VEGETABLES OF BRAZIL - The Squash Family (Abóboras)

Although when speaking English we are accustomed to speaking in terms of butternut or acorn squashes, pumpkins, gourds, marrows, pattypans, zucchinis, etc., as separate foods, in fact all these vegetables are squashes - that is, botanically, they are all members of the genus Curcubita, the squashes. In Brazilian Portuguese, they are all inguistically linked together and called abóbora. To Brazilians a giant pumpkin and a small baby zucchini are both abóboras, although to help consumers along, some types are identified separately by modifiers or unique names. Zucchinis, for example, are generally referred to as abóbora italiana (Italian squash) or abobrinha (little squash). There are also unique regional names which are largely American in origin, such as jerimum, which is a Northeastern term for large pumpkin-type squashes.

The cultivation of squash goes back a very long way in human history, and archeological evidence seems to indicate that squashes were first cultivated in Mesoamerica between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago. Native Americans referred to squashes as one the "three sisters" (the three main native food crops), along with corn (maize) and beans. In native American cultures, all parts of the squash were eaten (as they still are today in the area). The flesh, the seeds and even the blossoms are all essential ingredients in traditional Mexican, Peruvian, Brazilian and other New World cuisines.

Brazilians cook and eat squashes in many forms - in soups, in purees, which can be either savory or sweetened with sugar, salads, in breads and cakes, and in stews and hot-pots. Larger, sturdier squashes, are even used as containers for other foods. In the next few posts on Flavors of Brazil, we'll detail some of the uniquely Brazilian treatments of this important family of vegetables.

INGREDIENTS OF BRAZIL - Feijão Manteiga (Butter Beans)

If the Lord's Prayer were colloquially translated into Brazilian Portuguese, those who recited it wouldn't ask for their "daily bread" but rather for their "daily rice and beans." In the biblical prayer bread represents the food required to sustain the body, and for millions of Brazilians, rich or poor, it's not bread that they eat every day of their life, it's rice and beans.

The beans that Brazilians eat on a daily basis are not, of course, green beans. They are dried legumes that have been reconstituted and cooked in liquid until tender. In fact, Brazilians don't even use the word feijão (which means bean) when referring to green beans. They have another word, vargem, for this vegetable and don't consider it a bean at all. Beans mean dried beans, full stop.

There are numerous varieties of dried beans eaten in Brazil, ranging from black beans to white ones, and from large kidney beans to small pea-shaped varieties. The choice of bean is often regional, and most people in Brazil do not eat one type of bean on Monday, another on Tuesday, etc. The bean they eat is always the same. If a Brazilian was raised on black beans, that's likely all he or she eats, and if it was carioca beans served at the family table, that'll be the bean of choice forever.

One bean that is very strictly regional is called feijão manteiga, which translated literally into English means butter bean. However, the bean is not the same as the lima bean, which is called butter bean in many regions of the USA. That bean is called feijão-de-lima in Brazil. The bean on which Brazilians have bestowed the moniker feijão manteiga is a medium-size, light brown bean about the size and shape of a pinto bean, but without the mottling that gives that bean its name.

The Brazilian butter bean is well-named, for it has a rich creaminess when properly cooked, and this richness gives it the mouth feel of butter, though there is almost no fat in the bean. The taste is also characteristically nutty with a hint of sweetness. It's one of the most flavorful and delicious of all the thousands of varieties of dried beans.

Feijão manteiga is eaten primarily in Brazil's north and northeast, and in the state of  São Paulo, and is not well known in other regions of the country.

In the next post on Flavors of Brazil, we'll publish a traditional recipe from São Paulo for this delicious legume.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Jambo

jambo rosa

It's been some time since Flavors of Brazil has added new material to our series of posts called FRUITS OF BRAZIL. That doesn't mean that we've exhausted the list of fruits that are cultivated and eaten in this country - not by a long shot. The list is enormous, and there are still many fruits that are quite common in Brazil, or at least in certain regions, that we haven't discussed. So it's time to get back to the tast at hand.

jambo branco

The fruit that Brazilian call the jambo (botanical name Syzygium jambos) has many names in English. Depending on the region, it is known as Malabar plum, plum rose, water apple, jambrosade, rose apple or Malay plum. The names Malabar plum and Malay plum indicate the fruit's original habitat - the tropical zones of South and Southeast Asia. The fruit was carried from Asia back to Portugal by early Portuguese navigators, and thence onward to Brazil, where it flourishes in the tropical regions of the country.

There are many varieties of jambo, but the three most commonly seen in Brazil are distinguished by their color - jambo vermelho (red jambo), which is a dark winy reddish-purple, jambo branco (white jambo) which is an icy, glossy white, and jambo rosa (pink jambo), which is light rosy pink in color.

jambo vermelho

The fruit of jambo is smallish, about the size of a child's fist, and slightly elongated - either pear-shaped or bell-shaped. The skin is waxy and thin, and the hollow core of the fruit contains one or two seeds. The flesh is white and is crispy and juicy like an apple. The fruit isn't highly flavored, though it is sweet. It is very aromatic, and the similarity of the fruit's aroma to roses accounts for such English names as plum rose or rose apple.

Jambo isn't highly commercialized, and is usually only seen in markets in areas where the fruit is cultivated. Most of the fruits consumed are eaten fresh, although jambo can be successfully preserved in syrup or made into a compote.

We'll publish a recips for jambo compote in our next post here at Flavors of Brazil.

Mara Rosa - Where Brazil Grows its Turmeric

In the sparcely populated northern stretches of the central Brazilian state of Goiás, where the cerrado that covers much of central Brazil begins to give way to the rain forests of the Amazonian basin, lies the hamlet of Mara Rosa. Although Mara Rosa counts only about 300 families, almost all of them share an  occupation - they are all turmeric farmers.

