Madeira (5) Photographic Museum and the Madeira Botanical Garden

This is a new post though it covers the events of the 22nd and 23rd of April 2023
It will be moved to its appropriate chronological position shortly.

The Atelier Vicente and Exotic Plants

A Brief Introduction

Portugal

Madeira

Madeira, as you probably know, is a Portuguese Island in the Atlantic, 1,000km south west of Lisbon and 700km west of the Moroccan coast. It measures 50km from east to west, 20km from north to south and rises to 1,861m (6,106 ft) at Pico Ruivo. It has 250,000 permanent inhabitants, half of whom live in the capital, Funchal. Our hotel was in the Lido district, 40 minutes' walk along the coast west of central Funchal.

Madeira

22-April-2023

Funchal

After a leisurely breakfast we walked into central Funchal, a pleasant 40-minute stroll on mainly level ground. I described the walk in Madeira (2): Mercado and Monte Palace Gardens, but there is always room for a photo of one of the Jacarandas along the way. They were only just in bloom when we arrived and each day had become more and more spectacular.

One of Funchal's many jacarandas

The Atelier de Vicente

I am not sure how we heard about the Atelier Vicente. Perhaps we spotted it on a wander through Funchal’s narrow streets, maybe we had a whisper from this chap…

Having a word with the silent waiter, Funchal

…but probably not. He stands in the street all day and never talks to anyone.

Vicente Gomes da Silva set up his photography studio in 1865, it was not only the first studio in Madeira, it was the first in Portugal.

Atelier Vicente

In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists had noted that silver oxide turns black on exposure to light and struggled to use this knowledge to produce images. In the first half of the 19th century the work of Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, Henry Fox Talbot and others had led to light-fast cameras, the ability to fix the negative image, print a positive image and then to print multiple images.

By the time Vicente opened his studio, exposure times had been reduced and a workable method of enlarging photographs existed. A client requiring a portrait could be guaranteed a reasonably short sitting and, a little while later, a likeness that was accurate and detailed. Vicente could photograph a whole family, or an important individual with an appropriate backdrop.

The place to pose for a photo, Atelier Vicente

He must have been good at his job, in 1860 he photographed the Empress Elizabeth of Austria and in 1901 his son Vicente Júnior photographed the Portuguese king, D. Carlos I and his queen D. Amélia de Orléans.

The atelier was a family business for four generations and finally closed in the 1970s. In 1979 it was bought by the city of Funchal and turned into Madeira's museum of photography.

Vicente’s dark room is still there, and there is also a collection of photographic equipment.

Dark room, Atelier Vicente

There is also a collection of 2 or 3 million photographs. Those on display include late 19th century pictures of horse drawn goods vehicles in the streets of Funchal with runners rather than wheels, a commercial version of the toboggans that still bring tourists down from the Monte Palace (if they are prepared to pay handsomely for a ride that goes nowhere useful.) The oily laurel wood and the local cobbles work well together.

Part of the Atelier de Vicente collection

There was also this oddity.

A family portrait

I looked at it and had the unkindly thought that Madeira does produce a lot of rum. Lynne looked at it and said, ‘She’s dead.’ Apparently, there was once a fashion of dressing up the recently deceased and posing them in one last family photograph. Surely not in the UK? Well, yes, the BBC ran a news item about it (how do the fashions of 150 years ago become ‘news’?) and this is a link to their photos .BBC News Taken from Life. Warning, the high infant mortality rate back then means that a lot of the photographs are of children propped up among their more lively siblings. If this sort of thing upsets you, please do not click on the link.

Rather more cheerfully, this section ends with a set of photographs of Winston Churchill painting at Câmara de Lobos - we visited a couple of days ago.

Winston Churchill at Câmara de Lobos

The Madeira Botanical Gardens

Our walk ended at the taxi rank at the Café de Teatro Square.

