RECIPE - Jambo Compote (Compota de Jambo)

One of the very simplest, and most delicious, ways to handle fruit that you don't want to or can't eat fresh is to turn it into a compote. A compote is nothing more than pure fruit and sugar, cooked down until the fruit is softened and the sugar is dissolved. Done.

In the past, in the days before refrigeration, compotes were an important method of preserving fruit and they allowed the harvest surfeit to be enjoyed long past the season. Today, compotes are eaten mostly because they're delicious, but their preservative powers shouldn't be neglected. When a seasonal fruit is at it's peak of ripeness and flavor turning it into a compote locks in that flavor, allowing you to enjoy it when that fruit isn't in season.

Compotes, unlike jams and jellies, aren't made for canning. They can be kept for a few weeks in the refrigerator and can be frozen for up to several months. The fact that you don't have to deal with sterilizing jars, rings and lids makes them much less of a task than jams or jellies.

Compotes can be served as is as a dessert or breakfast dish. They also make wonderful toppings for ice cream, turning a good-quality vanilla ice cream into a marvelous sunday.

This traditional Brazilian recipe for jambo compote is a good guide to making compotes. It can be adapted to almost any other kind of fruit - just remember that you can not eliminate the sugar, nor even reduce it very much. It's the sugar that acts as a preservative.
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RECIPE - Jambo Compote (Compota de Jambo)

4 cups chopped, seeded jambo (do not peel)
3 cups granulated white sugar
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Combine the fruit and sugar in a large saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring frequently, until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and the fruit has completely softened.

Remove from heat and let cool completely. Store in refrigerator until ready to use, or freeze for up to several months.

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.

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.

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 - 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.

On The Road - Belém (Pt. 8) - Tropical Ice Cream Paradise

In the hot, muggy, often stifling climate of Belém, simply being able to refresh oneself from time to time with a cone or cup of ice cream is a potential lifesaver. And if that ice cream comes from Belém's most well-known and loved chain of ice cream store, Cairu, it's also a potential lifechanger. For if you visit one of Cairu's 10 locations around the city, whether in the tourist/entertainment center Estação das Docas  or in a residential neighborhood you'll taste ice cream as good as the best that Italy or Argentina has to offer, with the added bonus of a range of flavors that exists nowhere else in the world.

Cairu sells all the standard ice cream flavors, of course, and their quality is probably high. We say probably, because when faced with the list of flavors posted on the wall choosing vanilla or strawberry over one of the local fruits of the jungle wasn't even an option for us. During our recent visit to Belém we made repeated trips to Cairu and not once did we order a flavor of ice cream we had ever had before in our lives, nor did we order a flavor we'd already tried at Cairu, tempted though we were.

Cairu's speciality is the confection of superb ice cream flavored by the tremendous cornucopia of fruits that flourish in the tropical rain forest. Fruits like bacuri, cupuaçu, ixu, murici, açaí, taperebá - all with flavors as exotic as their names. Some, like cupuaçu, which is related to chocolate, are creamy and smooth and others, like taperebá and murici have the sharp acidic tang of plenty of vitamin C. Cairu also has an interesting selection of local flavors that are not fruit-based, such as castanha-do-Pará (brazil nut) and tapioca. All of Cairu's ice creams are made in house, using only natural flavors, sugar and dairy. There are no artificial flavors or preservatives. Considering the quality of the product, we found Cairu's prices to be surprisingly reasonable. A single cone or cup (a very large scoop) was R$4.00, just over USD $2.00 and a double R$7.00, about USD $3.50.

It's 9:40 in the morning as we write this post, and it's already 31 degrees (88F) here in Fortaleza.  We'd kill for a scoop of Cairu's taperebá ice cream right about now. In the tropical heat, it's definitely good for what ails you. Too bad it's 800 miles away!

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.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Sapodilla (Sapoti)

It's been a while since Flavors of Brazil has posted an article in our long-running but sporadic series on the fruits of Brazil. If readers of the blog have been thinking that the lack of new entries meant that the blog had covered all the fruits eaten in this country, rest assured that we've only just begun to work our way through the hundreds of Brazilians fruits. There are still many that are untasted and unreported, so keep tuned.

