Food Guide to Rio de Janeiro - Downloadable

In coordination with the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which is currently wrapping up in Rio de Janeiro, Slow Food Brasil published a guide for conference-goers to the food of the city. The guide, entitled 100 Dicas/100 Tips Rio de Janeiro was published in a bi-lingual format in English and Portuguese and provided free-of-charge to participants in the global event. It is also available on Slow Food Brasil's website for download as a .PDF.

Organized by neighborhood, which makes the guide extremely user-friendly, the 129-page book covers restaurants, cafes, bars and botecos, fresh juice bars, ice cream shops, food shops and live-music venues. Emphasis is on local cuisine and local foods which is naturally for a Slow Food publication.

This guide is something that any of Flavors of Brazil's readers who one day might find themselves in Rio de Janeiro will want to download now and carry with them on their laptop or tablet when they travel to Rio. It's very informative, well-written and from what we can judge from our own experiences in Rio quite accurate.

You can download 100 Dicas/100 Tips Rio de Janeiro HERE.

A Seal for Locavores

According to the Random House Dictionary (2012 edition) the word locavore was coined in 2005, on the model of carnivore, herbivore and omnivore. The dictionary defines locavore as:

(noun) a person who makes an effort to eat food that is grown, raised or produced locally, usually within 100 miles of home

As in many places around the globe, Brazilians consciousness as to the origins of the food they ingest has been raised in recent years, and Brazilians, just like Americans, Australians or Germans, are concerned about all the issues involved in the eating of food produced or processed far from home and transported for long distances en route to the consumer.

Fortunately for those Brazilians who care about such issues, those who might call themselves "locavoros", a large percentage of the food eaten in Brazil is produced in the same region as it is sold and eaten, and most food comes from family farms, or small producers, and not from multinational agri-business giants. In the state of Ceará, where Flavors of Brazil is based, the ministry of agricultural development estimates that 70% of the food consumed in the state is grown or produced there on family farms.


Recognizing that consumers want more information about the origin of their food, and wanting to support and encourage local production of food, the ministry recently launched a new program involving a seal of origin for local products called "Selo Agricultura 100% Familiar" or, in English "The 100% Family Agriculture Seal." The seal is awarded to farmers and small food producers who can show that their products are local, produced or raised on family farms, and can prove that the products are environmentally sustainable, meet certain sanitary standards, that animals are treated humanely and that no child labor was used. Once these conditions are met, a farmer or food producer can apply to the ministry for a seal that he or she is entitled to use on labels, in advertising, and in signs.


To date, the ministry has issued 30 seals, to enterprises as diverse as beekeeping and honey production, rice and guava farming, fishing cooperatives and yogurt and cheese producers. There are an additional 120 enterprises whose applications are currently being investigated, and 320 producers have begun the certification process.


The seal, whose design was chosen by the public from among a number of contest entries, has been registered and copyrighted, and should begin to be seen on products in the first quarter of 2012.


In recent posts of Flavors of Brazil, we've highlighted similar seals certifying sustainable crab fisheries and shrimp aquaculture in Ceará. Such certification seems to be a growing trend here, and one that Flavors of Brazil endorses and applauds.

Three New Products added to Slow Food Brasil's Ark of Taste

The Ark of Taste, just one of the many projects of the international Slow Food movement, is an international catalogue of heritage foods in danger of extinction. Traditional crops, methods of cultivation or production, or wild food sources are identified by Slow Food as food practices threated with extinction and worthy of preservation. Once a food item enters the Ark of Taste Slow Food members work to ensure that the item is nurtured and preserved and that it doesn't disappear in our increasingly homogenous 21st century world.

Flavors of Brazil has previously highlighted some of Slow Food Brasil's entries into the Ark of Taste - the small green fruit called umbu, and the colossal Amazonian fish piracuru. There are also 22 additional products in the Brazilian Ark, including three that were just recently confirmed by Slow Food International upon the request of Slow Food Brasil.

