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!

On The Road - Belém (Pt. 7) - RECIPE - Tacacá

Photo by Adalton Ramos

As with our earlier recipe for pato no tucupi in this series of posts about the Amazonian cuisine of the city of Belém, this recipe for the city's favorite afternoon pick-me-up, tacacá, isn't something that you're likely to try at home. Unless your home is within striking distance of the Amazon River, that is. The main reason is that with the exception of shrimp, the main ingredients of tacacá are just not available outside the rain forest region, even in other parts of Brazil. Trying to find jambu leaves or a bottle of tucupi in your local A&P, Safeway or Waitrose's is an exercise in futility.

Nonetheless, without a recipe for tacacá, this particular edition of Flavors of Brazil On the Road would be incomplete, so here it is, from the pages of Cozinha Regional Brasileira. Keep in mind, that most of the tacacá vendors in Belém have never seen a recipe for the soup, and if asked what quantities of this or that are required would have no idea. They'd say you need just enough manioc starch (goma) to give the broth a nice silky texture, enough chili peppers to liven the dish without burning out the mouth, and just enough jambu leaves to make your tongue and palate tingle but not deaden entirely. But here's the recipe, quantities and all.
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 RECIPE - Tacacá
Serves 2

For the tucupi
4 cups (1 liter) tucupi
3 cloves garlic, peeled
A few leaves, Amazonian chicory
1 bunch Amazonian basil

For the jambu
1 bunch jambu
salt to taste
water
ice

For the shrimp
1 lb (500 gr) dried, salted large shrimp with shells

For the manioc starch
1 cup manioc starch (tapioca flour)
1 cup cold water

For the  tacacá
8 cups (2 liters) water
salt to taste
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch  Amazonian chicory
chili peppers in vinegar (to taste)
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Make the tucupi: In a saucepan combine the tucupi, the garlic the chicory and basil. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then lower the heat and reserve, keeping hot.

Prepare the jambu: Heat plenty of water in a saucepan and when it comes to the boil, add salt to taste. Blanch the jambu for a minute or two in the water and refresh immediately in a bowl of ice water. Reserve.

Prepare the shrimp: Thoroughly clean the shrimps. Soak them in cold water until needed to partially desalinize them. Reserve.

Prepare the manioc starch: In a medium mixing bowl, gradually stir the starch into cold water until it has all dissolved. Reserve.

Make the tacacá: In a third saucepan, mix the water, salt, garlic and chicory. Heat over medium heat and when it comes to the boil remove the garlic and chicory. Slowly add the dissolved manioc starch, stirring constantly with a spoon or whisk to ensure that lumps don't form.

Serving: use hollowed-out dried gourds or deep soup bowls. In each bowl combine the tucupi and the manioc starch in proportions of  3/4 tucupi to 1/4 starch. Add a few jambu leaves and a few shrimp to each bowl, plus chili peppers if desired, and serve immediately, very hot.

On The Road - Belém (Pt. 6) - Tacacá

tacacá

At the end of the afternoon in Belém, around four or five, just after the daily torrential downpour ends, a collective hunger pervades local residents. It's the same hour as tea in London, churros and hot chocolate in Madrid, or coffee and Viennese pastries in Vienna, but nobody in Belém indulges in any of those treats. Here the end of the afternoon means only one thing. It's time to "take tacacá." Although tacacá is a soup, in the local dialect one doesn't drink or eat it, one takes it - tomar tacacá.

One might think that the last thing anyone would want in the muggy heat of an Amazonian afternoon is a steaming hot bowl of soup. But if one thinks that way, one's not from Belém. For Belenenses (inhabitants of Belém), a bowl of tacacá cures all ills and soothes the soul like nothing else. It also tides one over until dinner quite nicely.

tacacazeira

Taking tacacá has long been a ritual all throughout the Amazonian basin, though anthropologists tell us it originated among the Amerindian tribes in the region nearest to Belém. How, when and why it is served are controlled by age-long custom. Among the unwritten rules and regulations: tacacá is street food, purchased and eaten on the street. Tacacá vendors, usually women and known as tacacazeiras, sell their product from carts and stalls situated on the street, on the corner or in a park, just like Salvador's famous baianas and their acarajé. Tacacá must be served in a gourd, never in a plastic or ceramic bowl. The gourd sometimes nestles in a small woven basket to make it easier to pick up when filled with hot tacacá and traditionally decorated gourds are often lovely objets d'arts. Tacacá must be sipped directly from the gourd, not brought to the mouth via a spoon, although a small toothpick is often provided to help pick out the solid ingredients. Finally, and seemingly perversely, tacacá has to be very, very hot.