Many of Brazil's typical fruits are as beautiful as they are delicious - fruits like carambola (star fruit) or pitaia (dragon fruit) are showy and exotic. A few are downright ugly, like the homely ata or fruita-do-conde (custard apple). But the fruit called sapoti (sa-po-TCHEE) in Portuguese and Spanish-derived sapodilla in English is a real plain Jane - not gorgeous nor hideous, it's just anonymous and rather boring. A fist-sized ball of mousy brown or light chestnut, the outside of the sapoti is unassuming and a bit dull, kind of like a smooth potato or a larger kiwi fruit - it doesn't "sell" itself like many other fruits do (for perfectly logical botanical reasons). If one of the objects of a fruit is to aid plant reproduction by encouraging animals to eat the fruit and thus spread the seeds, it's a miracle that the sapoti has survived for millions of years. But it has, very successfully.

If the outside of the fruit isn't anything special, the inside certainly is, in visual appeal, in aroma and in taste. The flesh is a lovely muted orange with a grainy texture, sort of like a pear. The flesh encloses the fruit's seeds, which number from two to five, and which have a hook at one end that can catch in the throat if one isn't careful. The fruit has a high sugar content and is exceptionally sweet. Some people claim that the taste is malty or resembles caramel or brown sugar. When the fruit is unripe, its high tannin content gives sapoti a sharp astringent quality which dries out the mouth. In Brazil, sapoti is normally eaten fresh, although it is also processed into jam, juice, ice cream and syrup.

The sapodilla tree (sapotizeiro) is native to the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, although it spread throughout tropical America and the Caribbean long before the arrival of Europeans. However, its spread to other tropical zones of the world, particularly India, Malaysia and Indonesia, did come about through the agency of European colonizers. Today, the world center of sapodilla cultivation is India.

The sapodilla tree is extensively cultivated not only for the fruit that it bears, but also for the white-gummy latex found in its bark. This rubbery latex is called chicle, and it was the original base material for chewing gum, although natural chicle is now frequently replaced by manufactured substitutes.

Sapoti can grow anywhere in the tropics, but in Brazil it is associated mostly with the northeastern region of the country. Sapoti is often sold by street vendors in cities of the northeast, even at street crossings during red lights. Taken home, chilled for an hour or two, cut open and peeled, a wedge or two of sapoti is refreshing and energizing. Just one more reason why Brazil's one of the world's paradises for fruit lovers.

What's With Google and Jackfruit?

Flavors of Brazil isn't written to make money (that's for sure) nor is it an attempt to garner huge numbers of hits in an attempt to be the biggest this or the biggest that in the blogosphere. However, we're human, and since Google/Blogspot does provide bloggers with a mountain of statistics about how one's blog is progressing - how many people access the blog, which specific posts they read, where they come from, what operating system they use etc., we confess that we do check out the statistics from time to time. It's human nature after all.

Recently we've noticed that one post, from January 20th of this year, has been accessed many more times than almost any other, and we're not sure why. This article, about the Brazilian jackfruit, seems to be Google's search engine's current favorite post on Flavors of Brazil, by a long shot.

Of all the almost 800 posts on this blog, the champion in terms of hits has always been this one from September, 2010 which is a recipe for making the dough for a Brazilian snack called a pastel. In the 17 months since it was published, it's been viewed about 5500 times. It's a practical post, with a recipe, so it seems logical that it would be frequently accessed.

The jackfruit post, which is only about 40 days old, is rapidly catching up on the reigning champion. It's been viewed 4500 times up to today. That's a daily rate of more than 100 hits. What's going on?

Here at Flavors of Brazil, we do like jackfruit as well as the next brasileiro, but we're a bit stumped when we try to figure out why so many people are interested in jackfruit. What's it about this giant tropical and fruit and its relation to Google? We don't claim to be botanists or any other sort of expert on the jackfruit, but it does seem that when someone asks Google about jackfruit, Flavors of Brazil is Google's go-to site.