The three new entrants bear the impenetrable names of piracuí, jatobá and maracujá da Caatinga . Faithful readers of this blog and anyone who's been to Brazil is likely to recognize the word maracujá. It's the Portuguese word for passion fruit, but the other two words most likely draw a blank. So what exactly has just been granted access into the Ark of Taste? Let's find out.

piracuí

This is one of the more unusual entries in the entire list of Brazilian Ark of Taste Products. It's a type of flour. What makes it unusual is that the flour is made from fish. Piracuí comes from the Amazon and is a traditional method employed by the residents of the forest, the ribeirinhos, to preserve the bounty of the wet season for use during the long months of the dry season when many of the smaller rivers and streams of the forest dry up.  To make piracuí the ribeirinhos sun-dry small fish which they've netted in the river, and then grind these tiny fish to make the flour.

jatobá

Here we have another flour used by indigenous populations. This time though the flour comes not from fish but from the fruit of an enormous hardwood tree whose habitat is the dry savannah known as the Cerrado. The  tree can grow up to 130 ft (40 m) high and can live for hundreds of years. It is a valuable source of hardwood for furniture making and for flooring, but it's the seeds of its fruit that have earned it a place in the Ark of Taste. These seeds are ground into flour by natives of the Xingu tribal family. The natives use the flour to toast simple cakes and breads over open fires. Jatobá seeds and flour have a strong characteristic aroma which is highly appreciated by the natives, but which many others find extremely unpleasant. Which might explain some of the English-language names for the  tree - stinktoe, stinking toe and old man's toe. It's said though that the taste of the flour is sweet. This combination of strong, offensive odor and sweet taste is something that the  shares with Asian durians.

maracujá da Caatinga

Passion fruit (maracujá in Portuguese) is a native Brazilian species of fruit that has spread around the globe and is appreciated in tropical climates, where it flourishes, and non-tropical climates, where it's a highly valued import. The maracujá da Caatinga is a related species of fruit which grows wild in the region of north-eastern Brazil called the Caatinga. The Caatinga is a harsh, semi-arid landscape that is suitable for raising cattle and goats and very little else. The maracujá da Caatinga often grows spontaneously at the edges of pastures and communal feed ranges and has been loved by local ranchers and farmers for hundreds of years. The fruit of the  is highly flavored, with a strong perfume. Both the taste and the aroma are reminiscent of honey, and the taste of the fruit is denser, sweeter and more acidic than the fruit of the cultivated . Maracujá da Caatinga, like all varieties of this family of fruits, has a tranquilizing and relaxing effect on humans and inhabitants of the Caatinga rely on this property as an aid to sleep.

Like their cousins on the Brasilian Ark of Taste, these three heritage foods are threatened by encroaching populations, loss of habitat and all too frequently, lack of interest in preserving them. Once a food has been identified as a threatened heritage by inclusion in the Ark of Taste, the next step is the implementation of something called a Presidium, an organized development plan to preserve and protect the food. Let's hope that these three very unusual foods move quickly into the shelter provided by a Slow Food Presidium.

Pirarucu - An Endangered Giant

The world's largest river system, the Amazon, has the world's largest number of freshwater fish species, and most likely the world's largest freshwater fish population. The fish that are found in the lakes, lagoons, streams, creeks and in the large river itself have always been the most important source of animal protein for inhabitants of the region. From tiny minnow-like species to large predatory fish, these animals have been eaten fresh, been smoked or salted, or simply air-dried for countless millennia and continue to be consumed today through the Amazonian basis. Unfortunately, with the large increase in human population, and with modern-day fishing techniques, for many species the 20th and 21st centuries have brought them extreme pressure, and extinction is a distinct possibility for many types of Amazonian fish.

One fish of the Amazonian basis, the pirarucu (known as the arapaima in English), which has become endangered due to its desirability as a food fish, has been adopted by Slow Food Brazil as part of the Brazilian Ark of Taste - a "repository" of at-risk food species and cooking or preserving techniques worthy of protection. Its inclusion on this list is the first step in the development of preservation projects designed to ensure a sustainable fishery for this fish.

The piracuru is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. It has anecdotally been reported to reach up to reach up to 14 feet (4.5m) in length, with a maximum confirmed weight of almost 450 lb (220 kg). It is a living fossil, having existed essentially unchanged since the Jurassic era. It has successfully adapted itself to life in the slow-moving waters of the Amazon's lakes and lagoons through the development of a rudimentary type of lung, which allows it to breathe air directly when the surrounding water is oxygen-deprived.

