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.

It's Definitely Kitsch, but Is It Lewd? The Strange Story of Sacanagem

Flavors of Brazil didn't live in Brazil in the 1970s, but according to numerous Brazilian friends that decade was the era of a party appetizer with the very strange name - sacanagem.

According to the UOL/Michaelis online Portuguese to English dictionary, sacanagem is a noun meaning:

1 filthy behaviour, dirtiness, unfairness. 2 derision, raillery, mockery. 3 lewdness, licentiousness.

And in the authoritative Houaiss Portuguese-only dictionary, sacanagem is defined variously as "dirty trick", "peverse act", "libidinous behavior" and even "the act of masturbation."

One wouldn't think that this word would be used to name any dish that a self-respecting hostess would want to serve at a chic cocktail party, but in the 1970s (and at times even today) you can spot a dish of sacanagem on a Brazilian buffet table, or offered with cocktails. If you ask Brazilians about the dish (and we have), none of them can tell you how it came to have such a strange name, but they all remember sacanagem nostalgically, even as they admit that it really should be considered more kitch than cuisine.

Sacanagem isn't very far removed from some North American cocktail-party treats of the same vintage, particulary those parties that were called luaus or puu-puu parties - those with a Polynesian theme. Although there are numerous variations on sacanagem, boiled down to its basics it consists of toothpicks or small skewers on which are threaded slices of hot dogs, cubes of cheese, an olive and perhaps a cherry tomato, those picks then being stuck into some round ball-shaped object to hold them decoratively.

The ball-shaped holder for the sacanagem was sometimes a half of a watermelon, though the most popular was a half of a head of cabbage. At the most chic gatherings, the cabbage was covered with tin foil, giving the dish a Sputnik-like appearance.

Although the list of ingredients that can be employed to make sacanagem is large and includes things such as pineapple or watermelon cubes, everyone agrees that the only item that must be included in a proper sacanagem is chunks of hot dog - not fine charcuterie either, real mystery-meat hot dogs.

We won't be publishing a recipe for sacanagem like we usually do for Brazilian foods we discuss here on the blog, as the description above and the photos below should give you sufficient information to go wild and create your own sacanagem for your next cocktail party. You can be sure that your guests will ask you what is that bizarre looking satellite-type thingie sitting on the coffee table and whether it's safe to eat. You can amaze and surprise them by telling them its an exotic Brazilian dish from the 1970s. You can even tell them it's called sacanagem in Portuguese - just don't tell them what the word means.

Mining Gastronomic Treasures - Brazil's Fazenda Capoava Hotel

Casa Grande - Fazenda Capoava

Located in the hills of São Paulo state, only 100 km (60 miles) from the megalopolitan state capital, the city of São Paulo, the Fazenda Capoava hotel and restaurant offers guests a relaxing stay on a ranch that has been functioning since the 17th century, being at successive times a sugar plantation, a coffee plantation and a cattle ranch. Today, visitors come for the comfortable accommodation in chalets that surround the original casa grande (big house) built in 1750, as well as numerous leisure activities such as horseback riding, hiking, kayaking, bicycle touring, plus a spa and massage facility.

An integral part of the hotel/ranch complex is a building called the Espaço Memória Fazenda Capoava, meaning the Capoava Ranch Memory Space. This museum of the ranch's history is open to the public as well as to hotel guests, and is a repository for artifacts and documents from the ranch's past. The museums collection includes antique industrial-sized coffe grinders, farm implements, and valuable antique furniture from the casa grande. Alongside the artifacts, the museum has an impressive display of documents from the archives of the ranch. There are also many documents for which there is insufficient space to display. These, however, are available to historians and researchers.

Among the most interesting documents, according to Danilo Costa, the food and beverage manager of the ranch, is an extensive collection of 19th century recipes from the ranch's kitchen - four generations-worth of hand-written recipes. Sr. Costa has taken the initiative of inviting one of São Paulo's best-known chefs, Heloísa Bacellar, to study the recipe archive and to recreate several of the best recipes for 21st century cooks. These recipes are now being served in the hotel's restaurant.

