Category Archives: Food & Drinks

Pitaia – Tastes like kiwi’s cousin

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Pitaia, or Dragon Fruit (also known as ‘strawberry pear’), is native to tropical regions and actually comes from a cactus. Taste-wise, it’s not too sweet but due to the tiny black seeds, it looks a bit (on the inside) and tastes a bit like a kiwi.

The red flesh version shown in the first picture above is called a Costa Rican Pitaya in English. Other versions include the Red Pitaya which has red skin and white flesh while the Yellow Pitaya has yellow skin and white flesh. All three are quite high in vitamins and minerals.

CucaBrazuca’s Quindim Recipe

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Doing the post yesterday on the Brazilian dessert called Cartola made me think of others…

The site where the video came from is called CucaBrazuca. In case you are unfamiliar with the method used to cook the quindim over water, it is known in Brazil as “banho maria” (from ‘bagno-maria’ in Italian), which allows the substance being cooked to cook in a slow and uniform manner.

“The heavy use of egg yolks is characteristic of many Portuguese sweets and pastries, such as the papo de anjo (“angel’s double chin”) and fios de ovos (“egg threads”). Their combination with coconut and sugar was probably created by African slaves in 17th century Brazilian Northeast, where coconuts were abundant and sugar (from sugarcane) was a major industry.

The word itself comes from a Bantu language, and originally meant “the gestures, or demeanor, or humor characteristic of adolescent girls.” – Wikipedia

Cartola – A dessert I would’ve eventually invented

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Again, at Street Smart Brazil, there’s a post on desserts from Pernambuco and one caught my eye. It’s the cartola and although I don’t add chocolate, it’s something I’ve been doing for years without knowing it had a name. My invention just followed a grilled cheese, banana and cinnamon sandwich I used to get at the lanchonetes in Rio, only I wouldn’t use bread in the recreation.

“One of my favorite desserts is Cartola: sliced fried banana with queijo mateiga or coalho (two types of very delicious Brazilian cheese), topped with with cinnamon and chocolate. Oh it is so good! It is one of those things that you have to try; the list of ingredients may not sound that exciting, but the dish is fantastic. In fact, the state of Pernambuco has been discussing the idea of officially recognizing Cartola as cultural heritage.”

Cartola Sobremesa Recife Pernambuco < Cartola

from the blog Cozinha Cani.

For more Pernambucan desserts, go here!

Brazilian Mint Tea effective painkiller

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“A cup of Brazilian mint tea has pain relieving qualities to match those of commercially available analgesics, a study suggests. Hyptis crenata has been prescribed by Brazilian healers for millennia to treat ailments from headaches and stomach pain to fever and flu. Working on mice, a Newcastle University team has proved scientifically that the ancient medicine men were right.

The study is published in the journal Acta Horticulturae. In order to mimic the traditional treatment as closely as possible, the Newcastle team carried out a survey in Brazil to find out how the medicine is typically prepared and how much should be consumed. The most common method was to produce a decoction. This involves boiling the dried leaves in water for 30 minutes and allowing the liquid to cool before drinking it as a tea.” – BBC (more here)

Finding açaí in Belém – Observations

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You would naturally assume that finding the dark purple color of açaí in Belém would be as omnipresent as the color green in the trees, especially since açaí comes from this region…but you’d be slightly mistaken (if what you were looking for was the cold and delicious kind).

In Rio, you can find açaí (na tigela, or in the bowl) in many places, from lanchonetes (snack bars) to carrinhos (karts) on the street corner but in Belém, it can be found in a specific store (usually either called Casa do Açaí or Ponto do Açaí) selling only açaí by the liter. At places where you can eat açaí right then and there, such as at Ver-o-peso market, the açaí comes warm, sugarless and bland. I would say “don’t fret, there are ways to make it taste better!” but even those things (such as ice cubes, tapioca balls and sugar) don’t do much for my tongue.


(from the blog ‘Sabores do Pará’)

Another option for getting your fix is the ice-cream shop, where it is sold by the bola (scoop, which I would guess equals around 100ml) at a price that would get me 300-600ml in Rio, depending on where I was. Also, in some supermarkets in Pará such as Líder, it is sold as pulp in thin clear plastic packages for a bit of a better price.

I never did find açaí na tigela here (in Belém), but the many scoops of ice cream I did try were just as good if not better than any place in Rio!

California’s Sambazon goes fair-trade

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“California-based Sambazon, a supplier of the Brazilian Amazon açaí juice, has now been certified as Fair Trade in Brazil. The certification by Ecocert, a global control and certification organization, guarantees that Sambazon ensures fair labor conditions and wages for workers, promotes environmentally sustainable farming methods and reinvests money into the community.” – Brazzil (more here)

food_bocaditos

I’ve gone through *a lot* of açaí drinks in the US in my quest to find something, anything that resembles the good purple stuff I wolf down when in Brazil and I’m almost always disappointed. However, Sambazon, makes a worthy case and while I do enjoy their curvy little bottled drinks (even if they are just a tiny bit too expensive), their açaí sorbet is great! It’s best to wait until it melts a little bit before diggin in so you can pretend its a little more like a smoothie and while I still haven’t quite figured out what “Rio Style” means, I’m sure it probably helps with getting newcomers to give it a try. Good job, Sambazon!

