is, their original recipes blended with unique seasonings… brought from the Caribbeans! There is a strong relationship between Caribbs, Bermuda, Jamaica and the Azores market trade happened thankfully to sailing boats and ships!
Every second day I would be taking a pontoon to swim into the cliff to hunt for a wild food to bring home. Sao Jorge island has really poor market stock, their food is pretty outdated.
1. Tropaleoum Majus is my favourite and aesthetically fun to design dishes!
2. Wild dill
3. Mint
4. Garlic Mustard
5. Watercress
6. There are more, but I didn't memorise names :P
Afterwards, I would hunt shellfish such like limpets or cracas. Hence, I am terrible at fishing, so I’d skip that part :P
Here are my special dishes: wild food hunting + Cheeses and meat from local pastures
10 AZOREAN DISHES FROM LOCAL RESTAURANTS
ALCATRA - Alcatra açoriana is a traditional beef (and octopus! stew from Terceira island that uses the fine noble parts of the meat, cooked slowly in a clay pot with red wine, onion, garlic, cloves and Jamaican black pepper, AND seasonings from Caribbeans until tender and falling off the bone.
Rating: 4/5
Absolutely delicious!
2. CRACAS - let’s call them the “Azores cousins” of barnacles. They look hideous but they are damn good! Pulling meat from stone tastes like a snow crab one but very salty and straight from the sea.
Rating - 4/5. Could been 5, but the amount of meat is so little for such effort cracking the shell.
3. LIMPETS - One of the most traditional appetizers that you will find pretty much all across the Azores islands, from fancy restaurants to small cafés around the corner, are lapas. These weird looking crustaceans, known as limpets in English, are cooked in a griddle pan in a sauce of butter, garlic paste that I particularly hate.
Rating: 3/5. Only because they pout too much garlic.
Note: photos from stock, I lost mine in damaged hard drive.
3. BIFANA - marinated pork with fava sandwich, the best ones are sold in “Tourada a Corda” event in foodtracks
Rating: 3/5 - they are incredibly delicious but I happened to stumble “bad meat” quality…
4. SARDINHAS - it’s more cultivated in Portugal, but why not in Azores. They aren’t popular in restaurants, but popular on grilling events,
Rating: 5/5 - They are always good.
6 - FISH (tuna, spearfish, triggerfish, parrot fish) and potatoes assorted with Caribbeans and Jamaican seasoning, and all weird combinations. That’s notably found in hidden local bars, not restaurants.
Rating: 5/5
7. SPECIAL CHEESES - this lemon cheese particularly got in my mind. Cheeses, cheeses and so many awesome one found in agriculture shops.
Rating: 5/5
8. Jorge’s BEST Hamburgers on the Planet. His special recipe of a fresh burger from his cows mixed with pimentos. My american crew guests were blew and confirmed that America should hide.
Rating: 5/5 - Atlantic view on two islands gratis
9.SEAFOOD & MEAT ON LAVA STONES - this dish I find specially super fun! I never had better experience in a restaurant with playing cooking so many offerings from the sea and land. Medium? Rare? Burnt? All these ingredient are fresh and stand with quality.
Rating: 6/5
10. LOCAL FOOD FIESTA - a hot tip: if you find a bar where the only locals gather, ask chef to prepare anything as he wishes. Surprise us!
Rating: 6/5
There are far more Azorean specialities, but I listed my 10 memorable. Oh! Kima, the maracuja juice! Right, I’m just battling with my storage servers to find how proudly drink Kima :D
Now! On something special. When I held motivational speech at KLONN restaurant, the top chef Michał Gniadek prepared Azorean dish inspired by my wild food hunting and exploring tastes in restaurants, so he designed fancy Azorean dish for special week :)