Sra. Bacellar chose to begin her task by reinterpreting three 19th century dishes from the ranch - a Paulista-style moqueca, a chayote gratin and a sweet coffee-flavored pudding. The dishes are now available to diners at Fazenda Capoava and in the next few days Flavors of Brazil will publish these historial recreations for our readers.

Based on material written by Camila Bianchi for Prazeres da Mesa magazine.

Brazil's Daily Bread - Pão Francês

When Brazilians ask for "o pão nosso de cada dia" (our daily bread) as part of the Lord's Prayer, the vast majority of them are most likely thinking not of a loaf of sliced white bread, nor of a heavy rye bread. Not a wholesome 8-grain bread or a baguette, either. The image they have in their mind's eye is of a roll that fits neatly in the palm of a hand with a crisp brown crust and a light-as-air crumb inside. The bread that is generically known in Brazil as pão francês, or French bread.

For most Brazilians, pão francês IS in fact their daily bread. It is almost universally eaten at breakfast and often as part of a snack or a light supper, though almost never as part of almoço, the main meal of the day, eaten at lunch time. The typical Brazilian home breakfast is fruit or fruit juice, coffee, and one or two pieces of pão francês, either eaten simply slathered with margarine or cream cheese, or made into a sandwich with a slice of cheese or ham. At night, Brazilians eat pão francês as part of a supper that is smaller than standard North American or European dinner, again served with margarine or cream cheese, or made into a cheese or ham sandwich.

This pattern of eating pão francês every day dates from the early 20th Century in Brazil, when the style of bread we call French became known to Brazilian troops in Europe during the First World War, and was brought home with them when they returned from the battlefield. At that time, crusty rolls were more popular in France than long loaves (baguettes) and to this day, rolls are preferred in Brazil. Over the course of time the original French recipe became Brazilianized, and today most bakeries sell pão francês that has a pinch of sugar and a touch of butter or some other fat added to the original recipe for French bread dough.

Brazilians have come to prefer a roll that has a very airy and fluffy inside - pão francês is much less dense than French bread found in France or other countries. What is most important to Brazilians is the crust - it must be nicely browned and extremely crunchy. Brazilians love a roll that breaks into small sharp flakes when cut into. Because bread crusts do not remain crisp in Brazil's hot and often humid climate, Brazilians demand the freshest of bread on their tables. Many families buy bread from a supermarket or a bakery more than once a day - once for the breakfast bread, and again later in the day for afternoon or evening eating. Bakeries, by customer demand, are required to have fresh bread coming out of their ovens multiple times a day, so that when a customer comes in the bread is still warm from the oven. One bakery in Fortaleza that is a favorite of ours advertises that they offer 40 different bakings per day in order to assure the freshest possible bread.

Although Brazilians are united in their love for pão francês, the name that they call it varies tremendously from regions to region. For example, in São Paulo it's pãozinho (little bread), while in Ceará (home of Flavors of Brazil, it's called a carioquinha (little girl from Rio). Elsewhere, such varied names as pão massa grossa (thick dough bread - in Maranhão), cacetinho (little stick - in Rio Grande do Sul and Bahia), pão careca (bald bread - in Pará), média (medium - in the port of Santos), filão (long one - in Sergipe), pão aguado (watered bread - in Paraíba), or pão de sal (salt bread - in numerous regions) are all applied to this simple basic roll. It's a task for a foreigner travelling around Brazil to find out what to order in the bakery from one location to the next. Even Brazilians are confused when they travel domestically and find that the name they use at home is unheard of at their destination.

Next post, as a special treat for homesick expat Brazilians, we'll post a recipe for Brazilian-style pão francês for making in a home oven.

The XV Festival of Culture and Gastronomy - Tiradentes, Minas Gerais

Tiradentes

The small hilltown of Tiradentes (pronounced cheer-a-DEN-cheese), located in the mountains of Brazil's Minas Gerais state, is known as one of the prettiest and historically most important of Minas Gerais' baroque jewels. Named after Brazil's revolutionary dentist-hero Tiradentes (meaning "tooth-puller" in English) the town offers visitors and tourists lovely examples of Brazilian baroque architecture, a delightful small-town atmosphere and a great collection of inns, small hotels, and restaurants.