Turmeric (called curcuma in Portuguese) is an essential spice in the Brazilian pantry, even though it originated in Asia, like its botanical cousin ginger. Brazilians use the spice not only for its earthy, almost musty, flavor but also for the way it imparts a brilliant yellow color to dishes in which it is employed. As a food colorant, turmeric often serves as a substitute for saffron, which also give dishes a golden hue, but which is infinitely more expensive than turmeric. Alternative Brazilian names for the spice, such as açafrão-da-terra  meaning saffron-of-the-earth, demonstrate the link between turmeric and saffron in Brazilian gastronomy. In fact, many Brazilians simply call turmeric açafrão, and are perhaps unaware of the existance of true saffron, which can only be found in the best, most expensive gourmet shops in Brazil's bigger cities.

Turmeric has been grown in Mara Rosa since the 17th century, but it's only recently that local growers have banded together as a turmeric-growing cooperative, Cooperaçafrão. The aims of the cooperative are to stabilize and increase the price they are paid for their harvest, to improve cultivation yields through techniques such as crop rotation, and to restrict sales from the co-op to pure, dehydrated rhizomes of turmeric. Very little whole turmeric is sold directly to consumers, and the bulk of the co-op's sales are to spice companies, who grind the rhizomes and package the spice for consumers.

For most North Americans and Europeans, the color and taste of turmeric is primarily associated with Asian food, especially Indian food in which turmeric is an essential ingredient of most curry powders. In Indian cuisine, however, turmeric is normally mixed with other spices in the creation of spice powders and pastes, so the flavor of turmeric doesn't shine through. In Brazilian cuisine, where it's used alone, the intense and distinctive flavor of turmeric is allowed to be the dominant spice note in many dishes. Tomorrow, Flavors of Brazil will publish a typical Brazilian recipe which gives turmeric a starring role.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Abricó-do-Pará (Strawberry Guava)

abricó-do-Pará

In evolutionary terms some fruits, especially showy or aromatic ones like peaches or perhaps raspberries, are clearly meant to be eaten  (no discussion of creationism on this blog, please!). Their color, their perfume, and their sweet luscious tastes are meant to make them desirable food objects to animals. The evolutionary job of these lucky animals is to serve as a transport vessel for the seeds contained in the fruit, depositing them in their droppings miles away from the mother plant. Thus, the fruit species is able to reproduce and spread over distances which would be otherwise impossible for the stationary plants. Anyone who has ever seen tomato plants sprouting from the ponds at a sewage treatment plant will quickly get the idea.

There are some fruits, however, which don't have the evolutionary glamour of the "star" fruits. They might be modest in color, not particularly aromatic, or with a taste that's not particularly appealing. How have they managed to be evolutionary successes? The mechanics might not be clear, but somehow the species in question has solved the botanical world's particular reproductive problem - how can I reproduce and spread geographically when I'm rooted to the soil?

At least a partial answer must come from the animal world's voracious appetite and its natural curiousity about sampling anything that might possibly be food. There might only be one appetizing feature of a fruit - maybe only its aroma, or its inviting color - but that's enough for birds to swoop down to nibble at it, or a monkey to pluck it off the tree and sample it, or a human being to cook it up. If the fruit has a flavor that is appealing to those who consume it, it will have won the evolutionary game, or at least scored significant points. That animal will return again, eat more of the same fruit, and distribute the seeds as an unknowing propogation instrument.

There is a fruit native to Brazil, called the abricó-do-Pará, that is an excellent example of this principle. It really is the ugly duckling of the fruit kingdom, yet has spread from its original habitat of Brazil's Amazonian rain forest as far as Mexico and the Antilles. In Spanish-speaking lands is it generally known as mamey, and in English-speaking territories as mammee, mamey, mamey apple or Santo Domingo apricot.

In appearance, the fruit offers little to attract. It is largish (4-8"), irregularly shaped, and has a brownish-grey, thick rind. Under that thick rind, there is a dry, white membrane that has an astringent taste. It is only when one reaches the flesh itself, which is yellow or orange and not fibrous, and pleasantly flavored, that there is any gustatory benefit to eating abricó-do-Pará. And unfortunately, there is little flesh to eat, as most of the interior of the fruit is occupied by a large pit, or stone, which encases the seed.

Humans eat the fruit raw, or cut up in fruit salads. More commonly though, in Brazil and in the Caribbean, the flesh is cooked down with sugar to create compotes or fruit stews. One of the most unusual uses of the mamey is in El Salvador in Central America, where a mamey-flavored carbonated soft drink, kolashanpan, is very popular.

We here at Flavors of Brazil have yet to encounter abricó-do-Pará at our local farmers market, but researching this post has raised our curiosity and we'll keep an eye out for it. The literature we've found always describes the taste as pleasant, but gives no clues as to what the taste is like. If we find out, readers of this blog will be the first to know.

Developing the Cupuaçu's Full Potential

cupuaçu fruit

Although it's as yet virtually unknown outside Brazil, chocolate's close relative, the cupuaçu, has always been loved in Brazil. People there line up in ice cream parlors to get a double scoop of cupuaçu ice cream. And when Brazilians want a rich, creamy drink they often go for a glass of freshly-prepared cupuaçu juice. Mousses, puddings and cream fillings of all sorts are often flavored with the richly aromatic fruit.

What is interesting about the two closely related foods, chocolate and cupuaçu, is that up til now, each of the two fruits has been exploited entirely differently, their biological relationship notwithstanding. Chocolate is derived from the fermented and dried seeds of the cacau fruit, but when it comes to cupuaçu it's the succulent pulp which is eaten. A look inside these two botanical cousins gives an indication why this might be so - there is little pulp and a large number of seeds inside the cacau fruit but inside the cupuaçu the portions are reversed, with plenty of creamy pulp and a smaller number of seeds.

