Ice Cream - Flavors for the Brazilian Summer

January and February are the two hottest months of the year in most of Brazil - a situation that's 180 degrees removed from the Northern Hemisphere. These are the dog days (canícula in Portugese) of summer south of the Equator. Temperatures in Rio de Janeiro in summer often climb into the 40s - but here we're talking Celsius, not Fahrenheit, and the equivalent of 40C in Fahrenheit is 104. Brazil's hottest capital cities, Cuiabá in the state of Mato Grosso and Teresina in Piauí, have mid-afternoon temperatures that often exceed 110F during the hottest months.

Brazilians are wild about ice cream (sorvete) all year round, but the craziness reaches epidemic proportions during the summer, for reasons that are quite obvious. Line-ups out the door, people walking down the street trying their best to prevent a dripping cone from staining their clothes, kids with smiles a mile-wide and a face smeared with ice cream - these are all signs of summer in Brazil.

During the colder months, Brazilians eat lots of cream and chocolate-based ice cream flavors, but when the thermometer's about to pop, they are more likely to choose a fruit-based flavor. These flavors are sharper and more acidic which somehow makes them more refreshing in the heat. They are also less caloric, and thus don't feel as filling. Most sorveterias (ice cream shops) vary their offerings seasonally to meet the changed demand in summertime and fruit-based options abound.

An article in today's Folha de São Paulo newspaper highlights the summer menu changes at one of the best sorveteria chains in Brazil - Mil Frutas (A Thousand Fruits). Mil Frutas has shops in São Paulo, in Rio de Janeiro and in the coastal resort of Búzios. For the past eight years, it has been crowned the best sorveteria in Rio by the gastronomic guide Veja Comer & Beber. And every summer, it's chart of flavors highlights Brazilian fruits.

Pineapple with cilanto

According to the article, this year owner Renata Saboya has created new flavors that combine fruits and herbs. Two of her new flavors are pineapple with cilantro (abacaxi com coentro) and passion fruit with honey and rosemary (maracujá com mel e alecrim). Additionally, some fruits which are available only during the summer, like jabuticaba, pitanga, and cajá, find a place in Mil Frutas' freezers at this time of year.

The ice cream at Mil Frutas uses the simplest ingredients - cream, sugar, and fruit. There are no preservatives or artificial flavors or colors. It's the essence of summer in a cone (or a cup, or a dish). And it's one of the best heat-beaters on Earth.

RECIPE - Caipifruta de cajá

Brazil's most famous cocktail is, of course, the caipirinha, made with pulped limes and their juice, ice and cachaça, a sugar-cane distilled liquor. It's a ritual for tourists from around the world to sit on a beach in Brazil, or in a corner bar, and slowly "become" more Brazilian as they imbibe these powerful cocktails.

The basic caipirinha has developed into a whole family of drinks. When another tropical fruit is substitute for limes, the resulting drink is usually known as a caipifruta. Here's the recipe for a Caipifruta de cajá made with Brazil's cajá fruit. Saúde! (that's "cheers" in Portuguese)

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RECIPE - Caipifruta de cajá

Makes 1 drink

2 oz. cachaça

2 oz.  cajá juice

ice

slice of lime (optional)

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Combine cachaça and the fruit juice is a lowball cocktail glass. Add ice cubes to fill the glass. Garnish with a slice of lime (optional). Serve.

Everything you wanted to know about the cajá...

In the Flavors of Brazil video tour of Fortaleza's central market many exotic tropical fruits were featured, including one called cajá. One of this blog's readers was intrigued by this apparently unknown fruit, and asked me to describe its taste. Trying to formulate a verbal description of any taste is a formidable task, but I thought I'd give it a try. Which led me to doing some research on this fruit, which led me to this post. Everything you wanted to know about the cajá, but were afraid to ask.

When I'd checked the internet casually for an English name for the cajá recently, I didn't find one, and so assumed that one didn't exist. Bad assumption! In doing more detailed research, I found the botanical name of the tree on which the cajá grows - Spondias mombin. Checking the botanical literature for this tree, I discovered that there is indeed an English name for this fruit, though not a very pretty one, I fear. Throughout most of the English-speaking Caribbean and West Africa, it's called the "hog plum". For what reason, I do not know.

The cajá is a tree-fruit, and one of the problems in commercial cultivation is the height of the tree - often more than 100 ft. (30 m). Nonetheless, it's extensively cultivated and highly appreciated in Brazil, particularly in the Northeast and in the state of Bahia. The fruit itself is about 5 cm. (2 in.) in length, and has a leathery skin, a thin layer of pulp, and a large, hard pit. Cajá is most often processed than eaten raw, and is valued as juice, jelly, and flavoring for ice cream, yogurt, etc. One of the most delicious ways to sample cajá is in a caipifruta, an alcoholic drink derived from the caipirinha. A recipe can be found in this post.

The only remaining task for this post now is the description of the taste of cajá. I've struggled mightly to try to think of how to describe it, and the best that I've been able to come up with is this - it's like a combination of apricot and mango (with a slightly resiny taste), but with jacked-up acidity, like a mild passionfruit. Don't know if that is sufficient, but I do know that even typing the description has made my mouth water. Cajá is exquisite, and any description beggars the task.