For most of the year Tiradentes is a quiet, slow-moving town, even if the number of daily tourists often outnumbers the town's 6000 residents. However, once every year the town explodes in Brazil's best-known gastronomic festival - the Festival Cultura e Gastronomia Tiradentes. This year's festival, the fifteenth edition, is currently on and lasts nine days from August 24th to September 02nd.

The festival offers lectures, exhibitions and festive dinners, and features well-known chefs from Brazil and around the world. This year's star attraction among the chefs is Catalan chef Jordi Roca, whose restaurant El Cellar de Can Roca was recently named the second best restaurant in the world in this year's World Restaurant awards. In addition to Sr. Roca, chefs from Chile, Venezuela, and Peru will join their Brazilian colleagues in presenting demonstrations and special dinners.

The culinary focus of this year's festival will be the food and cooking of six out of Brazil's twenty-six states - Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, Amazonas, Ceará, and Rio Grande do North. One interesting innovation this year is a series of festive dinners created by pairs of chefs from diverse regions of Brazil, for example combining a chef from Pernambuco and one from Amazonas to create a five-course meal, or another with chefs from Rio de Janeiro and Ceará.

Because of the limited number of hotels, pousadas and restaurants in Tiradentes, the festival always sells out, and many festival-goers have to resort to staying in other nearby towns, returning each day to Tiradentes.

The festival has an excellent website, with full details of festival programs, menus of the festive dinners, and plenty of photos and videos (in Portuguese only.) Click here to visit the site.

We here at Flavors of Brazil have yet to experience the festival, but hope to attend the XVI edition in 2013. If we do, there will be extensive reporting on our adventures here on the blog.

Brazil's Most Popular Sausage Family - Meet the Linguiças

Brazilian inherited their love of sausages from their European ancestors, whether those ancestors were Portuguese, Italian, German, Polish or any number of other nationalities. Most churrascos (barbeque parties) include a course of grilled sausages and in any self-respecting churrascaria with its constant parade of sword-bearing waiters passing by the table, one of those waiter's swords will be laden with sausage. One of the most popular bar snacks in the country is a plate of sliced sausages, fried with rings of onions and sparked up with squirts of fresh lime juice.

Many European styles of sausages and cold cuts are represented in Brazilian cuisine - from hot dogs, to bratwurst and on to pepperoni. But the most popular sausages of all must be the group that goes under the Portuguese name linguiça (pronounced lin-GWEE-sa). The name itself comes from Portugal and attests to the antiquity of this style of sausage - linguiça is related to the Italian word luganega, a style of Italian sausage. That Italian word is derived from an ancient tribe in the Italian peninsula, the Lucanians. Recipes for linguiça-style sausages can be found in cookbooks from classical Rome.

In 21st century Brazil, the linguiça family includes at least a dozen different styles of sausage. Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture regulations  define linguiça as:

A processed meat product, containing meat, with or without the addition of animal fat, and seasonings, stuffed into a natural or artificial sausage casing.

That definition is very broad and could fit any number of styles of sausages. However, the regulation goes on to define with greater precision, by name, the most popular types of linguiça:

Linguiça Calabresa - A product that contains exclusively pork meat and which must have the spicy flavor characteristic of the use of calabresa peppers, stuffed into sausage casings or not, dried and/or cooked, and smoked or unsmoked.
Linguiça Portuguesa - A product that contains exclusively pork meat and seasoning ingredients, processed by hot smoking. The traditional presentation is in the shape of a horseshoe and the seasonings include a large amount of garlic.
Linguiça Toscana - A product that contains exclusively pork meat, raw or cured, with or without additional pork fat, and seasoning.
Paio - A product that contains a mixture of pork and beef (maximum 20% beef), stuffed into natural or artificial sausage casings, seasoned and cured, and subject to hot smoking.

In addition to these traditional styles, Agriculture Ministry regulations permit the sale of the other sausages in the linguiça category: beef linguiça , pork linguiça , pork loin linguiça ,pork loin and fresh ham linguiça, and smoked pork linguiça.

