
Rising above the water along the mid-Atlantic ridge are the Azores, nine pristine volcanic islands scattered like jewels in the world’s second largest ocean.
Gleaming with natural beauty, they sit some 900 miles from the western coast of Portugal.
The nine islands are clustered in three groups: Sao Miguel and Santa Maria are easternmost; Terceira, Sao Jorge, Pico, Faial and Graciosa sit in the middle of the archipelago; and Flores and tiny Corvo make up the western flank.
The Azores are a full third of the way to North America, so it’s no wonder they remained unnoticed until the 14th century when they appear on the Catalan Atlas, the most important map of the Medieval period.
Despite this recognition, they were void of human settlement for at least another hundred years until a sea captain sailing for Prince Henry the Navigator landed in the early 15th century and claimed the islands for Portugal.
It is posited that explorer Goncalo Velho Cabral was the trailblazer in question; however, the historical record provides no certainty of this, though it is confirmed that he gathered settlers and resources to establish colonies on the easternmost islands, Santa Maria and Sao Miguel.
Until recent decades, the people who lived in the Azores were almost entirely self-sufficient, eating what they grew, raised, milked, or gleaned from the sea. Their distance from the European mainland made imported products expensive, as well as difficult to obtain.
In addition, each island was self-sustainable, as there tended to be very little travel between them.
Even today, when air travel between islands is possible, most Azoreans will travel to mainland Portugal, the U.S., or other parts of Europe and the world before going to another island in the archipelago.
Azorean cuisine is rich and hearty, its rustic, peasant quality differentiating it from the food of mainland Portugal.
One-pot soups and stews based on locally harvested vegetables, seafood, or meat, often with bread added for heartiness, are a staple.
Dried beans, particularly fava, tomatoes, and robust vegetables such as potatoes and cabbage figure prominently in Azorean cooking.
With the Azores home to the biggest sea zone in Europe, seafood is abundant, and many a meal revolves around what was gathered from the sea that day, whether, for example, mackerel, lamprey eels or octopus.
Caldeirade de peixe, a fish and potato stew, is popular throughout the islands, as are grilled limpets and fresh lobster.
Tuna, one of the Azores’ most popular fish, are pulled large from the sea.
Azoreans are known for their cheesemaking, and It would be an understatement to say that rich dairy foods are beloved throughout the islands.

Fifty percent of the cheese in Portugal is from the Azores, where dairy cows are ubiquitous. (At last count, there were roughly 20,000 of them that graze on the island’s lush green hills.)
Sao Jorge, a semi-hard, aged cheese with a mild but full and buttery flavor, is particularly popular and made on the island for which it’s named.
Cheese served with bread (sometimes with jam or condiments) is a favorite breakfast, snack or appetizer and is enjoyed any time of day.
Cozido (meaning “cooked”) is a quintessentially Azorean dish and can only be had in the geothermally active Sao Miguel town of Furnas, where stew is cooked for hours in the hot volcanic soil.
Massa di pimiento, a spicy, salty, sweet red pepper paste is a popular seasoning, as is flor de acafroa, also known as safflower, a colorful spice similar to Spanish saffron.
Azoreans love their desserts, and pastries and puddings of all types abound. A sweet that’s prevalent throughout the islands is queijada, a tiny tartlet made with flour, egg, butter, and sugar.
The Azores is home to the only two tea plantations in Europe, both on the island of Sao Miguel.
Camellia sinensis, the shrub that produces tea leaves, was found growing wild in the Azores in the late 1800s, and now verdant rows of these evergreen plants are cultivated, rising beautifully above the bright blue Atlantic.
Each plantation has a factory on site to process the tea, with one using the original equipment from the 19th century.
Coffee is also grown in the Azores; Sao Jorge in particular has a microclimate in which coffee bushes thrive.
Though some islands might experience light dustings of snow, temperatures remain relatively mild in the Azores year-round, unusual for such a northerly location, due mainly to its distance from continents and its proximity to the Gulf Stream.
For this reason, the Azores are rife with fruits such as bananas, passion fruit and a variety of citrus, which thrive in the islands’ rich microclimates.
Resourceful Azoreans make liqueurs from such exotic fruits, and wine is commonly made from grapes grown in home vineyards.
The island of Pico, whose volcano is the tallest mountain in Portugal, is renowned for wines made from grapes grown in lava-rich soils which were favored by Russian Czars in the 19th century.
Its vineyards surrounded by centuries-old stone walls are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Pineapples, typically smaller than those here, are extremely popular and are grown in greenhouses (or “estufas” in Portuguese) throughout the islands.
In a method discovered during an accidental greenhouse fire, smoke is infused into the estufas when the pineapples are ten or eleven months into their 18-month growing cycle. This forces all the plantings to flower simultaneously, which makes for an easier harvest.
The Azores, and particularly the island of Faial, are known for the explosion of blue hydrangeas prolific there in the summer months thanks to the acidity of its volcanic soil.
Introduced to the Azores in the 17th century, hydrangeas now grow abundantly in the wild and are a popular point of interest for flora-appreciating tourists.
And speaking of Faial, I spent one recent afternoon with Azorean friend Noele DaRosa, who generously shared her memories of growing up on that beautiful island.
Typical of the Azores, her family was self-sustaining, and I enjoyed hearing memories of, among many other things, her mother’s homemade cheese, her father’s winemaking, and their gathering limpets from the sea for a favorite childhood dish.
DaRosa hired me some years ago to prepare a Portuguese birthday luncheon. Creating Bacalhau con Nata (Salt Cod with Cream) and Caldo Verde (Green Broth Soup) for her celebratory meal was my first introduction to food from that part of the world.
The recipe that follows for Caldo Verde is thusly inspired, and I owe a debt of gratitude to DaRosa for that and for the magnanimous sharing of her time and recollections.

Caldo Verde
The original recipe includes a quarter pound of sliced Portuguese sausage, which can be added if a meaty version is preferred.
6 cups vegetable broth
5 medium starchy potatoes, like Yukon Gold, peeled and quartered, about 5 cups
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped, about ½ cup
1 tablespoon coarse salt, or to taste
1 bunch, about 1-1/2 pounds before trimming, Swiss chard, cut into thin chiffonade (flat-leaf kale or collard greens may also be used)
5 tablespoons olive oil
In a 4-quart stockpot, combine the broth, potatoes and onion. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low, season with salt, then simmer until the potatoes are very tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.
Trim the chard leaves off the central stem; wash and drain leaves. Cut into thin chiffonade, with the strands no longer than a couple of inches in length. Continue cutting until you have about 6 cups. Set aside.
When the potatoes are cooked, puree the contents of the soup pot to a smooth consistency. Return to a boil.
Add the reserved greens and the olive oil. Simmer until the greens are bright green and tender but not mushy, about 5 minutes.
Though variations in the ratio of broth to potatoes varies from cook to cook, the soup’s consistency should be like light cream. If too thick, it can be thinned with water, beginning with about ½ cup. (Note that Portuguese soups typically thicken as they cool due to the starch they contain.)
Esther Oertel is a writer and passionate home cook from a family of chefs. She grew up in a restaurant, where she began creating recipes from a young age. She’s taught culinary classes in a variety of venues in Lake County and previously wrote “The Veggie Girl” column for Lake County News. Most recently she’s taught culinary classes at Sur La Table in Santa Rosa, Calif. She lives in Middletown, Calif.