Recently, however, there have been some very interesting developments in the exploitation of cupuaçu. Food scientists, creative chefs and food-security activists in Brazil are taking a second look at the cupuaçu. They're moving beyond the pulp and concentrating on the seeds. The thought is that since the world has long been addicted to chocolate in all its variety, it might be worthwhile seeing what the gastronomic potential is of the seeds of the cupuaçu. Perhaps it could come to stand alongside chocolate as one of the most commercially valuable members of the Theobroma genus. Theobroma does mean "food of the gods" in Greek, and maybe it's time to add cupuaçu to the pantheon as well.

fermented cupuaçu seeds

Fresh from the pod, neither the seeds of cupuaçu nor cacau are edible - it's only after fermentation and drying that the seeds can be used in the kitchen. The chemical changes involved in this process are a gastronomic transformation that is the culinary equivalent of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Horticulturists and nutritionists are now looking at cupuaçu with a new eye. The potential for gastronomic use of the seed far exceeds the market for pulp. Chefs in Brazil are already creating recipes that exploit the best characteristics of the seeds, NGOs are helping farmers in the rain forest develop sustainable cupuaçu agriculture, and media campaigns are already underway to educate the public about cupuaçu seeds.

On Wednesday, we'll feature recipes from the Brazilian press which focus on this unique fruit and it's entirely new use.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Quince (Marmelo)

Although the quince tree (Cydonia oblonga) is not native to the Americas, but rather to the Balkans and Asia Minor, it arrived in Brazil very soon after the first Europeans set foot on the shores of the New World. The first Portuguese explorer to land in Brazil, Pedro Cabral, landed in what is now Brazil in 1500, and it is believed that the quince tree arrived here only thirty years later (1530) on board one of the ships of Martim Afonso de Sousa, commander of the first official Portuguese expedition to mainland Brazil.

The quince (marmelo in Portuguese) was well suited to Brazil's soil and climate, and quince trees began to reproduce and expand spontaneously. Today, most of Brazil's quinces are grown in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. It's in Minas Gerais where the bulk of the present-day commercial crop of quince is harvested.

Quices are a relatively unusual fruit in that they are rarely, if ever, eaten raw. They are very tart and tannic, making them unpleasant to eat in their natural state. During cooking, these tannins mellow (and change color, giving cooked quince it's lovely pink color). In Brazil most marmelos are boiled, sweetened and then reduced to a thick jelly-like paste called marmelada. (The word marmelada is the root of the English word marmalade, although now marmalade usually refers to a jam or jelly made from citrus fruits.)

Marmelada

Marmelada has been a feature of Brazilian cooking since colonial times as marmelada can be preserved for a long time at room temperature, allowing the fruit harvest to last through the whole year. It was extremely popular in the first half of the twentieth century, with its peak occurring during the 1930s, but recently has lost ground to goiabada, a similar paste made from guavas (goiabas in Portuguese). One of Brazil's best-known deserts, poetically called Romeu e Julieta, is a thick slice of marmelada or goiabada served alongside a slice of queijo coalho cheese. Simple to serve as it requires no cooking,  is a marvelous, homey dessert, each bite combining the sweet, floral acidity of the fruit paste, and the cheese's salty tang.

VEGETABLES OF BRAZIL - Green Amaranth (Caruru or Bredo)

This plant, which yields delicious green leaves that are often compared to spinach and often prepared in similar ways to spinach, is in the gastronomic sense very peripatetic - its history as a comestible has taken it back and forth across the oceans several times, obscuring its origins and engendering a confusing babel of names.

The scientific name of the plant is Amaranthus viridis, which tells us that it's a member of the large botanical family known as the amaranths. The amaranths are thought to have originated in the highlands of tropical North America, where they were a food source for Amerindians native to that region, such as the Maya. After Cortes' conquest of Mexico, Spaniards returning from the New World to the Old carried with them, among their treasures, newly discovered foods native to the Western Hemisphere. Chocolate, chili peppers, tomatoes and the domestic turkey were among Mexico's gifts to the kitchens of Spain, but so were plants like amaranth. Spanish and Portuguese explorers, colonists and slavers then carried amaranth on to Africa where it flourished and became part of the native diet.

When African slaves were forcefully brought to Brazil to work on sugar plantations and in gold mines, they brought their food traditions and their foods with them. Thus, amaranth recrossed the Atlantic ocean back to Brazil, where it became an integral part of the slaves' diet in colonial times. The route by which amaranth became part of Brazil's gastronomy, therefore, is a long one - Mexico to the Iberian Peninsula, to West Africa and finally back across the ocean to Brazil.

Because amaranth came to Brazil from Africa, not directly from Mexico, it is most strongly associated with the Afro-Brazilian cuisines of Northeastern Brazil, specifically in the state of Bahia where the African influence on cooking is strongest. In Bahia and neighboring states, the plant is normally called bredo in Portuguese. In other regions of Brazil it's better known as caruru. Confusingly, in the region where the term bredo prevails, there is a stew-type dish called caruru, made primarily with okra (quiabo) another vegetable import from Africa.

The plant's journey from Mexico to Brazil is not the only one it's made. From its Mexican origins, it has spread to India, particularly in South India, to Greece, and to the Caribbean, where the Jamaicans know it as callaloo. It has even become part of the Indian tradition of medicine known as Ayurvedic, where it is used as a medicinal herb.

Urbanized caruru/bredo

Even though the plant has significant food value, it has adapted itself so well to soil and climate conditions in Brazil that many farmers consider it invasive - a weed. It has even successfully urbanized itself and knowing foragers often spot it growing in abandoned inner city lots or even in cracks in the pavement. The smartest of these foragers have discovered this bounty and are helping themselves to a free supply of the green.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Murici (Nance)

When it comes to meat, some folks love beef but can't abide lamb, some love pork and others hate it. We've even heard that there are some meat-eaters that detest chicken, though we've never met one. Same thing with vegetables - there are broccoliphiles and broccoliphobes, there are those who think eggplant/aubergine is the best thing in the universe and those that won't go near anything with the slightest hint of eggplant. The members of the allium genus (onion, garlic, etc.) are particularly notorious in this regard. Many love nothing better than lavish amounts of garlic, for example, while others (and not just vampires) recoil from even the odor of the plant.