Anybody have any suggestions why this might be? We'd love to hear.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Nêspera

Almost every time we visit Fortaleza's central public market, known as Mercado São Sebastião, we spot someone selling a fruit that we've never seen before. And being in the business of blogging Brazilian food, we are forced, naturally, to ask the vendor what's in his display case, or what's in her cardboard box on the floor.

This week, we came across one of the regular vendors (those who have a designated stand and who are there year-round) selling a small roundish yellow fruit that looked like-an-apricot-but-not-an-apricot. It was about the same size and color, but the skin was a bit glossier and the shape wasn't identical. It didn't have the line which splits an apricot into two natural halves. It looked familiar, but we couldn't identify it. We were sure we'd seen it somewhere before but weren't able to recall when or where.

The vendor was happy to tell us that he was selling a fruit called nêspera, but the name meant nothing and wasn't much of a clue. He kindly cut one open which settled once and for all that this wasn't some variety of apricot. Instead of a single stone, there was a cluster of glossy brown seed in the middle of the fruit. We bought some and headed home for a tasting and to find out what we had bought.

Nêspera, according the the dictionary is also known in Brazil as ameixa-amarela, which means yellow plum. However, the fruit is no more related to the plum than it is to the apricot. Finding the scientific name, Eriobotrya japonica, gave us a clue as to the geographical origins of the plant and a key to finding the English name. We know it as loquat (if we know it at all).

Discovering the English name, we remembered where we'd seen it. In Asian markets, in Vancouver. We'd seen it in fruit and vegetable stores in Chinatown and Japantown, and it seemed to be quite popular with members of Vancouver's various Asian communities.

It turns out that the fruit did originate in Asia, probably in southwest China although it has been cultivated in Japan since early times. In Asia the fruit is eaten fresh, poached in a light syrup or processed into confectionary and jellies. Its syrup is also used medicinally in Asia, particularly to soothe sore throats. If loquats are eaten in quantity, they have a noticeable sedative effect which can last up to 24 hours.

Loquats came to Brazil along with the thousands of Japanese immigrants who arrived in the early 20th century. (The persimmon arrived in the same manner). The first loquat plantations were in Brazil's southeast, where Japanese settlers worked on coffee plantations, but now loquats are grown in many regions of Brazil.

Today Brazil is the world's third largest producer of this fruit, trailing only Japan and Israel. As in Asia, most of the annual nêspera crop is eaten fresh, though we understand that some jellies and jams are commercially produced.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Pitomba

High summer in northeastern Brazil (right about now) brings along a cornucopia of seasonal fruits when it arrives. There are standard commercial fruits that are available all-year-round in Brazil - things like mangoes, papayas, bananas, oranges, etc. - and there are fruits that are only available locally and seasonally. These have more limited commercial potential obviously, and are sometimes only sold by street-side vendors and guys who stand in the median at red lights, but they're often interesting and usually delicious. And summer brings the majority of them with it.

Yesterday, while we were in our car waiting for the light to change, a vendor offered us a small bundle of a fruit called pitomba for which he wanted R$2,00 (about a dollar). We bought a bunch, took it home and stuck it in the fridge to cool, then ate the pitombas for dessert last night. They were marvelous, and absolutely refreshing. And they brought back memories of Canada and Asia (you'll soon see why).

When researching the pitomba on various botanical sites on the internet this morning we found lots of information about the fruit. That it's native to the Amazon Basin, for example, and that it's cultivated in Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. That its name, whether you're speaking English, Spanish or Portuguese, is pitomba. But nothing about what to us is the most obvious and interesting thing about pitomba - its relationship to a family of Asian fruits.

Take a look at this photo of a vendor in Fortaleza with a bundle of pitombas. Does the fruit remind you of any fruit that you know? One that you might seen and eaten in Asia, or found in places in North America where there is a significant Asian population? Certainly, having lived for many years in Vancouver, with its various Asian communities, we found the resemblance startling.