The Cafe de Teatro - the taxi rank is the line of yellow cars left of picture

Four days ago, we took the cable car up to the Monte Palace gardens. They are a private endeavour set up in their present form in 1987. Their star features are the Chinese and Japanese gardens tumbling down the hillside.

The Madeira Botanical gardens opened in 1960 and specialise in groups of plants, Madeiran indigenous and endemic species, succulents, palm trees and cycads and more. Although set on the hillside it is nearer the city and the slope is less dramatic. The best way to get there is by the relatively cheap taxis, our choice, or by bus, though it is accessible by a cable car but only from Monte Palace.

It is neat and tidy and the flower beds are set in geometrical patterns, while many of the flowers themselves are big and showy. I am not a gardener, but if I was, this is the garden I might like to have.

Madeira Botanical Gardens, there are several levels like this down the slope

Perhaps it is best to let the plants speak for themselves (metaphorically speaking).

Begonia Grandis, or Hardy Begonia. There is little threat to its hardiness in Madeira's balmy climate.

Hardy Begonia

Brunfelsia pauciflora is known in Portuguese as Ontem-hoje-e-amanhã (Yesterday, today and tomorrow.) A member of the nightshade family it is endemic to Brazil and is cultivated for ornamental use.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

We followed the path down…

The path down, Madeira Botanical Gardens

…to the next level of cultivation….

The next level

….where we saw Argyranthemum frutescens Marguerite of Paris Daisy – an odd name for a native of the Canary Islands. Garden Marguerites are hybrids derived from this species.

Marguerites

Salvia Spledens or Scarlet Sage originated in the warm, humid highlands of Brazil. Smaller cultivars are popular in public gardens and shopping malls worldwide, though in its wild form to grows to around 1.3m.

Salvia Splendens or Scarlet Sage

The next level was a chocolate box of a garden. I like this format, though I can imagine others disagreeing. A garden is an artificial creation, so why pretend it is in any way wild?

A chocolate box garden

Down there we met Kumara plicatilis or Fan-Aloe, a native of South Africa’s Western Cape region…,

Fan Aloe

…and Kalanchoe Tetraphylla one of a large genus of sun-loving tropical succulents mostly native to South Africa and Madagascar. This one is known as Elephant’s Ears, though more for their shape than their size.

Elephant's Ears

Then we went on to the cactuses…

Lynne among the cactuses

…and their spikey relatives.

Spikey trees

We had now almost reached the bottom of the garden. The view over the fence showed us that we had come up a long way up from the coast – the sea is just visible on the far left of the photo. We were, though, still a long way below the Monte Palace Gardens.

Funchal

There was little left to do now beyond taking photographs of Lynne beside a pond of terrapins…

Lynne and the terrapins

…and the final plant, the remarkable Bottlebrush bush. This is one of the many species of Callistemon, native to Australia.

The Bottlebrush bush

Return from the Botanical Gardens

Leaving the botanical gardens, we found a taxi waiting in the car park, and were soon back at the Café de Teatro. The driver joined the queue at the taxi rank, and we had a glass of lunch.

A glass of lunch, Cafe de Teatro, Funchal

Rehydrated, we set out to walk back to our hotel, passing through a park beside the road. Here we encountered more flora, including a Bird of Paradise Flower (or Strelitzia). The genus was named by Joseph Banks in honour Geroge III’s wife Queen Charlotte (of Mecklenburg-Strelitz). Banks was a serious-minded scientist, but a bit of creeping never does any harm.

Bird of Paradise flower

There are five species (I think this is strelitzia reginae). All are native to South Africa, though they travel well and since 1952 the Bird of Paradise flower has been the floral emblem of Los Angeles.

Nearby, past several more Jacaranda, was a Coral Tree (or Flame Tree, though both names are sometimes applied to other trees).

Coral Tree (Erythrina abyssinica)

More exactly it is Erythrina abyssinica - a board attached to the tree told me, so it must be true. This one may be African in origin but other species of this legume originate in Asia and the Americas.