Fruit terms in Portuguese

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General Fruits

Apple – Maçã
Avocado – Abacate
Banana – Banana
Blackberry – Amora silvestre
Cherry – Cereja
Grape – Uva
Lime – Limão (or Limão-verde)
Lemon* – Limão (or Limão-amarelo/siciliano)
Mango – Manga
Orange – Laranja
Papaya – Mamão
Peach – Pêssego
Pear – Pêra
Pinapple – Abacaxi
Plum – Ameixa
Strawberry – Morango
Tomato – Tomate
Watermelon – Melancia

* – In Brazil lemon is limão-siciliano, Mexican (Key) lime is limão-galego, Tahiti (Persian) lime is limão-taiti and Rangpur lime is limão-cravo. Bearss (Siciliano) is grown in the hot and humid climate of Brazil for the same reasons it is the main variety in Florida. Whereas Mexican and Tahiti limes are better suited to the climate and therefore much more common in everyday use, the ‘Siciliano’ lemon is a specialty food item in Brazil, much appreciated for its fragrance. Most of the crop is eaten fresh, some of it is used for rind oil.

Brazilian Fruits

Açaí
Acerola – Barbados Cherry
Cacau* – Cocoa
Caju – Cashew fruit
Coco da Bahia* – Coconut
Cupuaçu
Goiaba – Guava
Jaca – Jackfruit
Maracujá – Passionfruit

It is estimated there are 312 kinds of Brazilian fruit, although only 6 kinds are widely cultivated (subtract Jaca and Acerola from the list above). Among the stranger kinds, there are names like banana-de-macaco, marôlo, araticum-cagão, taperebá, cariota-de-espinho, pau-alazão, marajá and fruta-de-ema. One strange sounding fruit isn’t mentioned though, it’s the ‘oiti-da-baía‘, which although the favorite fruit of Dom Pedro II, is extinct.

* – Cacau, while translated as ‘cocoa’ is not chocolate-flavored as the seeds from the cacau are what make the chocolate.

* – Coco da Bahia is a Brazilian coconut variety. The origin of coconuts in general is not known. Coconuts received the name from Portuguese explorers, the sailors of Vasco da Gama in India, who first brought them to Europe. The brown and hairy surface of coconuts reminded them of a witch called coco (that used to be represented as a carved vegetable lantern). When coconuts arrived in England, they retained the name and -nut was added.

Fruit-related terms

Pulp – Pulpa
Seed* – Caroço
Skin/Peel – Casca
Vine* – Vinho (or Videira)

* – Semente also means ‘seed’, but in a general sense. It is not used for what is found immediately inside a fruit, that’s a caroço, while the semente is protected by the caroço. In summation, caroços are hard but it’s the sementes that germinate.

* – Vinho can also mean wine.

The Peach-Palm tree

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Pupunha (Peach-palm) is a species of palm native to the tropical forests of the South and Central America. The fruit is a drupe with an edible pulp surrounding the single seed. The outside of this wild palm can be red, yellow, or orange when the fruit is ripe depending on the variety of the palm.

The fruit of the palm is well known by the native population where it grows, and it has been used for centuries as food (mainly by the pre-Colombian native population). The fruit is frequently stewed in salted water and had for breakfast. However, it may be eaten raw, peeled and dressed with salt and honey, used to make compotes and jellies, or also used to make flour and edible oil. According to the Come-se blog (in PT), it tastes like a mix of corn with pine-nut, so while it may be popular, I have yet to discover why.

This plant may also be harvested for heart of palm, and has commercial advantages in being fast growing. The Brazilian domestic market for heart of palm is about five times bigger than the external one.

The Pepper of Pará

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800px-Pepper

Pimenta-do-reino (black pepper) is a flowering vine, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, dark red when fully mature, containing a single seed. Peppercorns, and the powdered pepper derived from grinding them, may be described as black pepper, white pepper, red/pink pepper, green pepper, and very often simply pepper.

Black pepper is native to South India and is extensively cultivated there and elsewhere in tropical regions, especially in Belém. Outside of Vietnam, Brazil is the largest exporter and producer.

Japanese & Pimenta

“The history of the pimenta-do-reino within the trajectory of the Japanese immigrants in Brazil’s northern region, had the makings of an epic poem. There are registers of its cultivation in Brazil from the 17th century, but the Japanese were responsible for its production on a commercial scale.

The epic poem started in 1929, when Nambei Takushoku Kaisha created the Companhia Nipônica de Plantação do Brasil (Japanese Plantation Company of Brazil) and started the construction of the Acará colony (later called Tomé-Açu). The principal crop was cacau as well as other crops such as the pimenta-do-reino and rice, which were complementary.

In 1935, after frustrated attempts with cacau, it was decided that the Açaizal experimental station would be closed. Such was the destiny of Fukutaro Obana, entrusted with this mission, he would find in one of the corners of the station, three stems of pimenta-do-reino remaining from the 20 stems that Makinosuke Usui brought from Singapore in 1933. The stems were given to Tomoji Kato and Enji Saito who distributed pieces of the plant to their compatriots. By 1945, it had multiplied to close to 800 stems.

With the end of the Second World War, the pimenta-do-reino transformed itself into the “black diamond” of the Amazon – in 1945, it cost 30 cruzeiros per kilo and by the next year, it jumped to 85 cruzeiros. As a consequence of the destruction of the production centers, such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. In 1954, the plantations in Tomé-Açu totaled 332 thousand stems.

But, in 1955, the recuperation of the production centers of South Asia provoked a retraction in the market. In the 70′s, more difficulties; the intense plantation in the Tomé-Açu region provoked the appearance of diseases in the pepper plants.

Some producers went to other regions of the Amazon in search of better pastures. Others decided to develop other crops, while they formed and transplanted new varieties of pimenta-do-reino.” – Source (in PT, translated)