A piece of ear anyone?

We decided to have a light lunch of traditional Madeira soup at the mall. I'll try anything once, and this was my 'once'....what you see here is a chunk of pigs ear!!! (and a bean) Nor had a different type of soup, but she also decided to 'do what the Romans do' and tried a piece. YUM. NOT.


Col is used to the cuisine obviously so found it funny when we crunched our way through these grisly morsel with flared nostrils. Ok, so we were spared the whole roast rabbit, unformed chicken eggs, pig nose and fish heads, and I'm really happy that we tried the ear, but I don't think I would queue up for this dish again.


Col came to fetch us from the Marina and take us to do a little last minute shopping for the family before we left. We went to a mall called 'Madeira shopping' which is not unlike one of our smaller malls. We found the prices of clothing, and especially food, very comparable to SA prices.

The very obvious difference was the European influence in the womens clothing...the colors, textiles and fashions were all very different to what we're used to here. Also, the sizes could cause clinical depression in a SA woman shopper! Madeiran people on average, have started to 'grow' somewhat over the last two generations due to Germanic and English genes but sheeeeesh!... the dresses.....well put it this way, if you don't mind looking like a sister of 'Joseph', if one is lacking a cleavage or your legs resemble the geographical map of the great rivers of the world.....you wont want a dress from Madeira. True, the fact that I don't often wear a dress may have made it doubly difficult...but Goodness Grape juice, I couldn't even get my head around buying one for my daughters!