RECIPE - Sopa Paraguaia

This non-soup soup from Brazil's state of Mato Grosso do Sul - a recipe the local inhabitants learned from their neighbors across the line in Paraguay - is a close relative of American cornbread or johnnycake. And of the firmer varieties of Italian polenta. It is a savory cake made from cornmeal and is typically served as a side dish as part of a meal focused on some sort of stewed meat. The sopa is used to sop up the juices from the main dish and provide some carbohydrate balance to the meal.

Sopa paraguaia is real campfire food, and traces its origins back to the early days of exploration in this once-remote corner of South America. The explorers carried dried cornmeal with them on their expeditions as reliable sources of fresh food were scarce. Mixed with water and cooked in a Dutch oven over a campfire, the cornmeal became sopa paraguaia. Today it is enjoyed for its flavor quality rather than being a food of necessity and has been enriched with the additional of milk and cheese. A simple dish from simpler times - Brazilian/Paraguayan comfort food.
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RECIPE - Sopa Paraguaia
Serves 10

2 Tbsp butter
3 small onions, thinly sliced
4 cups whole milk
2 cups water
salt to taste
1 lb (500 gr) coarsely grated white cheese - mozzarella or Jack
4 cups yellow cornmeal (polenta)
4 eggs, separated
1 Tbsp baking soda
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Preheat oven to 350F (180C).

In a large saucepan, melt the butter then add the onion slices and fry until they are just lightly golden. Add the milk and water. Season for salt. Bring to a boil and cook until the onion is completely softened. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

In a large mixing bowl combine the cornmeal and the grated cheese. Add the milk/water mixture and, using a wooden spoon, mix completely to form a batter. Add the egg yolks and baking soda and mix completely.

Beat the egg whites into soft peaks and then fold them gently into the cornmeal mixture. Do not over-mix. Spread the batter in a casserole or lasagne pan, place it in the preheated oven, and cook for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpic inserted into the center of the sopa comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and let let cool slightly before cutting into serving squares.

Sopa Paraguaia - Brazil's Soup-Thats-Not-A-Soup

In casual spoken Brazilian Portuguese the adjective paraguaio (which literally means "from Paraguay") has come to mean fake/pirated/smuggled/fraudulent. For example "Olha aquele cara, com o relógio Rolex paraguaio" can be translated into English as "Check out that guy with the fake Rolex watch." Brazil has an extended border with Paraguay, much of it unpatrolled wilderness and Paraguay has a reputation in Brazil of being the source of imitation goods, drugs and arms smuggled across that porous frontier. At famed Iguaçu Falls, the city of Ciudad del Este on the Paraguayan side of the Friendship Bridge brims with shops and stalls selling less-than-legitimate goods which Brazilians often buy, smuggle back to more-expensive Brazil, and then complain about the quality or authenticity.

Much of the frontier between Brazil and Paraguay runs through the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul and historically there has always been trade in goods, people and cultures between that state and Paraguay. It is is Mato Grosso do Sul where one is likely to find a dish called Sopa Paraguaia, and it's anything but a soup. It's a savory dish made from corn meal, similar in many ways to cornbread, or even polenta. In the case of this dish, however, the name comes not from the fact that the dish is a "fake" soup but from the fact that the recipe has Paraguayan roots and is a common dish even today on the Paraguayan side of the border.

I'm not sure why the name for this substantial dish is sopa, whether in Paraguay or Brazil. The English word soup (and the Portuguese word sopa) both come from the Low Latin word suppa which means "bread soaked in broth." Perhaps in Paraguay, they preferred their bread to be corn bread and their soup to be more bread and less broth. Who can be sure? Certainly not Flavors of Brazil. But soup or not, the dish is delicious and satisfying. The next post on this blog will contain a recipe for this intriguing "fake" soup.

Cuzcuz - Brazil's Couscous But-Not-Quite

packaged cuzcuz

Cuzcuz is one of the most traditional of all Brazilian dishes, or rather I should say family of dishes as there are numerous regional, local and even familial variations. Though the Portuguese word cuzcuz certainly looks a lot like the English word couscous - which isn't really an English word at all but a borrowing of a French word, which in turn is a Europeanization of a Berber word from North Africa - cuzcuz and couscous are two different things entirely. Well, not entirely as both words refer to a mixture of a grain semolina and a liquid - other than that they're quite distinctive.