Enough flora, so here is a representative of the fauna. Unlike the trees, this Madeiran Wall Lizard is a true local.

Madeiran Wall Lizard

We did little in the afternoon, we were on holiday and do not have to spend all our time running round looking at things.

Holiday things, Madeira

Our dining experience later can be found in Madeira: Eating and Drinking.

The next day we said a fond ‘goodbye’ to Madeira and enjoyed a thankfully uneventful journey home.

Madeira

Introduction
Part 1: A First Look at Central Funchal
Part 2: Mercado and Monte Palace Gardens
Part 3: Funchal to Santana
Part 4: Eira do Serrado and Câmara de Lobos
Part 5: Photography Museum and Madeira Botanical Garden
Part 6:Eating and Drinking

Madeira (6): Eating and Drinking

Slogging up Through the Foothills

17-Apr-2023 to 23-Apr-2023

The Mission

Portugal

Madeira

During our week in Madeira we tried (breakfast apart) to eat dishes noted for being particularly Madeirense. After a single week's experience we cannot claim to be experts in Madeiran cuisine, but we have, I think, successfully scaled the foothills of knowledge. Madeira is a piece of Portugal entirely surrounded by the Atlantic, the Algarve (see Eating the Algarve is a piece of Portugal half surrounded by the Atlantic, so there are many similarities, but also several differences.

Breakfast

Our hotel’s breakfast buffet, was a magnificent spread covering the morning eccentricities of every corner of Europe. There was nothing Chinese, Indian (see Breakfast Thoughts in Udaipur ) or American, but they know their clientele.

As far as I can ascertain a local breakfast consists of coffee and bread or toast with whatever you wish to spread on it; in south west Europe breakfast is not the meal by which to judge the local cuisine. Madeira is, of course, geologically Africa, but the people are Portuguese and so is their breakfast.

Lunch

We ate light lunches – a toastie or a sandwich - washed down with beer, except the day we could face no more food, so just had beer.

Madeira has a craft brewery or two, but they require seeking out. Coral beer, on the other hand, is sold in every café on the island. Produced by the Madeira Brewing Company, who have been active since 1872, it is a standard southern European pilsner-style lager. It is nothing special, but deals excellently with a thirst on a warm day.

On draught it comes in glasses of 20 (why bother?), 30 40 or 50cl. Sometimes, though, for a real thirst, you need something bigger.

Sometimes you need a big bottle of beer

Many cafés offer a dose de camarão fritas or a dose de lapas grelhadas. ‘Dose’ means ‘portion’ – we use the same word in English with a different shade of meaning (cod and chips twice and a dose of mushy peas, anyone?). Camarão fritas are fried prawns, lapas grelhadas are the more edgy grilled limpets (you don't get those in the Algarve). My friend Brian had visited these shores before and warned me – ‘they have two parts,’ he said, one is a big muscle to grip the rocks, the other contains its bowels and anus. One part you can’t eat, the other you don’t want to eat.’ These may not be his precise words, but I believe I have the gist.

Despite the warning, and my respect for Brian’s opinions, we ordered a dose between us.

A dose of limpets, Café Teatro, Funchal

I had imagined Brian was talking about the large conical limpets I used to try to knock off the rocks in my youth during holidays on the South Wales coast (you had to make your own fun in those days), but these were flatter. The muscle in a Porthcawl limpet is truly mighty, eating it would be like chewing a squash ball, but these were…um…all right. Lynne enjoyed them so much she had another dose a few days later and I thought they were best shellfish I have ever eaten, except for all the others.

Bolo do Caco is the usual accompaniment to limpets, and very many other things. It is a flatbread the shape of a cake (bolo) cooked on a basalt slab (caco). It is usually served split with the interior slathered with garlic butter.

A Pre-dinner Drink

Unlike mainland Portugal, Madeira’s climate is suitable for growing sugar cane and aguardente de cana is made by distilling fermented cane juice. Mixing it with orange and/or lemon juice and sweetening it with sugar or honey produces Madeira’s traditional drink, poncha.