For the most part, fruits don't seem to engender such strong and contrasting reactions. Maybe it's because they're normally sweet, which is a flavor predilection built into human DNA, but whatever the reason most people like most fruits. It's not universal, and there are some fruits which fall into the love-or-hate category, like SE Asia's durian. But most fruits appeal generally.

We here at Flavors of Brazil have recently come across a previously-unknown Brazilian fruit called murici which is the exception that proves the rule. We tried it in several forms over several days during our recent expedition to Belém and no matter how it was served to us it tasted just awful. We tried murici juice at the hotel's breakfast buffet, sampled murici ice cream, and even took a nibble of the fruit itself at the Ver-o-Peso market. All horrible. When we asked local residents about the fruit, some claimed to love it, but many admitted that the flavor caused negative reactions in a lot of people. Describing flavor is notoriously difficult, but for us the flavor was unpleasantly herbaceous, almost grassy, quite acidic, oily, and the fruit is only nominally sweet, if at all. We tried doctoring the juice with sugar, but that didn't really help. In Julia Morton's classic book Fruits of Warm Climates, murici is described as "peculiarly odorous" and "varying in flavor from insipid to sweet, acid, or cheese-like."

The murici (most commonly known in English, particularly in the Caribbean, as nance) is native to Central and Northern South America, and has been eaten by natives since long before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. The murici tree (Byrsonima crassifolia) prefers open forest and savanna habitats and is very drought-tolerant. In Brazil the fruit is grown primarily in the north and the northeast of the country. The fruit itself is of smallish size, yellow-green on the outside with a whitish pulp and a single large stone.

In Brazil, murici are used mostly in the preparation of juices, sweets, and ice creams, but in other tropical American countries it is used to flavor mezcal (in Mexico) or fermented to make an alcoholic beverage called chicha in the Andes. In Colombia, the fruit is boiled to extract its edible oil.

Our normal practice at Flavors of Brazil is to follow up a post about a Brazilian fruit or vegetable with some Brazilian recipes employing the ingredient. As a favor to our readers, we'll make an exception in this case, and our next post will NOT contain a recipe for murici.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Other Limes

During the past few days, Flavors of Brazil has been posting articles about those members of the large lemon/lime branch of the citrus fruit family that are present in Brazilian cooking and that can be found in Brazilian food stores.

To wrap up this line-up of limes (for in Portuguese, these are all limes - limão) here are a couple of less common members of the family. Although these fruits can generally be found in produce stores and sometimes in farmers markets, at least here in Fortaleza, Flavor of Brazil's home, they are considered exotic in Brazil, are generally more expensive and there are fewer recipes in Brazilian cookbooks that call for them. But their flavor, acidity and aroma characteristics makes them useful and can add a familiar-but-unkown note to dishes in which they're used. They're worth getting to know, whether you spot them in Brazil, or in some Asian or Latin American market elsewhere in the world.
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Rangpur or Mandarin Lime (limão cravo in Portuguese) - This sharply acidic hybrid cross between limes and mandarins was the subject of a post in this blog back in May of 2011. Click here to read about it.

Palestine Sweet Lime (lima-da-pérsia in Portuguese) - Looking a bit like an oversized, yellow lime, the Palestine sweet lime is the Clark Kent of the lime family - the mild-mannered, self-effacing lime that lacks the punch of most of its cousin limes. The primary difference between this fruit (Citrus × limettioides) and the other limes is its very low acidity, which can be as low as 0.1% citric acid. It can be found in specialty produce stores in Brazil and grows very well in most areas of the country. In other areas of the world, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, it's used to make a refreshing fruit drink, one that doesn't need a lot of added sugar to counteract the acidity. Even though it has less citric acid than most limes, it still has high levels of vitamin C. Because other limes are so assertive, the Palestine sweet lime is sometimes accused of being bland or insipid. It's really not so, it's just that in all sorts of ways it's more subtle than garden variety limes or lemons. It can be used to make a low-acid caipirinha for those who are bothered by high-acid drinks. It's thin skin can also be candied or preserved to make a delightful sweet.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Lemon (Limão Siciliano)

Although the bright yellow citrus fruit called lemon (Citrus limon) is, along with the lime, the closest we have to the original wild citrus fruit that was domesticated in South Asia in prehistoric times, lemons in Brazil are still something of a novelty. Up until fairly recently, they were virtually unseen in Brazilian markets and supermarkets where the lime reigned supreme.

Brazilians call the lemon limão siciliano which literally means Sicilian lime. There is no single word in Portuguese to distinguish lemons from limes, and for Brazilians, lemons are not a fruit distinct from the lime - they are a lime that happens to be yellow, have a different shape, aroma and taste, but nonetheless they are still limes.

As recently as three or four years ago in Fortaleza, Flavors of Brazil's home base, it was impossible to find a lemon anywhere. For us, as Canadians used to having the option to chose lemons or limes, it was difficult indeed to be restricted only to limes in cooking and in drinks. As much as we love limes, and we love them a lot, there are times and places that call for lemon, not lime. Iced tea is one - it's just not the same without a thick wedge of lemon. Not that Brazilians drink iced tea; they don't. So Brazilians didn't miss that wedge in a frosty glass of iced tea. Lemon curd is another personal favorite, one that's surprisingly easy to make at home - that is, if there are lemons available. There weren't so no homemade lemon curd.

However, recently, lemons have been showing up on supermarket shelves with increasing regularity everywhere in Brazil. We first spotted them in gourmet delis and shops where they sold for astronomical prices (which we paid due to our homesickness for lemons). Then they started showing up in standard supermarkets, still expensive but not ridiculously so. And this year prices have actually started to come down, which probably indicates a larger commercial crop has finally reached the market.

The increasing presence of lemons in Brazil is probably due to the increased sophistication and increased buying power of Brazilian consumers. Recent years have been very kind to the Brazilian economy, and enormous numbers of Brazilians are making their first trips outside of South America - principally to the USA and Europe, where lemons are easily found. Perhaps this created a demand that hadn't previously existed, resulting in astute ranchers and farmers planting lemon groves and eventually lemons in supermarkets around the country.