In English and in most European tongues, couscous refers to wheat semolina which has been steamed until moist and soft and which is served as an accompaniment to meat, poultry, fish or vegetarian main dishes, usually with some sort of a sauce. This wheat-semolina couscous does exist in Brazil, but it's distinguished from "garden variety" cuzcuz by being called cuzcuz marroquino (Morrocan couscous).

Brazilian cuzcuz is made from grains like European or North African couscous, but the grain is most often corn (maize) although sometimes it is manioc, or a mixture of maize and manioc. Both of these grains are New World in origin, unlike wheat, yet Brazilian cuzcuz is very much a product of the Portuguese colonization of this part of the Americas. The Portuguese learned of couscous in North Africa and brought it to Portugal a very long time ago. The name is mentioned in a play published by  Portuguese playwright Gil Vicente in 1525. It was brought to Brazil by Portuguese explorers and "americanized" by substituting local grains corn and manioc for European wheat.

plain cuzcuz

The tradition of cooking cuzcuz became associated with the settlement of what is now the state of São Paulo in southeastern Brazil, and in particular with the historic towns and village of the Vale do Paraíba, the Paraíba river valley. The original cuzcuz from this region, according to Brazilian food historians, consisted simply of corn or manioc semolina, salt and pepper, steamed over water. Unlike North African or European couscous, the mixture was steamed until it became quite moist and moldable, almost like a cake (think of polenta). Later additions included onion and garlic and paste (annattourucum) to give it some color.

In the 10th century, cuzcuz moved upmarket, and in the hands of the cooks of the local aristocracy, became more elaborate and opulent - new and sophisticated ingredients like canned sardines, fresh shrimp, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, peas and tomatoes were added to the molded dish. The result was what has come to be known as cuzcuz Paulista - that is cuzcuz in the manner of São Paulo state.

Other regions of Brazil have different ways of elaborating this simple dish. In the northeast, coconut milk is added to the grain to give it a richness of flavor. In Minas Gerais, they substitute chicken for the shrimp. There are even sweet versions made into desserts. But the most iconic of all cuzcuz dishes is cuzcuz Paulista - a staple of buffet tables, wedding suppers and sunday family lunches that somehow encapsulates the culinary history of  São Paulo.

Tomorrow's post on Flavors of Brazil will include a recipe for cuzcuz Paulista.

A New Look at the Columbian Exchange

Christopher Columbus

The Columbian Exchange, a term coined in 1972 by Alfred W. Crosby in a book of the same name, was the dramatic exchange of food plants and animals between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres in the years after the European "discovery" of the New World in 1492. In the Age of Exploration that followed Columbus' initial voyage across the Atlantic, foodstuffs from the New World, whether animal or vegetable in origin, made their way eastward to the Old World, and an equal number moved in the opposite direction, arriving on American shores with Pilgrims, conquistadores, bandeirantes, and countless other immigrant groups.

Today it's hard to imagine what people ate and how they cooked prior to the Columbian Exchange. Try to imagine Italian cooking and Italian food culture without tomatoes. Or Thai or Indian cooking without chili peppers. Or Brazilian food without limes or coconuts or mangoes. Impossible. Yet, until sometime after 1492 cooks in these cultures did not have these ingredients available, though today these ingredients are essential to the food culture of these countries. For an interesting chart of all the foods that were part of the Columbian Exchange, click on this link to a Wikipedia article - incidentally, the chart also shows the diseases that were part of this same exchange.

Recently a Portuguese scholar and historian, José Eduardo Mendes Ferrão, published a book on the Columbian Exchange, with particular emphasis on the role that Portuguese navigators and explorers played in this process. The book is entitled A Aventura das Plantas e Os Descobrimentos Portugueses (The Adventure of Plants a The Portuguese Discoveries) and was published by the Portuguese institute IICF - Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical or Institute of Scientific Tropical Research. Sr. Ferrão's thesis is that because of the patterns and the history of Portuguese exploration and colonization in the 16th and 17th centuries, Portugal played a major role in the Columbian Exchange, a role that was far larger than might be expected. And because Brazil was Portuguese territory during those times, it played a large part in the Exchange as well.

Unlike Spanish colonization during those centuries which was centered on the New World, Portugal explored and colonized not only the Americas, but also Africa and Asia. According to Sr. Ferrão is it the geographically widespread nature of Portuguese exploration that makes Portugal such a major player in the Columbian Exchange. Another factor, as he points out, was that Portugal possessed islands in the Atlantic, such as Madeira, Porto Santo and the Cabo Verde archipelago. These semi-tropical islands allowed Portuguese planters to acclimatize new species to the cooler European climate prior to bringing them to mainland Portugal. They survived, whereas plants carried directly from the tropics to the Iberian peninsula might not have. In effect, these off-shore territories became botanical laboratories for the Europeanization of Asian, African and American foods.