Poncha resembles a daiquiri but has more fruit and more fire. Daiquiris are made with three-year-old Havana rum, a smooth, amiable sprit, while Poncha involves a 50% alcohol Madeiran white rum of unknown aging. Poncha can be bought ready made in bottles, but most restaurants make their own, a couple of jugs are usually parked in sight of the diners and given a stir by any passing waiter.

A glass of poncha while studying the menu

Poncha has a pleasant balance of alcohol, sweetness and acidity and at 25% alcohol is an ideal pre-dinner drink.

Dinners

We were in Madeira for seven nights, that is zero starters, seven main courses each and a few desserts; a single course meal is often enough for us these days. With a possibility of 14 mains, we thought we could at least scratch the surface of Madeiran cuisine. We ate in mid-range restaurants in the Lido district of Funchal, where we found average price for a one or two course meal was a little over €70, including an aperitif and bottle of wine.

Fish and Sea Food Mains

Geography dictates that fish will be important, some dishes will be shared with mainland Portugal, and others will be typically local. The most typically local of all is the Black Scabbardfish.

Black Scabbardfish, Funchal Market, Madeira

Black Scabbardfish We have frequently encountered silver scabbardfish in Algarve markets, but never on a menu - which might say something about them - but the Black Scabbardfish was new to us. They look similar (apart from the colour) and are both members of the family Trichiuridae, but the black scabbard prefers the deeper water around Madeira and appears on every Madeiran menu. With its thin pointy face and evil looking mouth filled with long sharp teeth, this is the ugliest fish in the world according to the locals, though for down to earth plug-ugliness nothing compares to the Monk fish.

Silver Scabbardfish, Olhão Market, Algarve

My fillet lounged on cushion of potato purée with a banana where its spine would have been had it not been filleted. Madeiran bananas are shorter and sweeter than the Cavendish bananas from the Caribbean and Central America that we are used to. Over this are the juice, seeds and flesh of a passion fruit. Madeira is not technically a tropical island, but it produces a lot of tropical fruit.

Fruit and fish are tricky plate-fellows, but this combination works, the sweetness of the banana and the acidity of the passion fruit perk up the scabbardfish, which, dare I suggest, owes much of is popularity to its availability.

Black Scabbardfish with banana and passion fruit - it looks alarming but tastes delicious
Unnamed restaurant at the top of Rua do Gorgulho

Tuna with Maize. Tuna is equally popular in the Algarve but on Madeira fried maize (I think we would normally call it polenta) is the traditional accompaniment. Tuna is inevitably described as ‘meaty’ and here the markings on the flesh were almost the only clue it was not meat; and the accompanying sauce could be called gravy without giving offence. Boiled potatoes with fish is an unwritten Portuguese rule and the polenta sits beside the spuds in neat cuboids. Crisp outside, soft inside it had little flavour, but justified its presence by providing two new textures.

Tuna with Polenta, Reaturante Tricolore, Estrada Monumental

Wrasse. I have never seen wrasse on a menu before and after looking it up I wonder if this was a mistranslation. Unfortunately, I did not check the Portuguese menu at the time and this restaurant does not have its menu on-line. Two large pieces of fish, simply presented and perfectly cooked went down well.

Wrasse, Restaurante Tricolore, Estrada Monumental

Salt Cod became a Portuguese staple in the days before refrigeration and they still eat it, on Madeira as well as the mainland. Lynne’s perfectly cooked slab of cod, hid beneath a pile of caramelised onions.

Salt Cod, unnamed restaurant at the top of Rua do Gorgulho

Squid is on every menu and we both ate squid, though at different restaurants on different days. In the Algarve the norm is one or two larger squid grilled or a multitude of small squid given a different treatment. On both occasions here we had four or five smallish squid. Occasionally the boiled potato rule is relaxed for squid and it is served with rice.

