Canarian cooking makes more sense once you see where each part comes from. There is a pre-Hispanic layer that never went away, gofio; an American layer that reached these islands before it reached the continent, the potato and the maize; and an Atlantic port layer, with salt fish and the spices that came and went on the ships. Almost everything you will eat comes out of those three.
This guide to Canarian food goes dish by dish: what each one is, which island does it best, and how to build a trip around the table. To go from the plan to something bookable, there are the excursions in the Canary Islands.
Gofio, the oldest thing you will taste
Gofio is toasted, milled grain, and it is the only food eaten today exactly as it was before the conquest. The old Canarians made it from barley; now it is also made from wheat and from millo, the local word for maize. It has held a protected geographical indication since 1994.
It is not a flour for cooking, it is a food in itself, and it turns up three ways:
- Escaldón de gofio. Gofio broken down in hot broth, usually fish or stew broth, into a thick mass eaten with raw onion on top. It is the dish that puzzles people most the first time and the one that hooks them afterwards.
- Gofio amasado. Kneaded with water, oil or banana into a roll and cut into slices. Field food, and what the shepherd carried in his bag.
- With milk or coffee. A couple of spoonfuls at breakfast. Still normal in many households.
And a pella of gofio, that compact ball sitting beside the fish, is not decoration: you pinch a bit off with every mouthful.
Papas arrugadas and mojo
Papas arrugadas are small potatoes boiled in heavily salted water, skins on, until the water goes and the skin is left wrinkled and salty. You eat the skin; peeling them loses the whole point.
Here is the fact that surprises people: the potato reached the Canaries straight from South America, and early. A document from 1567 records a shipment of potatoes from Gran Canaria to Antwerp, one of the first traces of the potato in Europe. From those varieties come the papas antiguas de Canarias, with a protected designation of their own: the bonita, the negra yema de huevo, the borralla. If you see them on a menu, order them.
Mojo comes in two versions and they are not interchangeable. Mojo picón, the red one, has dried pepper, garlic, cumin and paprika, and goes with meat and with the potatoes. The green one has coriander or parsley and goes with fish. Simple rule: red for what walks, green for what swims.
Tenerife wine tour with hotel pickup: Casa del Vino and Bodegas Monje
Tenerife wine route: to get to know a place, few things work as well as sitting down to taste what people eat and drink there. That is what this day is about. We leave the south of the island for La Laguna, a UNESCO...
- La Laguna
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Spoon food: puchero, rancho, sancocho and ropa vieja
- Puchero canario. The islands’ boiled dinner: chickpeas, meat and a long list of vegetables that nearly always includes pumpkin, sweet potato, corn cob and Canarian courgette. The broth is taken separately, with gofio.
- Rancho canario. A thick soup of fat noodles, chickpeas, potatoes and meat. Winter and village-fiesta food, and the best thing there is after a morning in the hills.
- Sancocho canario. Salt fish, usually cherne, soaked and boiled with potatoes and sweet potato, served with a pella of gofio and mojo. It is the Easter dish, though it is eaten all year.
- Ropa vieja. Chickpeas with shredded beef and chicken and potatoes, all fried together. It began as a way of using up yesterday’s puchero and ended up a dish in its own right.
The meat: conejo en salmorejo and carne fiesta
Conejo en salmorejo is the great dish of Canarian cooking. Mind the name: it has nothing to do with the cold Andalusian soup. Here salmorejo is a marinade of garlic, white wine, paprika, thyme, oregano and bay, in which the rabbit sits overnight before being slowly stewed. It is what you order in a guachinche if you are only ordering one thing.
Carne fiesta is its tapa version: cubes of pork marinated in the same mixture and fried, served with potatoes. The name comes from what was eaten at neighbourhood fiestas, and it is on almost every menu in the north.
Where to eat both: in a guachinche, the home eating house in northern Tenerife where the family serves the wine from its own harvest.
The cheeses, which are the islands’ real treasure
The Canaries have more goats per head than anywhere else in Spain, and out of that come four cheeses with protected designations that win international prizes every year.
