Cozido das Furnas

At the edge of Lagoa das Furnas on Sao Miguel the ground is hot enough to cook in. Restaurants in the village hold numbered holes in a fenced field of steaming vents, and each morning they lower a tall pot into one: beef, pork, chicken, chourico and blood sausage layered with cabbage, potato, sweet potato, carrot and yam, with no liquid added at all. The hole is covered over with earth and left for five to seven hours, so the food cooks in wet volcanic heat rather than over a fire. The pots are dug out late morning, driven back to the village and served at lunch, soft and faintly mineral.

What you actually see

• The cooking field - numbered holes steaming beside the lake, opened at midday.
• The lifting - pots hauled up on ropes and loaded into vans for the village.
• The pot itself - meat and root vegetables layered and cooked without liquid.
• The Furnas vents - the wider field of fumaroles and hot springs around it.

When to go

Lunch, because that is the only time it exists; order it the day before, since each pot is cooked to order. The digging out happens late morning and can be watched from the path around the field. Furnas is comfortable year-round and wet in winter, and the valley around it is at its best in spring.

Honest expectations

It is a plain boiled dinner, and some people find it bland after the theatre of the hole in the ground. Portions are enormous and the meat is soft to the point of collapse. The cooking field smells strongly of sulphur, which puts a few people off eating at all. Restaurants often need a day's notice and fill up in summer.

Nearby

The Furnas hot springs, the Terra Nostra garden and the lakeside path.