For Brazilians, what type of linguiça to use in a particular dish varies from recipe to recipe. For example, feijoada recipes generally call for linguiça toscana and paio, the preferred topping for pizzas is linguiça calabresa, and garlicky linguiça portuguesa is popular at churrascos.

In the next few days, we'll offer up some Brazilian recipes for linguiça, as well as a recipe for making Brazilian linguiça at home.

Brazil Hosts the Salon du Chocolat for the First Time

The 20120 edition of the world's largest and most prestigious trade far and exposition dedicated to chocolate, the Salon du Chocolat, took place two weeks ago in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Previously, the exposition had been held in Europe, Asia and in North America, but this year was the first time it was held in the Southern Hemisphere and the first time it was held in South America. From July 02 to July 09, Salvador was the center of the chocolate world and the city's trade and convention center was chocolate heaven.

It was appropriate that of all the major Brazilian cities, Salvador was chosen to host the event. Bahia state historically and presently has always been the center of cacau cultivation in Brazil. Today Brazil ranks 4th in the world in chocolate consumption and 5th in the world in chocolate cultivation, and a good percentage of Brazilian chocoate originates in the cacau-growing region in the southern part of Bahia.

This edition of the Salon du Chocolat fittingly included a homage/tribute to Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado. 2012 marks the centennial of the Bahian writer's birth, and throughout the year his literary legacy is being commemorated in Brazil. Amado himself was the son of a cacau planter, and many of his novels, including his most famous, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, were set in southern Bahia in the golden age of cacau production.

The exposition included a trade show, lectures, demonstrations, a symposium and a special kids' section. There were also tours to the region of cacau-production in southern Bahia prior to the events in the capital.

At a time when the industry is undergoing a renaissance and when the image of Brazilian chocolate is improving worldwide, hosting this prestigious event is a shot in the arm for Brazilian cacau agriculture. And a very sweet experience for participants in the event.

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.

UTENSILS OF BRAZIL - Clay Pot (Panela de Barro)

When proto-Brazilians first learned that many foodstuffs were improved, or even simply made edible, by the application of heat, they basically used two ways to apply that heat. In the rain forests of the Amazon basin and the coastal mountains, on the savannahs of western and central Brazil and on the beaches of the the country's immense coastline, Amerindians cooked their food either by direct exposure to fire (grilling, basically) or by indirect exposure. Indirect exposure involved placing the food in some sort of fired clay container and heating the food in liquid inside the pot or pan. Even the most primitive tribes of Amerindians seem to have known the technique of firing clay to make ceramic products and to have learned that once fired, ceramics can be exposed to high levels of heat without damage. Metals were unknown to these tribes, and wood was unsuitable in the presence of fire, so without clay pots they would only have been able to grill food.

Grilling is a technique that is well suited to most meats and seafood, plus some types of vegetables. However, it is less well suited to cooking roots and tubers and other types of vegetables that constitute the basic staple foods of most cultures. In pre-Colombian South America these staples included manioc, potatoes and corn. The most common way for Amerindians to cook them was in clay pots. African slaves also brought with them their own traditions of cooking in clay when they came to Brazil.

Today there is a resurgence in the use of clay cooking pots in Brazilian cooking, even though in rural areas of the country it had never really gone out of style. In the cities of Brazil, in the kitchens of fine restaurants and in the homes of dedicated amateur cooks, there has been a rediscovery of clay cooking utensils. There is something about the way that clay transmits and retains heat that really cannot be duplicated in metal or glass - particularly in relation to heat retention. For dishes that require long cooking at low temperatures, there is nothing better than clay. This rediscovery of clay cooking utensils really is just one more case of "everything old is new again." Today in Brazil, there is nothing more ancient or more avant-garde than cooking in clay.

To buy clay pots and pans in most Brazilian cities, all one needs to do is visit the nearest market in which artisanally produced material can be purchased. There you can find pots of all sizes from miniature to mammoth and in a myriad of shapes and forms. Some are beautifully decorated with incized designs and decorative handles, others are purely utilitarian. But they all work equally well. It's also possible to buy clay pots online in Brazil for those who don't live near a market that sells them.