- Queso majorero, from Fuerteventura, from majorera goat’s milk. In 1996 it became the first Spanish goat’s cheese to earn a designation of origin. Try it fresh, then smoked, then rubbed with paprika or gofio.
- Queso palmero, from La Palma, smoked over almond shells and pine or prickly pear.
- Queso Flor de Guía, from Gran Canaria, curdled with cardoon flower instead of animal rennet, which leaves a bitterness at the finish unlike anything else.
- Queso herreño, from El Hierro, a blend of goat, sheep and cow, also smoked.
And cured cheese is what makes almogrote, which is from La Gomera and deserves its own paragraph: old cheese grated and pounded with garlic, pepper and oil into a paste you spread on bread. It began as a way of using cheese that had gone too hard to slice. It is what people take home in their luggage.
The puddings, which hardly anyone tries and are half the story
- Bienmesabe. Ground almond, egg yolk, sugar and lemon in a thick cream, eaten on its own, with ice cream or over sponge. It is from La Palma and Tenerife, and the name says it all: it tastes good to me.
- Frangollo. Coarse maize meal cooked with milk, sugar, lemon and cinnamon, with raisins and almonds on top. It was the children’s tea and now it is on dessert menus.
- Miel de palma. La Gomera’s speciality, and no bees involved: it is the sap of the Canary palm, tapped at night and boiled down to a dark syrup. It goes over fresh cheese, over ice cream and over the bienmesabe itself.
- Quesadillas from El Hierro. Small individual cheese pastries with anise, lemon and cinnamon, with a star shape you recognise at once.
- Príncipe Alberto. From Vilaflor, in Tenerife: chocolate and hazelnut mousse over sponge. Modern next to the others, and on half the island’s menus.
The Canarian banana, which is not the same fruit
It is smaller, sweeter and more aromatic than the imported banana, and the difference is not marketing: it ripens on the plant for considerably longer, and in that time it stores more sugar. It has held a protected geographical indication since 2013.
The black speckles on the skin are not a flaw or a sign it has gone over: they are the mark that it has reached its point. A Canarian banana with no speckles is still green inside.
The wine, and why it is different here
Phylloxera, the blight that destroyed Europe’s vineyards in the late nineteenth century, never reached the Canaries. Ungrafted, own-rooted vines survive here, along with varieties that vanished from the continent: listán negro, malvasía volcánica, marmajuelo, vijariego. Tenerife alone has five designations of origin.
The most direct way to understand it is a tasting, and you need to know nothing beforehand: the basics are in wine tasting for beginners. Winery visits with lunch are in food and wine tours in Tenerife.
What to order on each island
| Island | What not to leave without trying |
|---|---|
| Tenerife | Conejo en salmorejo and carne fiesta in a guachinche, Tacoronte wine, príncipe Alberto |
| Gran Canaria | Queso Flor de Guía, sancocho, ropa vieja and the coffee from the Agaete valley, the only one grown in Europe |
| Lanzarote | Malvasía wine from La Geria and fish grilled whole in the northern villages |
| Fuerteventura | Queso majorero in its three versions and fish by weight in Las Playitas or El Cotillo |
| La Gomera | Almogrote, miel de palma and watercress stew |
| La Palma | Smoked queso palmero, bienmesabe and vino de tea |
| El Hierro | Quesadillas, queso herreño and fish from La Restinga |
How to build the trip around the table
- Markets, in the morning. Nuestra Señora de África in Santa Cruz, Vegueta in Las Palmas and the farmers’ market in Tacoronte at weekends. That is where the cheeses that never leave the island are.
- A guachinche at midday, in northern Tenerife, with nothing demanding planned for the rest of the day.
- A winery with lunch rather than a tasting on its own: wine makes more sense with food in front of it.
- Fish where there is a harbour, not where there is a promenade. In the fishing villages you order by weight and pick the piece.
Guided outings with pick-up are in food and wine tours in Tenerife and food and wine tours in Fuerteventura, and the rest of the catalogue is in excursions in the Canary Islands.