As there is no tradition of cooking with lemons in Brazil, dishes that feature the flavor of lemon are most easily found in contemporary, upmarket restaurants in Brazil's larger cities, and recipes are found in food and wine magazines. There are signs, though, that lemon's distinctive flavor is catching on in Brazil. Our local ice cream shop, which makes their own ice cream from natural flavors, recently added  limão siciliano to their list of flavors. We also spotted a limão siciliano mousse on a local restaurant's dessert menu. But the surest sign of all of the surging popularity of the lemon was in a neighborhood bar. They've started to offer a caipirinha de limão siciliano, substituting chunks of lemon for the limes in the  original recipe. It's not-surprisingly delicious!

We're all for traditional, local foods and ingredients, but the arrival of lemons on our culinary horizon is very welcome news. Now if we could just figure out how to get Brazilians interested in celery!

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Limes (Limões)

The citrus fruit that is most important in Brazilian cooking and gastronomy is, by far, that small, round, sharply-acidic green ball called a lime (limão in Portuguese, limões in the plural). Oranges might outweigh limes when it comes to export statistics, and there's no question that Brazilians drink a lot of orange juice, most of it unfortunately highly-sugared. But if you look in Brazilian cookbook indexes  recipes that call for limes vastly outnumber those that call for other citrus fruits.

Interestingly, botanists tell us that limes (including lemons) are the closest living relatives to the wild fruit trees of sub-Himalayan and Southeast Asia and were the first citrus fruits domesticated and cultivated by mankind. Even such important citrus fruits as oranges, tangerines and grapefruits are either natural or cultivated hydrids of the original lime-like citrus and came into cultivation much later.

Citrus fruits made their first appearance in the West in the hands of Muslim traders sometime between the 7th and the 9th centuries. There is some evidence that Romans were aware of limes and used them medicinally, but there was never a commercial citrus crop in Europe during Roman times. In any case, citrus cultivation and consupmtion was firmly established in the Mediterranean basin by the beginning of the second millennium CE.

From Europe, citrus fruits made their way to American shores in the holds of ships carrying the first European explorers and colonists in the decades following Columbus and other early explorers. Limes took very well to Brazilian soil and climatic conditions - they can successfully be cultivated in most of Brazil. From its earliest days, Brazilian cuisine made use of the fruit - particularly the juice, which adds a fresh, acidic note to any dish containing it. Although they had no knowledge of why it worked, sailors discovered that drinking lime juice daily prevented the onset of scurvy and limes were carried on all long sea voyages. The British Navy mandated a daily drink of lime juice, thoughtfully mixed with rum, which is the origin of the nickname of British sailors - limeys.

On land as on well as at sea, cooks discovered the many ways in which limes could be employed in the kitchen. Lime juice is essential in many traditional Brazilian sweets and dessert, as well as in cold drinks. It's also used in conjunction with fish and seafood dishes. There's a particular affinity between limes and foods from the sea, although traditional cooks in Brazil seem not to have discovered the "cooking" effect that lime juice has on seafood - the effect which is the basis for Peruvian and Mexican ceviche.

Today in Brazil, there are two main varieties of limes sold commercially, and in most markets and supermarkets you'll always find both. In Brazilian Portuguese they are called limão Tahiti and limão Galego. Although they are similar in color, size and taste, one is very close to the original citrus fruit of prehistoric Asia and one is a hybrid of fairly recent origin.

Limão Galego (Citrus aurantifolia) is the oldster, the ur-lime. In English it's known as the Key lime, due to its association with the Florida Keys. Its color is a light green, often edging toward yellow. It is smaller, seedier, has a higher acidity, a stronger aroma, and a thinner peel than the limão Tahiti and is the lime of choice when making Brazil's famed caipirinha cocktail. It is very juicy. In Brazil is it grown commercially mostly in the northeast and center-west regions of the country and it bears fruit throughout the year, having no distinctive season. Up until recently, it was the most common lime in Brazil, though in recent years, it's given way to the limão Tahiti.

Left Limão Tahiti - Right Limão Galego

Limão Tahiti (Citrus latiifolia) is the upstart hybrid in the family of Brazilian limes. In English it's called the Persian lime and it's the garden-variety lime of supermarkets throughout North America and Europe. Its color is vivid strong green. It is less acidic than the limão Galego, has a thicker peel which can be nubbly, is slightly larger in most cases, and being a hybrid it is seedless, or virtually so. It is a very robust species. Today it is the most valuable member of the lime family in the export market, due to its seedlessness, its thicker peel which makes it less fragile, and its aroma which is considered exotic in northern climates. Like its ancestor, the limão Galego, it bears fruit all year.

In Brazil these two varieties alone are considered lime limes - that is, when a recipe calls for lime, unmodified, it means that either of these two may be used. If another member of the family is required, it will be indicated by a modifying name. These two are also what the English-speaking world thinks of as limes. There are other members of this family, though, and in upcoming posts, we'll discuss them as well as provide some Brazilian recipes which use this marvelous fruit.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Limes and Lemons (Limões)

The extended family of fruits called citrus (or cítrico in Portuguese) is tremendously important to Brazil in all kinds of ways. In the economic sphere their importance to the Brazilian export market in agricultural products is enormous - Brazil is the world's largest exporter of oranges and among the largest in the export of limes. Gastronomically, the sharp acidic tang is absolutely essential to a vast number of Brazilian dishes, which wouldn't be the same at all if another acidic substance, vinegar for instance, was substituted. Citrus juices, particularly fresh-squeezed ones, not only provide acidity to a dish, they add a sparkling fresh quality - a taste of a sun-soaked orchard - that cannot be duplicated. And then again, there's the whole business of cocktails. Brazil's increasingly-popular "national cocktail" the caipirinha relies on chunks of macerated whole limes and their juice to provide the non-alcoholic part of its punch, letting cachaça liquor provide the high-proof part.