To us, pitomba looks like a twin of the fruit we know from Canada as longan. And like a cousin, only slightly less closely related, of the lychee. And when we checked out the taxonomy of the pitomba, the longan and the lychee, all three belong to the same kingdom, division, class, order and family. It's only when you get to the genus and species that they diverge. They're obviously "family."

It seems strange that none of the sources that we checked out, including scientific botanical sites and more popular sites like Wikipedia, mention this relationship. Whether you know their scientific names or not, all you have to do is eat a longan, a lychee and a pitomba and you'll know they're very closely related - in appearance, in size, in color and texture and in flavor. So why doesn't anyone mention this? There must be an interesting evolutionary reason why trees native to East Asia (longan and lychee) and to the jungles of the Amazon (pitomba) are so closely related. We'd be interested to hear the tale. And if no one knows why, it sounds like a perfect botanical puzzle to figure out. Maybe the pitomba is the proof that those who claim that South America was populated directly from Asia by seafaring peoples need to make their case. Who knows?

What we do know, however, is that we love pitombas, and are most happy to see them for sale again, even if it's only for a short time.

Mango Season Has Arrived - Yippee, Hooray!

Although we're aware that winter is on the doorstep in much of the Northern Hemisphere, if not already knocking at the door, down here in Brazil the dog days of summer are upon us. Even in Fortaleza, where there is little annual variation in temperature, there's been a noticeable increase in temperature recently. And in more southernly parts of Brazil, they've gone on to daylight savings time. Hotter days and nights, and longer days are signs of summer everywhere in the world, but in Brazil there's another way to tell it's summer - it's mango season.

And how can you tell it's mango season here in Fortaleza? Easy... just walk the residential streets of the city for a few blocks, and look up from time to time into the foliage of the large shade trees that line the streets. It's hard to miss the bright yellow/orange kidney-shaped fruits dangling in the foliage canopy. They're all mangos - and all ready for plucking - ready, that is, if you can figure out a way to get 30 or 40 feet up into the tree to snag a couple.

But's there's an easier way to enjoy mango season than monkeying your way up a gigantic mango tree - just head for the local produce store or supermarket and you'll see huge bins of mangoes - usually at least four or five different varieties. All ready to eat and all getting cheaper by the day.

Mangoes grow almost everywhere in Brazil and when they're in season they're ubiquitous. In the trees, in shops and stores and on street vendors carts. Or even at stop lights - most intersections have fruit vendors who will sell a basket of fruit to you through the car window while you wait for the light to change, and these days, the basket is likely to be mangoes.

Brazil's mango crop is colossal. According to government statistics, Brazil produces about 825,000 tons of mangoes each year. Even considering that  over 90% of the crop is consumed domestically in Brazil, the remaining 67,000 tons that are exported is enough to make Brazil the world's second-largest mango exporter, trailing only Mexico.

Just as strawberry addicts gorge themselves during strawberry season, or lovers of corn-on-the-cob make August meals that are just corn, corn and more corn, Brazilians love to indulge their taste for mangoes during the summer. Most of the mango crop is either eaten fresh or processed into juice, but there are many traditional Brazilian recipes that call for mangoes in one form or another. In the next couple of days, mangoes will be our focus here at Flavors of Brazil.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Tamarind (Tamarindo)

reconstituted tamarind pulp

Of the many species of tropical fruit trees, none is more widely distributed than Tamarindus indica, which is known in English as the tamarind tree and in Portuguese as the tamarindeiro. Although its scientific name would indicate that it is native to India (indica) it actually originated in the savannas of Africa and still grows wild there. It was carried to South Asian in earliest times and today the Indian subcontinent is where the majority of the world's tamarind tress grow. It is also extensively cultivated in the North and Northeast of Brazil, and was brought to this country from India by Portuguese navigators, traveling from India to Brazil by way of Portugal.

The tamarind tree is valued not just for its fruits, but also as an ornamental tree. The tree is slow-growing and reaches tremendous age and size. It can reach up to 100 feet (30 meters) high, with a spread of 40 feet (12 meters) and trunks have been measured up to 25 feet (approx. 8 meters) in circumference. Its foliage is bright green, fine and feathery. The fruit, which is actually an elongated seed pod, is a velvety light brown with a juicy, acidic pulp surrounding the seeds in immature fruits. In dried, mature fruits, the pulp becomes less liquid and more of a paste than a pulp.

