Food History of Funchal

Key eras

1420s to 1500, sugar cane and white gold

Portuguese settlement began in 1420 and sugar cane, brought from Sicily, became the island's first export. Funchal grew rich enough on it that Madeiran sugar helped halve the European price by the end of the century. The residue of that trade is still eaten: bolo de mel de cana is made from sugarcane molasses, and aguardente de cana distilled from the same crop is the base of poncha.

15th to 17th century, the Malvasia vine

Prince Henry ordered the Malvasia vine planted on the newly settled island so Portugal could compete with the Venetian and Genoese wine trade. Wine grew alongside sugar for two centuries, and by the end of the 17th century it had overtaken cane as the island's principal export. Vines were trained on pergolas above the terraces, a method still visible on Madeiran smallholdings.

18th century, the wine that travelled

Madeira sat on the Atlantic route to the Americas and Asia, so barrels were loaded as ballast and crossed the tropics twice. Heat and motion did not spoil the wine, they improved it. Producers fortified with brandy and eventually reproduced the effect on land through the canteiro method, ageing casks in warm lofts. Blandy's and H.M. Borges still age this way in Funchal.

20th century, the market and the modern table

The Mercado dos Lavradores opened in 1940 to an Edmundo Tavares design, pulling the island's growers and fishermen into one tiled building and fixing what a Funchal kitchen could buy. Tourism followed the flying boats and then the airport, and by the 2020s the island held Michelin stars at The Cliff Bay, Reid's Palace and a rooftop above Rua das Maravilhas.

Immigrant influences

• Portuguese mainland settlers: Brought bacalhau, the pastel de nata tradition and the tasca model of cheap plated lunches that still fills central Funchal dining rooms at midday.
• Sicilian and Genoese sugar traders: Introduced cane cultivation and the milling knowledge behind molasses, which survives as bolo de mel de cana and in the aguardente used for poncha.
• British wine merchants: Settled in Funchal from the 17th century to trade Madeira, founding lodges that still stand on Avenida Arriaga and fixing tea drinking into the local afternoon.
• Returning Venezuelan and South African Madeirans: Emigrant families who came home from the 1980s brought arepa counters, Latin bakery habits and a taste for tropical fruit that the market now sells year round.

Signature innovations

• The canteiro method, ageing wine in warm lofts instead of shipping it round the tropics
• Espetada threaded on a fresh bay-laurel branch so the wood seasons the beef as it cooks
• Bolo do caco, a sweet-potato flatbread baked on a hot basalt stone rather than in an oven
• Poncha, aguardente de cana cut with honey and citrus and stirred with a caralhinho
• Bolo de mel de cana, a molasses cake kept for a year and cut by hand rather than knife