Citrus fruits have moved far beyond their origins in Central or Southeast Asia and today are eaten all around the world. They are cultivated practically everywhere the climate allows, which means the world's tropical and sub-tropical reasons. You'll never find an orange grove in Canada or Finland no matter how hard you try, it's just too cold. Fortunately, though, citrus fruits travel well, and today fresh oranges, grapefruits or limes can be found in markets and supermarkets high above the Arctic circle as well as in the word's temperate zones, where most of North America and Europe lie.

Citrus fruits really are a family, and not just in the taxonomic sense. There is the sharp-tongued, lively bachelorette aunt, the lemon. There is the sensible, hard-working and slightly dull breadwinner - the navel orange. There's the mom who's always on weightwatchers, Ruby - she's a grapefruit. And there is the relative who only shows up at Christmas time - the mandarin orange. Each has its own personality and utility, just like in human families.

What's interesting though is that the Brazilian family of citrus fruits is quite different than the North American or European one. Some very common citrus fruits in the USA or Canada, like the grapefruit, are virtually unkown in Brazil. Others, like the exotic beauty Brazilians call  limão-cravo, are unobtainable north of the Equator. Some, of course, are common almost globally, but not all are.

In the next few posts on Flavors of Brazil, we'll look at Brazil's just one part of the citrus fruit family, the one that happens to be the most common in Brazilian cooking and gastronomy. Brazilians call them  limão, in English they're limes. We'll discuss which ones are common, which are found only regionally in Brazil, and which ones are just now making their way into the market. The market for citrus is changing rapidly in this country- in our newly globalized world, some citrus fruits that were unknown in Brazil as recently as three or four years ago are popping up with increasing regularity in fruit markets and supermarkets all over Brazil. We'll highlight the standard varieties of Brazilian limes and discuss the new entries - with recipes for all, new and old.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Starfruit (Carambola)

Many of the most popular tropical fruits in Brazil originated in what is now Brazilian national territory - fruits like caju, açaí, and lots of others. Some fruits, though, even though they are thoroughly Brazilianized, came to this country from distant shores. In this group are fruits like the mango (from Southeast Asia), all the citrus fruits (also from Asia), and Brazil's most popular fruit, the banana.

Another Asian import to Brazil which has been enthusiastically added to the roster of Brazilian fruits is the magically-shaped starfruit, known in Portuguese as carambola. In fact, in certain regional variations of English the fruit is also referred to as carambola, not starfruit.

The carambola grows prodigiously in Brazil's tropical climate, and the tree is perfectly suited to backyard gardens and small orchards. Many Brazilian homes come "equipped" with their own carambola tree in the yard, thus eliminating the necessity of shopping in the market when the recipe at hand calls for star fruit.

Starfruits (Averrhoa carambola) are most often eaten, in Brazil as elsewhere, in their raw, uncooked state. Unlike many tropical fruits, the entire fruit is edible, including the waxy skin. Although the fruit can be sweet, it is never overpoweringly so, and there is always a sharp, tart undertone. The taste of a starfruit is often compared to a combination of citrus, pear and sour apple flavors.

Because the exotic star-shaped form of a sliced carambola is so dramatic, often this fruit is relegated to the category of garnish - it sits on the rim of a cocktail glass next to a tiny paper parasol, or perches on the edge of a salad bowl. This is unfortunate, because when added directly to a dish, like a seafood salad, or a rice pilaf, its flavor can add a flavor note that enlivens and sparks up the dish.

Starfruits are high in vitamin C and antioxidants and low in sugar and sodium, so they are extremely healthy. A note of caution, though - the fruit contains oxalic acid and is therefore very dangerous for anyone with compromised renal function, for example, anyone suffering from kidney failure or kidney stones. Persons with such conditions should not eat starfruit at all.

Pimenta de Cheiro - A Problem of Identification

Of all the essential ingredients in the Brazilian larder, one of the most difficult to pin down is the chili pepper. What exactly is this chili pepper I have in my hand, or how do I find the type of chili called for in this recipe or that recipe? These are questions that are frustruating if not impossible to answer.

There are several reasons for all this confusion. The main one is that the botanical genus Capsicum, to which all chili peppers belong, is extraordinary in its profusion. There are yellow peppers, there are red ones, green and purple too. There are round peppers, long skinny ones, and thick fat ones. There are peppers that burst with flavor and aroma, and others that only add heat to a dish. At times it seems like all they have in common in their name.

A typical example is a chili pepper called pimenta de cheiro. The name means "aromatic pepper" and this chili is one of the most commonly used chilis in traditional Brazilian cuisine, particularly in Brazil's north and northeast regions. Many recipes from Bahia, from Ceará or from the jungles of the Amazon call for pimenta de cheiro. So, assuming you are in Brazil and want to find some pimenta de cheiro for a recipe you're going to try out - how do you find it in the market?

Photos don't help much. If you search Google Images forpimenta de cheiro you'll see photos of many different peppers that don't seem to have much in common. A web search will lead you to sites that provide helpful instructions on identifying pimenta de cheiro like this one:

Shape can be long, round, triangular, bell-shaped or rectangular. The mature fruits vary in color from creamy yellow to bright yellow, from orange to salmon, or from red to even black when fully mature. Some are sweet, some are slightly hot and some are very hot. It's aroma is strong...

So that's easy, right? Just look for a pepper that's yellow, rectangular and sweet. Or one that's black, round and very hot. Or red, bell-shaped and slightly hot. In fact, the only characteristic that is common to all these varieties is the aroma. I guess that's why it's called the aromatic chili pepper.

Two more problems cloud the picture even further. A chili that's called pimenta de cheiro in one spot in Brazil might have another name just 20 miles down the road. That doesn't make one's task easier. In fact, the whole thing is so confusing that even botanists can't agree on what a pimenta de cheiro is, so even if you were able to get the DNA from your pepper you couldn't be sure it was a pimenta de cheiro. Some botanists assign the common name pimenta de cheiro to varieties of the species Capsicum annuum while others think that it's actually Capsicum frutescens that deserves the moniker.