Clay pots need to be seasoned prior to first use, but once seasoned, they can last a lifetime if properly handled. In the next post here on Flavors of Brazil we'll teach you how to season an unglazed clay pot Brazilian-style, and then we'll highlight some Brazilian recipes which are best cooked in clay.

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.

RECIPE - Brazilian Liver and Onions (Iscas com Elas)

This poetically named dish (click here to read more about its Portuguese name iscas com elas) has been on the menu of Rio de Janeiro's À Lisboeta restaurant for 80-plus years, and there's no sign its coming off the menu soon. It continues to be one of the restaurant's most-requested dishes.

À Lisboeta is famed in Rio for its Portuguese cuisine, and this dish clearly points to Portuguese origins. Of all the regions of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro has, in culinary terms at least, the closest links to the motherland - to Portugal. Historically it stands to reason, as during a significant part of the 19th century Rio de Janeiro, not Lisbon as you might think, was the capital of the Portuguese Empire. When Portugal was invaded by Napoleon's troops in 1808, the entire Portuguese court from the Emperor on down fled Lisbon and sailed away to Rio de Janeiro, from where they ruled what portions of the Portuguese empire that remained loyal. Many ordinary Portuguese followed their rulers, and even today Rio de Janeiro has a much higher percentage of its population claiming Portuguese ancestry than other regions of Brazil do.

Liver and onions is one of those love-it-or-hate-it dishes. Those in the love-it camp are fervent in their adoration, and those in the opposing camp often claim not to be able to abide even the smell of the dish. This recipe, therefore, is strictly for those who already know they love liver and onions and who want to make it the way they do in Rio. If you can't abide liver in onions in any language, don't try iscas com elas.
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RECIPE - Brazilian Liver and Onions (Iscas com Elas)
Serves 6

2 lbs (1 kg) beef liver, sliced thin
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
salt and pepper to taste
4 large white onions
1/2 cup extravirgin olive oil
1 cup pitted Kalamata or other black olives
1 cup cherry tomatoes,  washed
2 Tbsp Italian parsley, finely chopped
extra olive oil for drizzling
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Thoroughly wash the liver, then remove any membranes, fat or nerves. Cut the liver slices into thin strips, then place them into a mixing bowl. Add the lime juice and salt and pepper to taste, mix completely and let stand for 30 minutes.

Slice the onions into thin rings. Place them in another mixing bowl, separating the rings. Cover with cold water and let stand for about 10 minutes. Drain the onion rings completely, then dry them with paper towels. Reserve.

Heat a large frying pan, then add 1/4 cup of the olive oil. When it is hot but not smoking add the onion rings and fry, stirring frequently, until the rings are nicely golden. Remove the onions from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain them on paper towels. Reserve, keeping warm.

Add the remaining oil to the same frying pan. While it heats, remove the liver strips from their soaking water, reserving the water. Fry the liver in the hot oil just until the strips are browned - do not overcook. When the liver is done, remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon, drain on paper towels and reserve, keeping warm.

Add the soaking liquid to the pan, add the olives and cherry tomatoes, then raise the heat and bring rapidly to a boil. Let boil for a few minutes, until the liquid has reduced by half. Remove from the heat, stir the liver back in and reserve.

Serve on a large lettuce-lined platter. Alternate layers of liver and onions, then pour the sauce over all. Drizzle olive oil over all and serve accompanied by white rice or boiled potatoes.

On The Road - Belém (Pt. 1) - The Culinary Importance of Belém

From time to time Flavors of Brazil posts a series of related articles which we call "On The Road". Each series details the gastronomic culture - the culinary history, distinctive ingredients and dishes, and local recipes - of a Brazilian city or region. Each series is based on a visit we've taken to the locale featured, often a city we haven't visited before. In the past, these series have highlighted destinations such as São Luís, Maranhão, Rio de Janeiro and Jericoacoara, Ceará.

Flavors of Brazil has recently returned from a fisrt-time visit to the city of Belém, capital of the Brazilian state of Pará and situated near one of the many mouths of the gigantic Amazon River system, just one degree south of the Equator. It was an eye-opening experience and a crash course in the food of Brazil's north, a culinary culture that is very different from the rest of Brazil. The next few posts on Flavors of Brazil will concentrate on what we saw, heard, smelled and tasted while we were there.