Tamarind pulp is valued in traditional Brazilian cuisine, and in many tropical cuisines elsewhere, for its acidity, which perks up and enlivens a dish just as a splash of fresh lime or lemon juice does. It is an important ingredient in sauces, preserves and chutneys. Part of the flavor profile of Worcestershire sauce comes from the presence of tamarind. The pulp can also be thinned out with water and sweetened with sugar to make a refreshing tart drink. This tamarind "juice" is very popular in the heat of northern Brazil and is considered to have significant cooling properties. Brazilians often "prescribe" tamarind juice for digestive problems.

The tamarind does have scientifically proven medicinal value, for many purposes, not just as a digestive. Because of its high levels of vitamin C it is a powerful antiscorbutic, and the pulp has value as a laxative as well. Native folklore also attests to the hangover-reducing properties of tamarind juice.

Fresh tamarinds are available in supermarkets in some regions of Brazil. In other regions, frozen pulp, completely natural, is available in market freezers and can be reconstitued with water to make juice or merely thawed when pulp is called for.

In upcoming posts, we'll feature some traditional recipes from Brazil which call for tamarind. In North America you can sometimes find fresh tamarind in Latin or Asian food markets, and in those same markets you can find semi-dried pulp in small packages. By soaking this pulp in hot water and removing the seeds you can make your own ready-to-use tamarind.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Pupunha

The pupunheira palm tree, native to the rain forests of Central and South America and bearing the fearsome sounding botanical name of Bactris gasipaes, is one of these double-whammy food-bearing plants that offer more than one foodstuff from a single plant. Think of beets with their sweet, earthy root and their bitter and flavorful greens. Other than the reddish tinge in the veins of the greens, there is nothing that would lead one to believe the root and the leaf must come from the same plant. Or think of the coriander plant - its ground seeds are an essential part of Indian curries adding warm, spicy and orange-scented notes, while the fresh, tangy, green leaves of the same plant (better known by its Spanish name cilantro) are an important herb in Mexican, Brazilian and Thai cuisines. Again, there is nothing that would seem to connect ground coriander with fresh cilantro.

The pupunheira palm, which flourishes in all tropical regions of Brazil offers both its fruit and the tender growing bud of its central stalk for human consumption. In an upcoming post on Flavors of Brazil, we'll discuss the stalk-bud, which is known in Brazil as palmito and in English as heart of palm. The pupunheira is only one of several palm species from which palmito is harvested, but it's ecologically the most sustainable one, and its importance in the international heart of palm market is growing rapidly.

The bounty of this palm tree is more than just palmito, though. The pupunheira also bears a bright red fruit with a brilliant orange-yellow interior that's an important food source for dwellers of the rain forest and which is now just beginning to be marketed commercially outside its native habitat. In the Amazon region, where the bulk of the harvest is still sold and consumed, pupunha fruits can be found in markets, on simple roadside fruit stands, and even sold by vendors at traffic lights.

Because the pupunha fruit contains oxalic acid it cannot be eaten raw, as it is toxic in that state. It must be cooked to eliminate the acid, and this is generally done by boiling the fruit for 50 to 80 minutes in salted water, then cooling it and peeling it before consumption. Pupunha fruit is often eaten as part of the breakfast meal. Some prefer to eat it in it's natural state, but many Brazilian add honey or sugar to it to increase the sweetness. For mid-day or evening meals, it's often mashed or ground into a puree which substitutes for other starches such as potatoes or manioc that can't be cultivated in the rain forest. Pupunha puree can be further dried in a kiln or oven then reground to make a type of flour, which can be stored for long periods of time without refrigeration and reconstituted later with water.


Nutritional studies indicate that pupunha fruits have high levels of anti-oxidants and vitamin A and can be an important source of selenium. Pupunha has one of the highest levels of selenium in the plant kingdom. The fruit also has high levels of beneficial oils.