A good example of the role Portugal played in the Columbian exchange is the dissemination of corn (maize) - milho in Portuguese. Although this plant did not originate in Brazil but came from Central America, it was already widespread in the indigenous cultures of Brazil prior to the arrival of Europeans in 1500. The Portuguese carried corn back to Europe with them, and from there, carried it to their colonies in Africa. From these colonies it spread throughout the continent, and today corn is the most widely-eaten staple food on the African continent. In the other direction, the Portuguese brought the coconut palm from Asia (either South Asia or Southeast Asia) to Africa and thence to Brazil. Brazilian food, particularly the African-based cuisine of Bahia, is unimaginable without the presence of coconut and coconut milk.

As far as I've been able to determine, Sr. Ferrão's book has not yet been translated into English. As the field of historic gastronomy grows and becomes a more prominent academic subject, I hope that this situation will be remedied. The Columbian Exchange is one of the fundamental shifts in the history of world gastronomy, and the Portuguese contribution to it should be made better known.

Salpicão - Brazil's chicken salad

In Brazil, any time you walk along the line of dishes at a buffet, whether it's a wedding reception, a birthday party or even a standard self-service restaurant, one dish you can assume you'll find among the choice of salads and cold dishes is called salpicão. Salpicão is to the Brazilian buffet table what molded-jelly salads were to church basement suppers in the USA and Canada in the 50s and 60s - ubiquitous and omnipresent. It is basically Brazil's version of chicken salad, and as such has multitudinous variations and takes on a central theme - cooked and shredded chicken mixed with some fruits and vegetables, all bound together with mayonnaise.

Like the little girl who had a little curl, it can be said of salpicão that when it is good, it is very, very good, and when it is bad it is horrid. And also potentially dangerous, for any mayonnaise-based salad that isn't properly refrigerated in Brazil's hot climate can turn bad almost instantaneously. I tend to avoid salpicão in commercial establishments for this and other reasons, but have eaten some wonderful versions in home buffets.

Less appetizing and cheaper versions of salpicão tend to load the mixture with a lot of canned corn and canned peas, whereas better ones feature more chicken meat and fresh vegetables and fruits. Although the number of recipes for salpicão is unlimited, there are, however, a few must-haves to make it a true salpicão. First, there has to be fresh fruit in the mix, usually diced apples but sometimes pineapple. Second, some sort of dried fruit much be added. This is usually raisins, but I've also seen chopped dried apricots. And finally, the salad must be topped with packaged commercial shoestring potatoes (sorry!) If you don't have these things, it's not really a salpicão at all.

In the next post Flavors of Brazil, I'll provide a typical recipe for salpicão. If made at home with good ingredients and a light touch on the mayonnaise it can be very good indeed.

RECIPE - Aluá

Aluá is a homemade fermented (and therefore slightly alcoholic) drink that has a long history in Brazil. You can read more about it here. It is particularly popular in the north and the northeast of the country and it has many different variations - different recipes with different ingredients. What all forms of aluá do have in common is that they are naturally fermented for a short time only, using either fruit or grain as the basis for fermentation, and that they are served without further processing, such as filtering, distilling or aging.

Here are two recipes for aluá - one made with pineapple peelings and one with dried corn and ginger. I've always thought it was a shame to throw away just a large portion of a fresh pineapple, so I'm really looking forward to making the first recipe next time a buy a pineapple. I will duly report on the results. If you make aluá from one of these recipes and enjoy it, try it another time with a different grain, or a different fruit. These recipes are more guidelines than instructions.

In Brazil, the normal time to allow for fermentation to occur is one day. Fermentation occurs rapidly in the tropical heat of this country, so if you live in a cooler climate it may take longer for the fermentation process. Remember, however, that aluá is meant to be only slightly alcoholic, so don't let it ferment too long!  Make it, let it ferment, cool it in the refrigerator, and enjoy...