Those readers of this blog who've been with the blog for a while (and who are attentive students of Brazilian gastronomy!) will remember that the tremendously varied and inventive regional cuisines that make up Brazilian food culture are the result on the mixing and meshing of three primary gastronomic influences. These three influences are the tripod from which Brazilian cuisine rises and the various regional cuisines of this country grew from the many possible ways in which these influences can blend and combine. The three major influences are European, primarily Portuguese, food culture, African food culture and Amerindian food culture. European food culture came to Brazil with the various waves of European explorers, colonizers and immigrants. African food culture crossed the Atlantic in the belly of slave ships along with the approximately 10 million Africans forced in slavery in Brazil's sugar plantations and gold mines. And the Amerindian food culture arrived on foot with the very first humans to inhabit Brazil, thousands of years before either Europeans or Africans were aware that the Americas even existed.

Touches of these three primary influences, European, African and Amerindian, are found in most Brazilian regional cuisines, but only in one cuisine is one of these influences of almost exclusive importance. The spicy, rich cuisine of the state of Bahia owes its unique qualities almost entirely to the culinary heritage of Africa. South-central Brazil, the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, is where you'll find cooking that is most strongly influenced by the cuisines of Europe. And the north, the location of the world's largest rain forest and the world's largest river, is where Amerindian food ways most stongly inform the local cuisine. The gastronomic center of Brazil's north is Belém. One can't really know Brazilian cuisine without knowing the food of Belém, just as it's impossible to claim to know Brazilian cuisine without having sampled the African-influenced dishes and delicacies of Salvador, Bahia. The food of Belém and its region is fundamental to Brazilian gastronomy, and so in the next week or so, Flavors of Brazil hopes to open a small window on this fascinating, exotic and largely-unknown cuisine. We hope that reading about the city, its markets, shops, food-stalls and restaurants will give you just a bit of the Flavor of Belém, an important part of the Flavors of Brazil.

UTENSILS - The Pressure Cooker (Panela de Pressão)

Although pressure cookers - pans with airtight lids that allow steam pressure to build up inside the pan and consequently allow cooking at temperatures higher than the normal boiling point - we invented back in the 19th Century and had their heyday in the decades following the Second World War, in most parts of North America and Europe they have fallen by the wayside. Children born in the 1970s and 1980s are now reaching adulthood without ever having seen a pressure cooker. In modern American kitchens, pressure cookers are as scarce as the proverbial hens' teeth.

In Brazilian kitchens, however, pressure cookers, once they became popular never disappeared. A pressure cooker (called panela de pressão in Portuguese) can be found in most Brazilian kitchen cupboards or pantries and Brazilian home cooks often use a pressure cooker on an almost-daily basis. Brazilian cooks use pressure cookers to make the beans without which a Brazilian meat isn't complete. They also use them to make meat and poultry stews, relying on the pan's high temperature to tenderize tough meats. And they use them to cook the salted, dried meats, like carne de sol and charque, which are an integral part of Brazilian cuisine.

The ability to tendersize tough cuts of meat is just one of the virtues of the pressure cooker that make it a valuable part of a Brazilian cook's batterie de cuisine. Because it generates such high temperatures, pressure cookers allow for a much shorter cooking time for things like dried beans, which can take hours when cooked in a normal pan. This shorter cooking time benefits Brazilian cooks in two ways - first, because it allows them to do the daily cooking faster, saving time for other chores, and second, because the shorter cooking time means significantly less energy is required, whether the cook is using a wood stove, a gas stove or an electric one. This last reason is probably the most important reason why the pressure cooker has stayed popular in Brazil, as many houses rely on their own resources of wood or on bottled butane gas for cooking purposes. Only in the large cities, and then only in the better neighborhoods, can centralized gas be found. When fuel is limited, and for many Brazilians, expensive, a pressure cooker makes a lot of sense.