Today, the commercial value of the bud of the plant (the palmito) vastly outweighs the commercial value of the fruit, which is known and eaten primarily in its native habitat. Outside Amazonia there is a tremendous domestic and international market for palmito, but currently almost none for the fruit. Both governmental and non-governmental organizations are working on ways to increase the commercial visibility and viability of the fruit, which in the future could be an important value-added product of the harvesting of pupunheira palms to meet the international demand for hearts of palm..

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Guava (Goiaba)

Brazil is the world's largest producer of guavas (goiaba in Portuguese), even though it is geographically very wide-spread and popular in tropical regions around the globe, from Mexico to South Africa and from India to Hawaii. The guava tree itself (Genus:Psidium) originated somewhere between Mexico and Northern South America, but it has been cultivated since pre-history and has spread so far that its origins are lost in time. Man has partially been responsible for the spread of the guava tree, carrying it from the New World to the Old, but the guava tree can also thank birds for helping it to extend its global reach. Guava seed are extremely hard, and remain viable for long periods of time. Undigested seeds in bird droppings can sprout thousands of miles from the mother tree and create new groves in locations far removed from historic habitats.

There are many varieties of guava, some with yellow skin, some with green and some with pink. Some with whitish flesh and some with shocking pink flesh. Some round like and apple and some pear-shaped. What all guavas share is their taste, and even more so, their aroma.

Guavas are strongly aromatic, sometimes alarmingly so. Like most aromas, the smell of ripe guavas is very difficult to describe - it's slightly sweet, very flowery, and heady - sometimes almost too much so. The smell of guavas can be overwhelming. However it's described, the characteristic smell of guavas is utterly unique - there's no other fruit that smells like it - and once known, the aroma will never be forgotten. It's one of the most evocative smells of the tropics.

To regular readers of Flavors of Brazil it must seem that every time there's a post on the blog about a Brazilian fruit it's called a "superfruit" somewhere in the post. So, this time we promise not to use that  word in discussing guavas. Nonetheless, the guava is an extremely healthy fruit and has a great number of valuable nutritious properties. One guava, for example, has five times the vitamin C of an orange of similar size. It also has high levels of calcium, something that isn't characteristic of fruits in general. It's a valuable source of vitamins A and B, phosphorus, potassium, iron, folates, and nicotinic acid. In addition, it's very high in fiber and low in calories (about 25 calories per whole fruit). To top it all off, it's said to be helpful in lowering cholesterol levels, in fighting cancers with its antioxidant properties and helps boost the immune system. Maybe this one should be called a "super-duperfruit."

In Brazil, guavas are available year round and are eaten raw in the hand, or peeled, sliced and added to salads and fruit salads. Most of the commercial harvest, though, goes into the preparation of guava juice, guava pulp or it is cooked down and strained to make guava pasta (goiabada).

Guavas are at their best when they are very ripe, which only takes a few days at home. Guavas are increasingly available in North American and European markets and supermarkets, so if you want to try one pick one that is umblemished and still hard. Let it sit at room temperature in the kitchen for a few days, or until the fruit yields to gentle pressure from your finders. You can wash it and eat it all (the peel is edible, like an apple or pear is, but some people find it bitter) or you can scoop out the pulp with a spoon and eat only that portion. Guava flesh has an appealing grainy texture, somewhat like a pear's, and the seeds, which are numerous, should be swallowed with the pulp, or strained out in a sieve. Don't try to crack a seed with your teeth - it's the teeth that will crack, not the seed!

As usual, we'll carry on with Flavors of Brazil's exploration of the guava in the coming days with some recipes which call for "super-duper" guava.

The Case of the Pink Bananas

One thing that makes shopping for bananas in a supermarket, or anywhere else, in Brazil is that from day to day one really doesn't know what one is going to find. Having come from North America, where all the bananas are either Chiquita or Dole, and where they're all pretty much the same - issues of relative ripeness aside - it was quite a shock to see how bananas are sold in Brazil.

