What is bolo do caco?

Bolo do caco is the bread you will be handed within about an hour of arriving in Madeira, and it is the one people ask me about on the way to the airport at the end.

What is bolo do caco?

A round, flat, soft bread, cooked on a hot stone rather than in an oven. It comes out with a pale, slightly scorched crust and a chewy inside. It is almost always split while still warm and spread thickly with garlic butter and parsley.

Recipes vary from bakery to bakery, and some include sweet potato in the dough, which is where the faint sweetness comes from when you notice it.

Why is it called bolo do caco?

The caco is the flat stone slab it was traditionally baked on. So the name describes the method, not the bread. Bolo here means a round loaf rather than a cake, which trips up most people reading a menu for the first time.

Is it just garlic bread?

Not quite, and the difference is worth knowing before you order. Garlic bread is usually baked with the garlic already in or on it. Bolo do caco is a plain flatbread that meets the garlic butter at the last moment, after it has been split open and while it is still hot enough to melt it.

That is why it matters that it reaches you warm. Cold bolo do caco with set butter is a different and much sadder object.

What do you eat it with?

Three ways, in rising order of commitment.

On its own, as the thing that arrives before the meal, which is how most people meet it.

Alongside espetada, the beef skewer. This is the classic pairing and the bread does real work mopping up what the meat leaves behind.

As a sandwich, which is where it becomes lunch. There are many versions of the prego, but my favourite is the prego especial: warm, crunchy bolo do caco coated in garlic butter, a tender beef steak, then lettuce, tomato, cheese, ham and a fried egg. It is not a light meal and it is not trying to be.

Where should you try it?

Anywhere it is being made on the day. Market stalls and small local places will usually have it fresher than a hotel breakfast buffet, and festivals are where you will see it cooked in quantity in front of you.

The rule is the same as it is for poncha. Fresh matters more than famous.

On my food walk through Funchal it is one of the first things we stop for, warm and straight off the grill, because it sets up everything that comes after it.