Brazilian cookbooks are full of recipes that require pressue cookers. To date, Flavors of Brazil hasn't published any, as most readers of this blog aren't likely to have one at home. But as we here at Flavors of Brazil have taken the plunge and bought a pressure cooker, we'll publish such recipes from time to time in the future. Pressure cookers are still available in North America and Europe and they do make good economic sense, as well as providing an excellent method of cooking. Newer models have many safety features, too, which eliminates some people's worries about cooking with potentially explosive steam. Who knows, in this world of increasing energy costs, maybe the pressure cooker is due for a comeback.

Diamantina - Brazil's Other Baroque Gem

Diamantina at twilight

The baroque goldrush town of Ouro Preto, located in the mountains of Minas Gerais state, is one of the most well-known and visited Brazilian cities of tourism. Ouro Preto is an almost obligatory stop for any tourist visiting Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state and one of Brazil's largest metropolitan areas. Ouro Preto is only about an hour or two from BH (as Belo Horizonte is familiarly nicknamed) and so it's easy to make a day trip from the capital or enjoy a quick overnight visit. Ouro Preto's worth as part of the world's cultural patrimony has been recognized by UNESCO which honored it with World Heritage Site status in 1980.

Less well known, but equally worthy of its World Heritage Site status (granted in 1999) is another small town which owes its origins to the 18th century goldrush in Minas Gerais, Diamantina. Less accessible than Ouro Preto at 300 km. from Belo Horizonte, Diamantina doesn't receive the hordes of tourists that can sometimes lessen the pleasure of a visit to Ouro Preto. For some connaisseurs of baroque city planning and architecture Diamantina is more beautiful than Ouro Preto, but the friendly controversy over which city is lovelier will probably never be settled. Its mineral wealth was not limited to gold - the area around Diamantina was mined as well for diamonds (hence the city's name). The gems and metals of the mountains surrounding Diamantina meant that it was extraordinarily wealthy during its 18th century heyday. The artistic riches that remain are proof of that wealth, and testify to the labor of the millions of slaves who were forcibly brought from Africa to work in the mines of Minas Gerais.

Diamantina is also famous among Brazilians for being the hometown of one of Brazil's most-loved presidents, Juscelino Kubitschek, born in Diamantina in 1902 and the man whose vision was responsible for the creation and construction of Brasília, Brazil's new capital city.

Diamantina is a center for religious observances and pilgrimages in Minas Gerais. Some of the annual religious celebrations bring thousands of devotees to the city, as does the city's very traditional but very popular Carnaval. Tourism, whether during a festival season or not, plays a large role in Diamantina's economy, and the city is full of small inns and pousadas, traditional restaurants and bars and food shops selling traditional local snacks, preserves, pastries and sweets.

In our next post, we'll tell you all about Zenília Rosália da Silva Rocha, a local cook, and explain just why she's so famous in Diamantina.

São Paulo - 458 Years Young

Today, January 25, is a day of celebration in Brazil's largest city (and one of the largest cities in the world) São Paulo. It was 458 years ago today, in 1554, that Jesuit fathers Manuel de Nóbrega and José de Anchieta founded a village on a plateau 42 miles inland from the port city of São Vicente and baptized it São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga. Fortunately, that cumbersome name has since been shortened to São Paulo, just as another mission farther north in the Americas, Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, has had its name shortened to Los Angeles, or even to just plain LA.

São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga

Affectionately nicknamed A Cidade de Garoa by Brazilians, a nickname which means "The City of Drizzle" and which refers to a frequent climate condition on São Paulo's plateau, the city has grown to be one of the ten-largest metropolitan agglomerations in the world (some sources place it as high as third  place, others in fifth, sixth or seventh).

São Paulo isn't an easy city to love, and it doesn't have the picture-postcard appeal that Rio de Janeiro luxuriates in. It's noisy, hectic and overcrowded. Traffic is terrible, and the subway system would better suit a city one quarter of the size. (Nonetheless,  São Paulo's subway has more that 750 million riders annually). It's the economic and political powerhouse of Brazil, and the capital of Brazil's most populous state, also called São Paulo. As far as we know though, no one has written a hymn to São Paulo entitled "São Paulo, São Paulo" along the lines of "New York, New York." But São Paulo does have its own peculiar charm, and many Paulistanos swear they wouldn't live anywhere else on Earth.

