Girgilada, once a prime component of the traditional Christmas consuada, has now almost faded from collective memory. A simple, wafer-thin toffee made of sugar and sesame seeds (gingelly), it was deceptively difficult to prepare well despite its seemingly spare list of ingredients. Few knew how to execute it correctly.

For reasons we can only speculate upon, this sweet has all but disappeared.

At the time of writing, we attempted to locate anyone still making girgilada but were unsuccessful. Fernando, however, recalls his aunt (his father’s sister) preparing it for export to Africa. Being a child at the time, he remembers little of its method beyond its existence and purpose.

Only a single recipe for girgilada currently exists online, published by Celebration in My Kitchen. The recipe proudly—and factually—states that it is the first and only documented recipe of its kind. However, on closer inspection, it only partially meets the historical brief. While it does present a sesame-based sugar confection, the original girgilada is consistently described as wafer thin, closer to a brittle or pulled sugar sheet than a thick toffee.

This raises an important question: what happened to girgilada, also known as doce de gingelli?

Was it a casualty of changing tastes, the loss of specialised sugar-working skills, or the gradual erosion of ritual foods once tied closely to season, faith, and community? Or does it still exist—unnamed, unrecognised—transformed into something else entirely?