Our advise, when looking for a chili for a particular recipe, focus on the qualities that the author of the recipe wants to add to the dish. Then shop with your eyes, nose and even tear ducts. If you're looking for intense heat, find a chili that fits the bill. If the recipe need s a chili with a lot of flavor but without a lot of ardency, sniff around the markets until you find one you can use. Call it what you will, it's the characteristics of the chili pepper your after, not the name.

On The Road - Belém (Pt.5) - Manioc, Let Me Count the Ways

As we mentioned in last Friday's post about the three cornerstones of the cuisine of Belém, the staple carbohydrate upon which the cuisine in built is the tropical tuber manioc (Manihot esculenta), alternatively known in English as cassava or sometimes yuca. Manioc is to Belenense cooking what rice is to Chinese, wheat is to Italian cooking and the potatoes is to Irish - the supplier of the major portion of the population's daily nutritional intake. In the Amazonian region of Brazil, where Belém is located, up to 33% of the daily caloric intake comes from manioc in some form or another.

Bitter manioc tuber

What is most astonishing about this tuber, first domesticated in the southwestern portion of the Amazonian basin as long as ten thousand years ago, is its chameleon-like nature. Manioc shows up in all kinds of shapes, forms and consistencies in Belém and it's hard to imagine that two dishes as different as the soupy broth called tacacá and the crunchy, gritty flour called farinha that is sprinkled on top of grilled meats share a common ingredient. And that ingredient could only be manioc. Manioc can look like mashed potatoes, as when it tops arrumadinho, the Brazilian take on shepherd's pie. It can look just like french fries. Or it can be an airy, light form of bread - as in Brazilian  pão de queijo. It even makes an appearance at North American dessert tables, disguised as tapioca pudding. Those pearly balls in the pudding are manioc, as are the "bubbles" in Asian bubble tea. It's an infinitely versatile food, and the cooking of Belém would be radically different without it.

Producers, vendors and cooks of manioc in Belém sort manioc plants into two types, normally called sweet (doce) or bitter (amargo). It's a good thing that they do, too, for bitter manioc is highly poisonous in its natural, uncooked form. Both types of manioc contain cyanide poison in their tubers, roots and leaves, but the quantity is much less in sweet manioc. A kilogram of sweet manioc contains approximately 20 mg. of hydrogen cyanide, but the same quantity of bitter manioc can contain 50 times as much. Since as little as 40 mg. of this chemical can be fatal, bitter manioc is toxic indeed.

Fortunately, the toxins present in bitter manioc can be removed by processing and cooking the plant, something that Amerindians discovered at the time they first domesticated manioc. This detoxification can be accomplished by long cooking - the technique that's used when cooking manioc leaves, which must be cooked for an entire week without stopping before they are served. Tubers are processed by mashing or milling the root, then squeezing out the liquid which contains most of the toxins, and cooking the remainder.

Ground manioc leaves, Ver-o-peso market, Belém

Brazilian Portuguese makes it easy to differentiate between sweet manioc and bitter, though there are regional dialectical differences which cloud the picture. The bitter type is called mandioca, from a Tupi word that is also the basis for English manioc. Sweet manioc is called mandioca-doce, mandionca-mansa, macaxeira, or aipim depending on region. In English, dangerously, both bitter and sweet are called manioc or cassava.

Tucupi, Ver-o-peso market, Belém

As we explore the gastronomy of Belém in this series of On The Road posts, we'll run into manioc again and again. It already showed up in a liquid form in yesterday's recipe for pato no tucupi (duck in tucupi). Tucupi is made by squeezing the liquid from bitter manioc tubers, then letting the liquid sit until the starch settles out and can be removed. The remaining liquid is cooked to rid it of poisons, resulting in  tucupi. That settled starch, by the way, is later dried and becomes tapioca. Just one more transformation of this remarkable plant.

VEGETABLES OF BRAZIL - Cará

The starchy edible tuber known in Brazil as cará (pronounced ca-RAH) is a member of the yam family and is one of the oldest of all cultivated foods in the American tropics. It's a member of the Dioscorea genus, and the only species in the genus (Dioscorea trifida) to have originated in the New World. Its Old World cousins, including the Philippine purple yam and the large African yam, have made their way to Brazil and are an important part of the Brazilian diet, but it's the native cará that is still the most important member of the family.

In pre-Columbian times, over most of the territory of modern-day Brazil, the staples of the native Amerindian diet were manioc, peanuts, sweet potato and yam (the cará). One of the very earliest Portuguese observers of native culture in Brazil, Padre José de Anchieta, mentioned the cará by name in his writings, praising its nutritional value and its flavor. It is a highly energetic food and contains high levels of various B vitamins.

Brazilians eat this versatile tuber in a variety of ways. It can be served simply boiled or mashed, just as if it were a potato. Another popular way to serve it is insoup - usually some sort of thickened puree. Cará is also an ingredient in a number of breads and cakes, some savory and some sweetened.

In the next few posts on this blog, we'll highlight some typical Brazilian uses of cará. In any recipe for this tuber, you can substitute other members of the yam family. Just don't try to use sweet potato, as sweet potatoes and yams are entirely distinct families of vegetables, a distinction that's often lost on supermarket grocers in the USA and Canada.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Bacuri

Although many Brazilian consider bacuri (Platonia insignis) to be one of the tastiest fruits native to the Amazonian rain forest, the bacuri will never win any botanical beauty contests. The fruit is so plain and non-assuming, if not downright ugly, that it's a wonder that the primitive Amerindians, the region's first inhabitants, even bothered to open one up and taste it - especially when the Amazon is so rich in fruits that are both beautiful and tasty. But the Amerindians must love it - even today, the native don't cultivate the fruit, which grows best on tall, ancients trees, but when they clear an area to create an open living space, they always leave any bacuri trees untouched so they may enjoy the bounty in their new homes.