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RECIPE - Pineapple Aluá (Aluá de Abacaxi)

1 medium pineapple
2 quarts (liters) fresh water
brown sugar (optional)
cloves to taste
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Cut the pineapple in quarters, and remove the flesh, reserving it for another use. Cut the peelings into coarse slices. Put the peelings in a large glass or ceramic jar, and cover with the 2 quarts of water. Place a dry clean dish-towel over the jar, and leave to ferment for a minimum of 24 hours. The longer it is left, the higher the percentage of alcohol will be. Sample after 24 hours, and continue fermentation if desired, checking frequently. When fermented to taste, drain through a sieve into another jar, discarding the peelings. Add sugar if desired and cloves. Place in refrigerator to stop fermentation and serve cold or over ice.

RECIPE - Red Corn and Ginger Aluá (Aluá de Milho Vermelho)

1 pound (450 gr.) dried red corn kernels, soaked overnight (can substitute yellow or white corn)
1 piece ginger root, 3 inches (5 cm) long, peeled and grated
2 cups brown sugar
2 quarts (liters) fresh water
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In a food processor, in batches, process the corn and ginger together. Put the corn, ginger and sugar in a large glass or ceramic jar, and cover with the 2 quarts of water. Place a dry clean dish-towel over the jar, and leave to ferment for a minimum of 24 hours. The longer it is left, the higher the percentage of alcohol will be. Sample after 24 hours, and continue fermentation if desired, checking frequently. When fermented to taste, drain through a sieve lined with cheesecloth into another jar, then discard the corn. Place in refrigerator to stop fermentation and serve cold or over ice.

RECIPE - Pamonha

In yesterday's Flavors of Brazil, I posted a recipe for a sweet corn pudding called canjica. In that article there was a link to a video from Folha de S. Paulo, a national newspaper in Brazil. The video was a demonstration of the process of making canjica by a charming woman named Dona Antônia, who recently won a culinary competition during the festas juninas in Northeastern Brazil.

Dona Antônia deserves a return appearance here on Flavors of Brazil. Even though she only speaks Portuguese and consequently many readers of this blog won't understand her, she is so delightful that I can't resist linking to another of her videos on the Folha de S. Paulo website.

The competition that Dona Antônia won was a search for the best pamonha maker in the Northeast of Brazil. Pamonhas are similar to Mexican tamales and are associated with the festas juninas, although they are popular year round. A few months ago pamonhas were featured on Flavors of Brazil, although at that time, no recipe was published. So to remedy that lack, and to give Dona Antônia another opportunity to shine, here is a link to her video demonstration of pamonha making, followed by the recipe itself.

VIDEO

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RECIPE - Pamonha
Makes 12

12 ears very fresh corn
4 Tbsp. sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup cold whole milk
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Cut off the bases of the ears of corn, then carefully shuck them, taking care not to rip the husks if possible. Reserve the husks. Remove all the silk from the cobs, then trim them.

Grate the ears of corn over a large container, then pour the liquid through a sieve, pressing down on the solids to extract all the juice. Stir the sugar and salt into the corn juice until dissolved, then add the milk. Reserve.

Trim the corn husks into equal sized rectangles (see examples on video). Using a corn cob as a mold, wrap the cob in at at least four husks, remove the cob, and tie one end of the package of husks securely with kitchen twine. (see demonstration on video). Carefully fill each package with the liquid corn mixture, then tie the other end of the package with twine tightly.

Bring a large quantity of water to boil in a stockpot or other large saucepan. Lower heat, then carefully place the packages in simmering water to cover. Partially cover the stockpot or pan, and let the pamonhas simmer for one hour. When done, remove the pamonhas from the water and let them drain thoroughly. Serve hot or at room temperature.

RECIPE - Creamy Corn Pudding (Canjica)

One of the most traditional foods of the festas juninas celebrations in Northeastern Brazil is a creamy dessert pudding made from grated fresh corn called canjica. (In other parts of Brazil, canjica may refer to other dishes entirely).

It's made by grating a dozen ears of fresh corn to extract the juice and then, after adding milk, sugar and spices, cooking down the liquid until it reaches the consistency of a thick pudding. It's served at the community fairs and street stalls that are an integral part of the festa junina tradition. It's also quite simple to make at home, though it requires a commitment of a considerable amount of time and elbow grease. But it's well worth the effort as it's comfortingly delicious.

If you click the link at the end of this paragraph, you'll be taken to the site of Folha de S. Paulo, one of Brazil's major national newspapers. On the page that's displayed you can click on a short video which is entitled "Master pamonha chef teaches how to make Northeastern canjica." The cook in the video, a charming woman named Dona Antônia, won a pamonha-making contest at the festa junina fair in Campina Grande, one of the largest such fairs in Brazil. (Click here to learn about pamonha). In this video she demonstrates how to make canjica. Although it's in Portuguese, the video shows the simplicity and charm of this country cook. The recipe below duplicates the recipe she details in the video.