First, there are a TON of bananas for sale in most supermarkets. Statistically, the banana is the most commonly consumed fruit in Brazil. This is due to its ubiquity and its relative cheapness. Oh, and maybe due to the fact that Brazilians love bananas, too. It's not uncommon to see a whole section of the supermarket devoted to selling bananas, or at minimum several large bins in the produce section.

Second, you never know what kind of banana you'll find at the market. Depending on season and availability you might find only green, green bananas one day, and ripe, almost over-ripe another. Or on Monday all the bananas will be short, stubby, rounded and fat, like baby fingers, and when you return on Wednesday, they'll all be a foot long, three sided and with a wicked curve. Sometimes you'll get your bananas home and find out that the skin is half and inch thick; the next time it'll be as thin as paper. You learn to adapt, needless to say, and accept what's on offer. It's almost always good.

One thing that had never seemed to change, up to this week anyway, was the color of the flesh. It was always that creamy light, light yellow that we're used to seeing. Sometimes more yellow, sometimes almost white, but it was the shade that varied not the hue. But this week I bought a bunch of bananas that although they looked normal on the outside were completely different on the inside from any bananas I'd ever seen. They were a rosy peach color, nearly a pink. A stunningly beautiful color, subtle and soft - it would be a perfect color to paint a little girl's bedroom.

I took some photos of one of the bananas just after I cut it open - here are the results. The photos are illustrative only, as the color really was more vibrant than appears in these shots.

I'm curious if any of Flavor of Brazil's readers have run into bananas of this color before. I have no idea what cultivar or variety they are, as there's no labelling information at all at my local supermarket.

Incidentally, these bananas were not only beautiful, they were delicious. The taste was half-way between a banana and a plantain and less sweet than many Brazilian bananas. The texture was firm, even though they were completely ripe - there was no mushiness at all.

Now my only problem is to figure out how I'll ever find another pink banana. I'll just have to pray for luck, I guess.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Tucumã do Pará

When most North Americans or Europeans think of palm trees, their first thought is not of a fruit tree - it's likely rather to be a photogenic symbol of either the tropics (coconut palms) or the desert (date palms). Yet both these varieties, coconut and date palms alike, are important food sources in their native habitats and elsewhere in the hotter climate zones of the world.

All varieties of palm produce some sort of fruit as a mechanism for reproduction, and in addition to coconuts and dates, there are many, many more species of fruits consumed in Brazil and other tropical countries that are the product of some type of palm. In Brazil alone, there is dendê oil, without which there would be no Bahian cuisine, there is açaí, there is pupunha, and there is buriti, just to name a few. All come from some variety of palm or another.

One particular fruit-bearing palm, called tucumã, bears a fruit that is widely consumed in the state of Pará, at the mouth of the Amazon river. In fact, the fruit is so closely associated with that state that it is called tucumã do Pará. The native range of this palm is from Trinidad to the Amazon, and it grows all the way up the Amazon basin, to the borders of Brazil, Peru and Colombia, but it's in Pará that it's most highly valued as a food source. The  palm is a particularly nasty-looking tree, with a trunk protected by thousands of large thorns. It's a wonder anyone ever braved those thorns to first sample the fruit.

Like many palm fruits, the tucumã is a source of vegetable oil. And like some other palm fruits, specifically dendê, that oil has high levels of beta-carotene and is consequently a bright orange-yellow in color. The skin of the fruit is also a woody-orange, and can be peeled away easily with the hands or a knife, although the brilliant orange of the flesh can stain the skin. The flesh is fibrous, and can be eaten fresh from the tree. Most tucumã, however, is pulped and strained to make what is called tucumã wine - actually a juice - which is drunk as a refreshment or used as a basis for sauces sweet and savory. Fresh peeled tucumã are sliced and eaten in a French roll in a popular local sandwich. The large central seed is also a source of oil, which has potential to be a significant source of biodiesel.

The enormous river island at the mouth of the Amazon, Marajó, has large native stands of tucumã and therefore a commercial tucumã-harvesting industry. In the next post, Flavors of Brazil is feature a recipe from Marajó for a traditional regional variation on Brazil's national dish, feijoada.