The bacuri tree grows wild in a very large geographical region, from the Guianas, through the entire Amazon basin as far as Colombia in the northwest and Paraguay in the southwest. The tree bears fruit during the dry season, which is from August to the end of November in most of the Brazilian part of the Amazon basin.

The bacuri fruit itself has a thick yellow-brown, often mottled skin, making the fruit look a bit like a rounded papaya. When the thick skin is cut away, the fruit's sticky white pulp is exposed. The pulp surrounds anywhere from three to five seed, and is strongly aromatic (maybe that's why the ancient Amerindians decided to give the bacuri a try). The taste of the fruit itself is described as being both sweet and sour at the same time.

Most of Brazil's bacuri crop is eaten fresh, and is marketed only in the region in which it grows, or nearby. There is limited industrial processing of the fruit, mostly making ice creams, jams and jelllies. Up to now, the export market for bacuri hasn't been developed, and the fruit is very little known outside Brazil and neighboring countries.

Bacuri - painted in oils by Solange Bogea

Ugly as the fruit might be, bacuri is refreshing and has a very distinctive taste. For anyone who is visiting the Amazon, it's well worth one's time to search out bacuri in markets and supermarkets if the season is right. If not, look for bacuri ice cream - it's available year round and the taste is very much like that of the natural fruit.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Achachairú

In most respects, given some variation for national food culture, going to a big supermarket in 21st Century urban Brazil is like going to the supermarket almost anywhere in the world. There's the bakery section, the meat section, dairy, produce, snacks and soda pop, etc. But there's a specific joy that Flavors of Brazil has found in Brazilian supermarkets that we've never come across in other countries, and that is the sale of totally "off the wall" produce. We're not talking about fruits that are common in Brazil but uncommon in other countries, such as the caju fruit or cupuaçu. What we mean is that from time to time a supermarket will offer for sale a type of fruit that's largely unknown, even to Brazilians.

This situation happened last week, when, during a run through the produce section of a local supermarket we came across a styrofoam tray of rather anonymous-looking small round orange fruits labelled Achachairú. They were very unprepossessing looking, but only cost R$3.00 (about USD $1.60) for a tray of about 20 of them. Our gastronomic curioiusity was sparked, and we bought them.

Before we tasted them, we asked several Brazilian friends about them. The universal response to the question "What does achachairú taste like?" was "What did you say? Achachairú? Never heard of it..." Which just increased our curiousity, naturally.

Before we bit into one, we googled achachairú and found out quite a bit (what did the gastronomicly curious do before the Internet? Risk a bite?) We learned that the fruit comes from the Bolivian rain forest, its scientific name is Garcinia humilis, that it's related to the Asian tropical fruit mangosteen, and that it's also known as achacha. We also learned that it recently won a 3rd prize trophy in Berlin at the 2012 Fruit Logistica exposition in the "fruit innovation" category. Although up to now it has only been commercially grown in Bolivia and the parts of Brazil close to Bolivia, efforts are underway in far-off Queensland, Australia to develop a commercial market for the fruit and the first plantation there is already in fruit.

Suing the trade name achacha, Australian growers have set up an informative, interactive website to promote the fruit, which they describe as "an exotic fruit from the Amazon basin now grown in tropical Queensland." It even includes a video showing how to open an achacha and lots of recipes for the fruit.

So our intellectual curiousity well satisfied, it came time to give the achachairú a test drive - a taste test. Following the Australian website's instructions, we opened an achachairú. Inside the leathery skin, which comes away very easily, the fruit itself was pure white, with a cottony texture. The flesh surrounded a hard, brown ovoid pit. The taste was acid and sweet at the same time, and highly perfumed. And absolutely delicious. It has that tutti-frutti taste common to lychees and mangosteens and is utterly refreshing. We were sold - and so was most anybody we were able to convince to try one.

Now that we've had a happy encounter with the achachairú, all we have to do is hope that we can continue to find them in the market. It would be a shame to lose contact, just when we were getting to know each other.

VEGETABLES 0F BRAZIL - Acelga (Napa Cabbage)

Although Asian greens, such as bok choy and gai lan, are not commonly eaten in Brazil outside the Asian communities of São Paulo's Liberdade district, one Asian form of cabbage has become a supermarket standard in Brazil, available all year round in most supermarkets in all regions of the country. Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis, known variously in English as Chinese cabbage, Napa cabbage and Chinese Leaf, is called acelga in Brazil, and under that name has made its way into many Brazilian vegetable and salad recipes. (Incidentally, the English name Napa has nothing to do with the California wine-growing district. Napa comes from colloquial Japanese nappa (菜っ葉), which means any edible leaf.)

Napa cabbage is a staple in most East Asian cuisines, and in one of its most well-loved incarnations is the prime ingredient in Korean kim-chee, the spicy fermented cabbage pickle without which Korean cuisine wouldn't exist. We've not found any source that explains how this Asian vegetable made its way to Brazil, but it would be logical that it arrived with the wave of Japanese immigrants to came to Brazil in the early 20th century to work in Brazil's coffee plantations.

Brazilian dictionaries and the Portuguese-language version of Wikipedia define acelga as chard, not Napa cabbage, but we've never seen true chard, which is a member of the beet family not a cabbage, in a Brazilian supermarket or farmers market under any name. Perhaps in Portugal acelga refers to the plant called chard in English, but in Brazil the word is restricted to Napa cabbage.

Brazilians really don't use the Asian cooking technique called stir-frying, and woks don't exist in this country - again, outside Asian communities. Acelga is more often a feature of Brazilian salad recipes, and the thin, light leaves of the plant are very suited to eating raw, unlike some other Asian greens which need to be cooked before eating.

We'll feature some Brazilian recipes for acelga in the next few posts. Under it's various English monikers, this green is easy to find in North American and European supermarkets in larger metropolitan areas, and in Asian groceries in cities that have Asian immigrant communities. Salads made with this green are light, refreshing and nutritious and serving a salad with Napa cabbage can elevate the day-to-day salad to something new and exotic.