Grilled squid and rice, Restaurante Tricolore, Estrada Monumental

Octopus is common in the Algarve and almost always cooked à lagareiro. Nearby restaurants in Funchal offered more variety, but my choice of Octopus Rice was not a great one. It was cheaper than most main courses and very pleasant, but I would have liked more octopus – you get what you pay for, the error was mine for choosing it.

Octopus rice, Mad Market Restaurant, Estrada Monumnetal

Arroz de Marisco (Rice with seafood) is a particular favourite of mine. Traditionally a bowl for two is brought to the table and given a judicious stir by the waiter before ladling out the first portions. The seafood content can depend on what is available in the market that day but I suspect the differences from our expectations were because this is Madeira - though it might be the restaurant. The basic flavours were good and the bowl was near-inexhaustible as it should be, the seafood was plentiful and well-cooked but there was only squid, mussels and prawns. In the Algarve you also expect langoustine, a crab claw and maybe a leg or two as well. I also prefer seafood served in its shell (except for squid!) getting your hands messy, is all part of the fun. Well-made as it was, I found this a little disappointing.

Arroz de mariscos- nothing wrong with what's there, but what's missing lets it down
Reaturante Tricolore, Estrada Monumental

Meat Main Courses

Espedata is basically a kebab - not to be confused with espada, (scabbard fish) and espadarte (swordfish) as at least two of these three words appear on every menu. The traditional food of a festa, of which Madeira has many, espedata is no common-or-garden kebab. Large chunks of beef are rubbed in garlic, salt and bay leaf and marinated for 4 to 6 hours in Madeira wine, red wine vinegar and olive oil then skewered on a laurel stick and grilled over glowing wood chips.

Espedata, with our irascible host caught in his own mirror, Restaurante Tokos, Estrada Monumental

We ate espedatas at a relatively expensive restaurant run by an elderly and mildly eccentric chef-patron. To our request for a poncha he replied sharply, ‘No, poncha is a bar drink, this is a restaurant.’ That told us – though he is out of step with every other restaurant on the island. We had a glass of Madeira instead, medium dry Verdelho, the only Madeira (as opposed to Vinho Madeirense – see below) we drank, other than ‘free’ samples.

He had grown the potatoes for the chips himself, he told us, and they were good, but his steak was the joint-best I have ever eaten, equalling the slab of Welsh Black I enjoyed at the Abercrave (sic) Inn in Abercrâf on the edge of the Brecon Beacons in 2007. Cooked rare as requested it was richly flavoured, juicy and hit the perfect spot on the tender-to-tough spectrum.

Carne de Vinho e Alhos or as the English menus put it, 'Meat, Wine, Garlic', is another traditional festival dish. The ‘meat’ is pork and this dish was traditionally eaten at the time of the annual pig slaughter a few weeks before Christmas. The pork should be marinated for three days in white wine, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Mine, unfortunately was not good, the fat free meat was  very dry. There were, though a few very welcome olives on the plate. A big difference between Madeira and the Algarve is the paucity of olives here; on the mainland olive munching is obligatory twice daily, at least.

A not so successful 'meat, wine, garlic', Unnamed restaurant lower down Rua do Gorgulho

Lamb. Meanwhile at the other end of the table, Lynne’s lamb was fine, and no worse for being unassociated with any festival.

A very satisfactory lamb chop
Unnamed restaurant lower down Rua do Gorgulho

Desserts

Restaurants in Funchal do not apparently offer the same variety of bolos (cakes) and tartes as their Algarve counterparts. There is a pastry called mel de cana (sugar cane honey) and a cake called bolo de mel which are made from sugar cane without any bee input, but neither came our way. I had a Tricolore Cake as a dessert which was good, though not great, and didn’t have three colours.

Pineapple. Madeira produces custard apples, passion fruit, papaya and other tropical fruits, but only pineapples seemed to appear on dessert menus. Pineapple with Madeira wine after my scabbardfish was pleasant, but the irascible chef took a slab of pineapple, flambéed it in Grand Marnier and popped some vanilla ice-cream on top, and that was a joy. Everything he did was simple, but perfectly executed using the finest ingredients, so I happily forgive his high prices.