VIDEO

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RECIPE - Creamy Corn Pudding (Canjica)

12 ears of fresh corn
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk
pinch of salt
powdered cinnamon to taste
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Grate the 12 ears of corn, saving the liquid in a large bowl. Pour the liquid through a sieve, pressing down on the solids to extract all the juice.

Put the liquid in a large, heavy saucepan, add the milk, sugar and salt. Stir to dissolve the sugar, then heat the mixture on the stove top over medium heat. Bring only to the simmer, stirring constantly, then reduce heat to maintain the simmer. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, for one and a half hours, or until the mixture has thickened to the consistency of pudding (or an English custard).

Pour into individual serving bowls, and sprinkle each serving with powdered cinnamon. Let cool, and serve at room temperature, or chilled if preferred.

Happy Midsummer (Feliz Festa de São João)

On or about the day of the northern hemisphere's summer solstice (June 20/21) pagan cultures in many places celebrated the longest day of the year with a festival or holiday known as Midsummer. During the period of Christianization of Europe this festival became identified with St. John the Baptist in order to "de-paganize" it, and today many cultures around the world celebrate St. John on June 24. In Brazil this festival is known as Festa de São João and it is celebrated all around the country, though most fervently in Brazil's Northeast. The festival is also known as festas juninas which means "the festivals of June."

The Brazilian festas juninas are associated with community bonfires on the eve of June 24, and with a style of folk-dance called quadrilha. Based on a European dance, the quadrille, the quadrilha has evolved in Brazil unto a complex and complicated dance involving up to 30 dancers led by a couple dressed as a bride and groom. Dancers wear colorful costumes, and there are local, regional and national competitions in Brazil among quadrilha dance troups. Here is a video from YouTube showing part of a competition on the Northeast of Brazil.


Of course, food is an important part of the festas juninas too. The traditional foods of this festival, served at the street fairs that are such an important part of the celebrations, are all associated or made from corn (milho). This is probably due to the fact that June is the harvest season for corn in Brazil, but there may be some other connection to the pagan solstice festivals that were the origin of the festas juninas. Whatever the reason, food stalls at the street fairs feature roasted or boiled corn on the cob, pamonha, bolo de fubá, and a kind of sweet cornmeal pudding known as canjica. (Articles and recipes for pamonha and bolo de fubá have been featured on Flavors of Brazil - click the links to find them).

Angu - The Polenta of Brazil

Recently, Flavors of Brazil featured in a few posts an ingredient called fubá. Fubá is the ground, dried corn that is known in English as cornmeal, and it is used to make delicious cakes and pastries among other things. (Click here for a recipe for Bolo de Fubá, a sweet cornmeal cake.)

Brazilians make much use of fubá in savory dished too, and in that they are like the northern Italians who turn their cornmeal into the famous Italian dish polenta. When fubá is mixed with water, with or without other ingredients, and then cooked it becomes angu - Brazil's polenta. In areas of Brazil which received a large number of Italian immigrants in the past people do use the word polenta, but in the rest of the country, it's called angu, a word that derives from the Fon language of West Africa. In some regions of Brazil angu is prepared not with cornmeal (fubá) but with manioc flour, however, angu de fubá, is the more traditional dish.

Italian polenta is often referred to as being either "wet" or "dry" depending on the relative quantity of water and cornmeal. Wet polenta is creamy and won't hold its shape on a spoon. Dry polenta is firm, and after cooking and cooling, can be cut into any shape desired. There is a similar variation in Brazilian angu - one style, which is made simply with fubá, water and salt and which has a firm texture is called angu mineiro, which means "in the style of Minas Gerais." The creamier, moister angu is called angu baiano, "in the style of Bahia." Angu baiano often has other ingredients added to the basic cornmeal and water, things such as meats, shrimp, vegetables and seasonings.

Angu, of whichever style, is generally served as a side dish. As it's a carbohydrate, it is often served in place of rice or pasta, although Brazilians do not restrict themselves to one starch per meal, and often serve both angu and rice on the same plate.

Cornmeal, Polenta, Fubá - it's all the same

Brazil's staple grain, without question, is rice. An overwhelming majority of the population eats rice in some form daily, usually with some sort of beans. But rice isn't the only grain consumed by Brazilians, who eat wheat in the form of breads and pasta, manioc in a number of forms, and maize or corn, also in many different ways.