The Story of Carmelita - Ver-o-Peso's Queen of Amazonian Fruits

Among all the thousands of vendors hawking their products daily in the stands and stalls of Belém's enormous Ver-o-Peso market, there is only one small stand, operated by one small woman of 62 years, that year-round sells fruits from the Amazonian basin, and only sells Amazonian fruits. No apples, no pears, no strawberries - if it isn't from the Amazon Carmelita dos Passos Rocha wants nothing to do with it.

When Carmelita first opened her small stand at Ver-o-Peso 42 years ago, this wasn't the case. At that time, the shoppers at the market weren't interested in the fruits that flourish in the rain-forest and along the banks of the Amazon. They wanted sophisticated European fruits, which had to be shipped in at great expense, and which often arrived in less-than-perfect condition. Of course, Carmelita, who was only 20 years old when she bought her stand, also sold the more commercialized tropical fruits of Brazil. Things like bananas, mangoes and papayas. But it was her apples and plums that made her living in the early years.

Carmelita

About 15 or 20 years ago, Carmelita was asked by a customer if she sold cupuaçu or tucumã, traditional local fruits which had almost been forgotten. She didn't, but promised the customer she'd find some to sell, and when she did, these local fruits sold very well. She began to add more local fruits, and over time, apples and peaches lost their place in Carmelita's stall - bananas didn't, but she began to carry some more unusual varieties of Brazil's number-one fruit. Today's Carmelita's stand is a shrine to the bounty of the jungle that surrounds Belém. Besides cupuaçu or tucumã, one can find bacaba, açaí, ingá-chinela, bacuri-pari, cajuru and taperebá on display. And if one of these fruits is not currently in season, it's likely that Carmelita will have frozen pulp available. For those pulps, you can thank Carmelita's sister - she's the one who prepares and freezes them.

It's encouraging to see someone like Carmelita flourish. Remaining small and independent, she has created a business that is tied intimately to its own region, and which showcases the region's botanical cornucopia. She surely is Ver-o-Peso's Queen of Amazonian Fruits.

Adapted from material by Olivia Fraga published in the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Watermelon (Melancia)

The watermelons is one of the most universally-consumed fruits on our planet, and is a common sight in markets and supermarkets from China to Canada to Chile and on to the Congo. Genetic and botanical evidence indicates that the plant originated in southern Africa, where it still grows wild, but it was probably eaten in ancient Egypt and certainly had spread as far as China by the 10th century CE. It's route to Brazil was direct from Africa, and watermelon (melancia in Portuguese) is only one of the many Brazilian foods that arrived on this side of the Atlantic via the African slave trade.

Watermelons are members of the same botanical family as other melons (Cucurbitaceae), but are more closely related to plants like cucumbers than they are to cantaloupes or honeydews. If you think of a melon, or of their close relative the squash, the fruit surrounds a hollow core filled with seeds. Watermelons and cucumbers, however, are not hollow, and the seeds are carried in the flesh of the fruit. Watermelons and cucumbers also share the characteristic of being composed primarily of water - in the case of the aptly-named watermelon the percentage is 92% by weight. The preponderance of what remains is sugar (6% by weight). Watermelon is a good source of vitamin C, and has high levels of beta-carotene, and in red varieties lycopenes.

Brazil's annual production of watermelons is huge - in recent years approaching 620,000 tons annually. Almost all of Brazil has climate conditions that allow successful cultivation of watermelons, and most watermelon is consumed close to where it was grown. The commercial value of the crop is so high that the Brazilian government has proclaimed a National Watermelon Day - 26 November - and there is a National Watermelon Fair held annually in September in the city of Uruana, in the state of Goiás.

Most of Brazil's watermelons grown in Brazil are commercialized in the domestic market, though there is an export market to other countries further south in South America, such as Argentina and Chile, where climate conditions are less favorable to watermelon cultivation. Most watermelons are eaten fresh, though watermelon juice is popular in the thousands of juice bars that populate Brazilian urban centers.

In the past few years, the newest generation of Brazilian chefs has begun to pay attention to the culinary potential of the watermelon. Flavors of Brazil will post some of their recipes in the next few posts.