Pineapple flambéed in Grand Marnier , Restuarante Tokos

Pudim Flan (Caramel custard), is ubiquitous throughout Portugal. It slides down so easily, it is the perfect dessert if you are a bit full, and sometimes it is just the perfect dessert. Rarely it can go wrong and Lynne did have a poor one – milk is used to make them, but it should not taste of milk – but she had another at a different and that was exactly as it should be.

Pudim flan, bordering on perfection, Restaurante Tricolore, Estrada Monumental

Coffee

A Portuguese espresso is known as bica. Short, sharp but never bitter, it is a fine way to end a meal.

Bica

Wines

DOP Madeira

DOP (Denominação de Origem Protegida) Madeira, for historical reasons usually just known as ‘Madeira’ was the wine used to toast the American Declaration of Independence. It is a fortified wine and apart from the one occasion noted above we did not drink Madeira in any restaurants. We did, though, visit two Madeira producers Blandys - see Funchal (1) and Barbeito in Câmara de Lobos and I delve into that story then

DOP Madeirense

Madeirense is the designation for the island's quality table wines. As most grape production goes for making Madeira, Madeirense is produced in small quantities by about a dozen wineries, making it relatively expensive. In restaurants a standard cuvée costs €22 - €26, about double what you might pay for a similar quality wine on the mainland.

With our two meat meals we drank Alentejo reds, more expensive in Madeira than on their home turf, but cheaper than Madeirense. The Mad Market Restaurant could not offer a Madeirense at a price I was prepared to pay, so we drank Alentejo branco. With our other four dinners we drank Madeirense.

DOP Madeirense. There is condensation of the glass, the wine was crystal clear

Barbusano Verdelho. Quinta do Barbusano, at São Vicente on the north coast of the island, produces all its white wine from the premium Verdelho grape. A mineral flavour with citrus backbone, some find tropical fruits in it as well. A long, clean finish

Barbusano Verdelho

Atlantis Verdelho. Atlantis is a brand of the Madeira Wine Company who own most major producers of Madeira. Their Verdelho is a less accomplished and complex version than Barbusano’s, it tends to be a little cheaper too.

Atlantis Verdelho

Terrabona Arnsburger Terrabona is a Funchal winery, Arnsburger is a little-known Riesling cross. A fresh, minerally wine with more apple than citrus, it lacks the clean metallic flavour that Riesling crosses sometimes inherit. Not my favourite Madeirense.

Terrabona Branco

Terras do Avo Branco. Sells on-line in the UK for £20+. I cannot put it better than Roger Stewart on Vivino.com. Fairly acceptable but unmemorable Madeiran white wine. Very slightly off dry, somewhat savoury - a little like a Viognier in some respects. I want better than that for the price. I dislike the label, too.

Terras do Avo

…And Finally

Looking through my photos, I feel they might suggest that Madeiran food is a slab of meat or fish, a few spuds - or sometimes a little rice - and salad. And to certain extent it is, but we ate these meals for a week and they never felt repetitive. The focus of each dish, from black scabbardfish to squid to steak was extremely varied.

Portuguese cuisine can be complex, but the basic philosophy is simple: find the best ingredients available, and let them speak for themselves. To claim that Madeira has taken this principle and refined it even further, would be to suggest that having eaten 14 meals (between us) in five restaurants in one district of Funchal, we fully understand the cuisine of Madeira. Of course, we don’t, but we have, maybe, found our way up to base camp. Sadly, we may never go any higher, but it was fun taking these first few steps.

Madeira

Introduction
Part 1: A First Look at Central Funchal
Part 2: Mercado and Monte Palace Gardens
Part 3: Funchal to Santana
Part 4: Eira do Serrado and Câmara de Lobos
Part 5: Photography Museum and Madeira Botanical Garden
Part 6:Eating and Drinking