The piracuru is an important part of the nutrition of the riverside human population of the Amazon. The flesh has very few bones, and piracuru is eaten fresh, smoked, or salted and dried somewhat like salt cod (bacalhau). Besides the meat, other parts of the fish are used by locals - the piracuru's bony tongue is used to grate guaraná, and the skin, once dried, is used like leather in the fabrication of clothes and artisanal arts and crafts.

In the next post on Flavors of Brazil, there will be a recipe for one of the most well-known local dishes made from piracuru - piracuru de casaca.

Eating Locally in Brazil

The first decade of the 21st century saw the birth of the locavore movement in many scattered corners of the world - a combination of ecological, sociological and heath philosophies that averred that eating food from "one's own backyard" made sense in any number of ways. Food that hadn't travelled 3000 miles or more from the farmer's field to the family dinner table was heathier, supported a sustainable community of farmers, and was better for the environment. Popularized by the international Slow Food movement, in books such as "The 100 Mile Diet", on TV programs, in newpapers and magazines and on the internet, the locavore movement has become a component of our contemporary zeitgeist.

A recent article in my local newpaper here in Fortaleza, O Diário do Nordeste, provided some interesting statistics about "eating locally" in the state of Ceará. It seems that this state in Brazil's northeast is doing a good job of supporting local agriculture and eating local food. What I find interesting is the supposition that this is not the result of a locavore revolution, but rather the continuation of traditional practices of food sourcing. I do notice in supermarkets in Fortaleza that local products are beginning to be highlighted as such, but I think that most local residents eat locally because that is the way they have always assured good quality, low price and reasonable availability.

The article points out that the family farm still provides the bulk of the food consumed in Ceará. Approximately two-thirds of all food that arrives at the family table in Ceará originates on family farms. I'm sure that this is a significantly higher percentage than in most, if not all, metropolitan areas in North America and Europe. For example, 82% of the dried beans consumed in Ceará come from family farms, as does 81% of the corn, 78% of the manioc, 64% of the rice, 77% of the pork products and 76% of the milk. In the case of fruits, 55% of total consumption comes from family farms within the state.

The economic pull of agri-business is strong in Brazil, but to date seems to concentrate on the export market, leaving local consumption to local farmers. One fervently hopes that these economic behemoths continue to ignore the domestic market here, so that in the future Brazilians will not have to start all over again to create a sustainable network of local, family-owned farms, as locavores in the Northern Hemisphere are having to do right now.

Saving the Aratu (Part 2) - How the Presidium Works

In my previous post, I detailed the worldwide work of the Slow Food Presidia in protecting and preserving traditional food communities. The following text, translated from the Slow Food Brasil website, shows how one particular food community has been sheltered and strengthened by a Slow Food Presidium, and how the species of animal that is the community's focus, a small crab known as the aratu, has been given a new lease on life.
(Click on "read more" for the story of the Slow Food Aratu Presidium)

Saving the Aratu (Part 1) - A Slow Food Brazil Presidium

Among the many projects of the international Slow Food movement is an international system of groups supporting the preservation of traditional foods, food sources and food communities. These groups are called Presidia (in the singular, Presidium). Interestingly the Portuguese translation for Presidium is Fortaleza, the name of the city in which I live. As defined on the international website of Slow Food, the purpose of the Slow Food presidia is to:

sustain quality production at risk of extinction, protect unique regions and ecosystems, recover traditional processing methods, safeguard native breeds and local plant varieties. The Presidia directly involve producers, offer technical assistance to improve production quality, organize exchanges among different countries, provide new market outlets (both locally and internationally).

These complex projects contribute enormously to the preservation of uniquely local foods, food products and lifestyles. Without the support of a Presidium in creating a sustainable food community and a market in which it can sell its products for a fair price, many traditional foods would have already disappeared and many more would be on the road to extinction.

There are currently 7 Slow Food Presidia in Brazil, and in the next while Flavors of Brazil will be highlighting all of them. As the products involved are very local, and their markets are often restricted, it's unlikely that readers of this blog from outside Brazil will be able to buy the products themselves. But if any of the readers of this blog feel they'd like to support Slow Food internationally or in their own country, it's easily done either at the international Slow Food website, or their own country's Slow Food site.

In the next post, I'll explain exactly how one particular Presidium, that of the aratu, works, and then following, I'll add a traditional recipe for cooking this delicate crustacean.