Discover an inventive cuisine that mixes exotic dishes with international specialities in most
restaurants of big hotels. Then indulge yourself in tasting a more authentic cuisine at any
“hotely gasy” or at a Malagasy family table.
The Malagasy staple is rice, which is eaten with a variety of sauces, meat, vegetables and spicy seasoning.The Malagasy are the greatest rice consumer in the world.
No wonder it is included in a number of proverbs (Love is like a small rice plant: transplanted, it grows somewhere else,…) and comprises several varieties such as the red rice called “Rojomena”, endemic in Madagascar, with honey and hazel flavour.
Traditional dishes include “ro” (beef or pork marinated in vinegar, water and oil, then cooked with leaves, onion, pickles and other vegetables and seasoned with hot peppers), “ravitoto” (a mixture of boiled meat -zebu or pork - with manioc leaves), “romazava” (meat, bredes - a kind of spinach - and onion stew), and coconut rice. Many dishes are accompanied by achards, a hot, pickled vegetable curry But a few specialities are worth discovering (“tsikorakorana”, “drakaka” or big crab, “amalona” or eel).
The seafood on the coast is excellent and cheap, and you can eat a range of tropical fruits
Malagasy drinks include “litchel” (an aperitif made from litchis), “betsa” (fermented alcohol) and “toaka gasy” (distilled from cane sugar and rice). Around Ambalavao and Fianarantsoa, they produce several excellent wines, including a “gris”.