Malassada is a Portuguese fried pastry from the Azores. It is a type of doughnut, made of flattened rounds of yeasted dough, coated with sugar and cinnamon or accompanied with molasses.[1]
The name malassada is often used interchangeably with filhós.[2] However, according to the Direção-Geral de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural (DGARD),[a] these two regional pastries are distinct―the Azorean malassada is made during Carnaval,[1] while the filhósofPenedono is made with brandy and olive oil instead of milk and is enjoyed year-round.[3] Another similar pastry from the Central RegionisCascoréis da Guarda.[4]
The malassada is believed to be derived from the filhós from mainland Portugal and Madeira, a product of the growing sugar industry during the sixteenth century.[5] It was exported throughout Macaronesia, where it was introduced to the Azores and Canary Islands, reaching as far as Brazil during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[6]
Malassadas were first described in the Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa in 1609, and recorded in the ledgers of the Convento da EncarnaçãoinLisbon between 1688 and 1762.[7]
The Gastronomia Tradicional da Madeira e do Porto Santo describes the mal-assada (lit.'badly-baked') referring to the "undercooked" dough inside.[8] However, another version asserts it was previously made using mel (Portuguese: molasses), having been named melassadasormelaçadas.[1]
In 1878, Portuguese laborers from Madeira and the Azores immigrated to Hawaii to work in the plantations.[7] They brought with them their traditional foods, including malassadas―where it is now commonly spelled as malasadas.[10] In the past, Catholic Portuguese immigrants shared it with friends of other ethnicities in the plantation camps.[11]
Today, there are numerous bakeries in the Hawaiian Islands specializing in malassadas where it is made around the year.[12] While traditional Portuguese malassadas do not have any type of filling, in Hawaii they are smaller but proportionally thicker, are sometimes filled with custard or creams flavored with coconut, chocolate, lilikoi (passion fruit), guava, mango, ube, or pineapple.[13] In Hawaii, Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) is known as "Malasada Day".[11]
In the United States, malassadas are cooked in many Portuguese homes on Fat Tuesday. It is a tradition where the older children take the warm doughnuts and roll them in sugar while the eldest woman – mother or grandmother – cooks them.
^an official Portuguese governmental office that inventories and defines the many traditional foods of Portugal
^ abcFernandes, Daniel. "Malassadas". Produtos Tradicionais Portugueses (in Portuguese). Direção-Geral de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
^Fernandes, Daniel. "Filhoses". Produtos Tradicionais Portugueses. Direção-Geral de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
^Fernandes, Daniel. "Cascoréis da Guarda". Produtos Tradicionais Portugueses. Direção-Geral de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
^Tiago, Flávio; Fonseca, Josélia; Chaves, Duarte; Borges-Tiago, Teresa (May 2021). "4. A look into the trilogy: food, tourism, and cultural entrepreneurship". In Medeiros, Teresa; Moniz, Ana Isabel; Tomás, Licínio; Silva, Osvaldo; Vieira, Virgílio; Ferreira, Joaquim Armando (eds.). Turismo sénior: Abordagens, sustentabilidade e boas práticas. TU-Sénior55+, Projeto de investigação. pp. 90–91. ISBN978-989-53123-2-0. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
^ abcPinheiro, Joaquim; Soares, Carmen (30 August 2016). Patrimónios Alimentares de Aquém e Além-Mar (in Portuguese). Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra / Coimbra University Press. pp. 251–252. ISBN978-989-26-1190-7.
^Gastronomia Tradicional da Madeira e do Porto Santo. Funchal: Servico de Publicacoes da DRAC (Coord.), SRCC e DRAC. 2013.