São Paulo today

São Paulo is without contest the gastronomic center of Brazil. Clearly it leads the country in the sheer number of restaurants, food suppliers, meat and produce wholesale markets. But it also at the forefront of Brazil's new gastronomy - one São Paulo restaurant was recently voted the seventh best restaurant in the world, and every week a new and avant-garde restaurant is lauded in the food sections of local papers and in food and wine magazines. Because São Paulo is home to a number of large immigrant communities, the largest being Italian, Portuguese and Japanese, and also home to communities of internal migrants from other regions of Brazil, you can find almost any type of cuisine in São Paulo - whether international cuisines or regional Brazilian cuisines.

In the next few days, Flavors of Brazil will feature some typical Paulistano recipes and link back to some we've published earlier. Today, we'll just join the chorus of those wishing all 20 million or so residents of São Paulo a very happy municipal birthday.

Portugal's Culinary Heritage - Pastel de Nata (Pastel de Belém)

The original

How can a simple pastry be both enjoyed in all corners of the world where there's a significant Portuguese cultural heritage AND have a recipe that's known to only three people in the world?? This seemingly impossible-to-revolve dichotomy has been successfully been bridged by a small Portuguese egg-custard tart called either Pastel de Nata (cream tart) or Pastel de Belém (Belém tart).

The tart's origins are in the epicenter of the former Portguese empire - the city of Lisbon. More specifically, they lie behind the enclosing walls of the Jerónimos Monastery in the city's Belém district. During the imperial epoque, monasteries and convents throughout Portugal made cakes and sweets, which they sold to the public to raise funds. The bakers of the Jerónimos Monastery were famed for making a small tart with a puff-pastry crust and a sweet, rich eggy custard filling. These were the original pastéis de Belém and their recipe was a closely guarded secret.

At the beginning of the 19th Century, many of these monasteries closed or folded up their pastry operation, including that of the Jerónimos Monastery. An enterprising Brazilian baker named Domingo Rafael Alves who lived in Lisbon finagled the recipe out of one of the monastery's former bakers and in 1837 opened a pastry shop called Antiga Confeitaria de Belém. Today the shop is owned by descendents of Sr. Alves and still specializes in the tarts that made it famous almost two hundred years ago and that have made it prosperous up til today.

At the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém three master bakers (the only three who are privy to the recipe) make the dough and the filling in a locked, alarmed and guarded room, passing them to assistants outside who form the tarts, fill them and cook them. Every day thousands of customers, many of them tourists, but tens of thousands of these treats, and eat many of them in the bake shop itself, served with a demitasse of strong Portuguese coffee.

Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, Lisbon

Long ago, the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém registered the name Pastel de Belém and legally only those tarts made on site, from the original recipe are entitled to be called Pastel de Belém. Any other similar tart, from anywhere else, is a Pastel de Nata. At least in theory, that's the case, but the law isn't universally enforced and one can find tarts called Pastel de Belém in pastry shops from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, to Luanda, and on to Malacca and Macau. In Brazil they can be found in almost all pastry shops and are a favorite mid-afternoon treat or part of a dessert buffet at a gala party or a wedding reception.

Chinese egg tart

It's at the most-distant reaches of the former Portuguese empire that these tarts have been most enthusiastically adopted. Throughout southeast Asia and southern China (and around the world of the Chinese diaspora) bakeshop shelves groan under the weight of sweet egg-custard tarts. I've seen them in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vancouver, San Francisco and London. The crust is no longer puff pastry, it's more typically standard pie crust and the filling normally isn't carmelized and crispy as it is back in Lisbon but these Chinese bakeshop standards are still recognizably pastéis de Belém.

Obviously, the three people in the world who have the true recipe for Pastel de Belém  do not include us here at Flavors of Brazil, and so we won't be publishing the authentic recipe. However, in upcoming posts we will provide a very typical, hopefully almost-authentic recipe for a tart that might be called Pseudo-pastel de Belém, as well as one for the Asian version that's found in Chinatowns around the world.