Madagascar Restaurants

When Madame embarked on her quest, Madagascar was at the tail end of 60 years of French Colonial rule. French cooking had practically wiped out the traditional Malagasy table. 'We knew about our cuisine', she recalls, 'but no-one was serving it. So you see, I was the first'. And much as a shuffle of restaurants have subsequently followed suit, none has achieved quite the same level of intimacy, detail or sophistication.

Here, the lines between food, culinary science and visual art blur with the likes of Zebu beef steaks, picked into painfully fine strands, then deep-fried in their own grease. The fresh carp has been rolled into brochettes and prepared with its own neon orange caviar. Even the zanadandy, or silkworm pupae, are beyond reproach. 'You should try one', Madame quips mischievously. 'They're an aphrodisiac'.

We eat and eat and eat. A goose arrives - it has been cooked overnight - served with black pudding. Then a romazava, the clear soup most Malagasy subsist on. Madame's romazava however, is her own creation: a mix of fresh fish, prawns and languostines, delicately flavoured with a rare algae, found only off the Malagasy coast. Then a chicken stew, spiced with ginger and bitter vegetables. The fact that I'm running late for a key appointment with the editor of one of the country's dailies, pales quickly under the warm thunder of Madame's hospitality. 'Pah', she snorts. 'I know the man. He'll understand. He's an artist'.

To be sure, she dials his number on her mobile phone, and promptly explains where cuisine fits into the country's priorities. 'It is the vector of tourism', she concludes, turning to me.

'I should come to South Africa some time', she continues. 'I should come and find your best local ingredients and prepare a meal of the highest, French culinary standards. Ah, yes', she commands, distracted by the sight of the waiter, 'the koba ...'.

I've already tried koba on the streets here. And I'm not quite sold on this Cinderella of a cake the hawkers slice so finely and spear onto a scrap of newspaper for busy commuters. But Madame's koba has come to the ball. It is a song of wild honey and minced pistachios, served with a sweet, orange papaya coulis.

Somehow the papaya tastes sweeter here than it would somewhere else. It could be softness of the light or the warm, naive smiles of the Malagasy. More likely, it's simply the thrill of this oddest of feasts, served here in this oddest of places, that tingles so in my throat.

Coffee time, and Madame is happily oblivious to any sense of urgency. One glass of French red and she trades her pompous professionalism for a string of warm anecdotes and deliciously dry asides. My watch ticks as a box of photographs transpires. This cooking demonstration in Canada. The time she cooked for Mitterand. Then, 'Oh, I should never have sent my children to study in Europe. Une grande erreur! They've all become hypochondriacs, you understand. When they come here for their holidays, it's one little scratch and they're moaning for medicines'.

Through the sarcasm, there is warmth, and through it all, there is passion. Even in the slickest of Western establishments, this perfectionism would reach rare standards; here in this bizarre, dilapated paradise, it is all the more poignant. The richest of culinary traditions in the poorest of African states. Haute uptightness, here, on the most laid-back of islands.

In a final plea to take my leave, I tell Madame I'm journeying to the East Coast this evening, to the pretty, pirate island of Sainte Marie. Any recommendations? Madame shrugs. Tosses her small, dark pupils up under her eyelids in despair, then reluctantly, lets me in on a certain noteworthy dish. 'The resort is called Le Crique, she winks, 'and actually, I hear they do a chicken in coconut milk which is not all bad'.

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