The meal made by simply grinding dried corn kernels, which is variously called cornmeal in English, and polenta in Italian, is known in Brazil as fubá. There are a large number of other ground or flaked or rolled products made from corn available in Brazil, but if you want the equivalent of cornmeal or polenta, then it's fubá you want.

So Why Is It Called Green Corn? (Milho Verde)

The eating corn that those in North America call sweet corn, or even corn-on-the-cob corn, is known in Brazil as milho verde, which translates into English as Green Corn. Granted the husks are green, but when it's cooked and ready to eat there's very little green to be seen - if they called it milho amarelo (yellow corn) I'd understand, but the green corn name stumps me. It also seems to stump all my Brazilians friends whom I've asked about this terminology. Nobody knows why it's milho verde, just that it IS milho verde.

Unlike in certain other parts of the world where eating fresh cord directly from the cob is considered something that only barnyard animals do, Brazilians share North Americans love of corn on the cob. It's considered more of a snack food or street food here than it is in North America, and it's not common to serve it as part of a meal in a home or restaurant. However, anywhere there's a crowd on the street, be it carnaval, a holiday festival, or just a park or seashore, you can be sure that there will be milho verde available from a number of vendors, selling the product from a cart or stall.

Most evenings, after the sun as set and it's a bit cooler, I walk along Fortaleza's seafront promenade, called Beira-Mar. Me and thousands of other people. It's a colorful scene of ordinary strollers, jogging athletes, skatboarders and roller-bladers, hucksters, and vendors of arts, crafts and food and drink. The most common food carts are those that sell acarajé, green coconut water, popcorn, french fries, and milho verde. The going price for a cob of corn is 1 real, which is approximately USD $0.50. Normally it is sold from a large cauldron of simmering water, placed in a clean and cut half-circle of corn husk, salted and butter, and is eaten on the run. Some vendors have a charcoal fire at one side of their cart, and will offer to grill the cob for you if you prefer it that way. A fresh, sweet ear of "milho verde" is satisfying without being too filling. Washed down with an icy beer, it makes the evening stroll just that much more pleasant.

Below are some photos of milho verde vendors and their carts, taken on Fortaleza's Beira-Mar.

Pamonha - Brazil's tamales

One of the most important foods that the Americas gave to the rest of the world in the years following the arrival of Europeans to the New World is maize (corn). It is arguably the most important as it now cultivated throughout the world, and is the staple food of billions of humans on every continent. Only the potato might challenge corn for pride of place in the gallery of American foods.

In Brazil, the edible corn which we called "sweet corn" is known as milho verde. This can be translated as "green corn." I'm not sure why it bears that name, as the grains are equally yellow in Brazil as in Iowa or Kansas or Ontario. 

The corn plant is thought to have been first domesticated and cultivated in prehistoric Mexico, but prior to arrival of the first Europeans, it was known throughout large portions of both North and South America.

Corn is eaten in a number of ways in Brazil, but one of the most interesting in in the form of pamonha, which bears a close resemblance to the tamal of Mexico. Anyone familiar with Mexican tamales would recognize pamonha immediately, although these two foods have some significant differences. Tamales are made from a type of dry corn flour called masa harina, which is mixed with liquid to create the dough used to make them. In Brazil, fresh corn is grated and juiced to make pamonha dough. Mexican tamales are wrapped in dried corn husks and then steamed to cook them, while pamonhas are generally wrapped in fresh corn husks and cooked directly in boiling water rather than being steamed.

Pamonhas come in two basic varieties in Brazil, savory and sweet. I'm not sure if there are sweet tamales in Mexico, but I'm not familiar with them. Savory pamonhas are often filled with chopped meat or chicken, but can also be made "blind"; that is without stuffing. Sweet pamonhas are generally "blind" but can be flavored with coconut milk.

In my neighborhood in Fortaleza, every afternoon about 4 pm, I hear the sounds of the pamonha man coming from the street below. He rings a triangle as he walks by, shouting out the name of his wares - "Pamonha, Pamonha, Pamonha." In an age in which passing street-vendors have largely disappeared, it's a lovely reminder of earlier times and earlier ways to hear his call becoming louder as he approaches, and fading as he walks by. (Incidentally, his pamonhas are delicious, and only cost 1 real (about USD $0.50) each).