tacacá gourd

To sit on a small plastic stool on a busy street in Belém at 5 pm, watching the tacacazeira dish out portion after portion of tacacá while sipping from one's own gourd is to participate in the life of the city and to share a culinary ritual that goes back millennia.

proper technique

So what, exactly, is this soup that's so much a part of Belém's identity? For readers who've been following these recent Flavors of Brazil posts on the foods of Belém it won't be a surprise that the basis of tacacá is manioc. The broth that is at the center of tacacá is seasoned tucupi (the liquid that results from squeezing grated manioc root), thickened with manioc starch, also known as tapioca. The broth is enlivened with with a dash of hot chili peppers preserved in tucupi. Cooked in the broth are leaves of the anesthetic jambu, which deadens the mouth and makes the tongue tingle, and dried shrimp. That's all there is to it - spicy broth, jambu leaves and a few shrimp.

But to call tacacá simply a soup with a few shrimps and some greens is to sell it short. A well-prepared tacacá is marvelously delicious and a true end-of-the-afternoon pick-me-up. The spicy liquid, the tingly sensation in the mouth and the rich, salty tang of the shrimp awaken all your senses without leaving you feeling full or over-satiated. It's just what you need to carry you through the end of the day. It's the chicken soup which nourishes the soul of Belém.

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

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

Bitter manioc tuber

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

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

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

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

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

Tucupi, Ver-o-peso market, Belém

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

On The Road - Belém (Pt. 4) - RECIPE - Duck in Tucupi (Pato no Tucupi)

Such is the fame of Pato no Tucupi, the most iconic dish of the Amazonian cuisine of Belém, that in the annual listing of the city's best food published by Veja magazine, Pato no Tucupi has its own category. According to the food guide, one restaurant is the city's best Italian, another has the best meat, while a restaurant called Lá em Casa (Back Home) is crowned with the honor of serving the city's best Pato no Tucupi.

The late founder of Lá em Casa, Paulo Martins, is often credited for bringing Brazil's attention to the culinary richness of the Amazon. An early advocate of the values of the Slow Food movement, Martins sniffed, smelled and tasted his way through the region's markets, forests and rivers, continually searching for those ingredients which exemplify the food ways of the Amazon. Although Sr. Martins died tragically young a few years ago, the kitchen of his restaurant continues under the supervision of his daughter, Daniela, and his influence continues to grow locally and nationally. Brazil's acknowledged top chef, Alex Atala, often speaks of Sr. Martins and how he was personally influenced and inspired by the chef from Belém.

On Flavors of Brazil's recent road trip to Belém, leaving Pato no Tucupi off the menu was unthinkable, and to our way of thinking, Lá em Casa was the logical place to sample it. The restaurant is located in the city's art and entertainment complex, called  Estação das Docas. Situated on the banks of the river,  Estação das Docas is a mix of performance spaces, shops and boutiques, restaurants, bars and even a craft brewety. Formerly a group of abandoned waterfront warehouses and depots, the area now is busy day and night with locals and tourists alike.

At  Lá em Casa Pato no Tucupi is served traditionally. A large tureen comes to the table. Inside are several very generous pieces of duck in a thick yellow broth that also contains some spinach-like greens called jambu. The broth itself is the tucupi. The traditional side dishes are white rice, hot yellow peppers in vinegar and  manioc farinha. The serving is large, and although the restaurant claims it serves only a single diner, it can easily serve two persons. (Sharing a dish for two persons is very common in Brazilian restaurants and asking to share will cause no embarrassment or problem anywhere).

Our Pato no Tucupi was wonderful and it was immediately clear that the dish is a prize-winner by rights. The duck was fall-off-the-bone tender and very lean, not fatty at all. The broth was complex and refreshingly acidic and the jambu was just plain fun. Eating jambu causes a slight by very distinctive anesthetic effect on the tongue and palate. It's as if one's mouth had "gone to sleep." Tingly, numb - the sensations are strange and wonderful. The effect lasts only a short time after finishing the dish, about 10 minutes, but it's an absolutely unique experience. The effect is caused by a compound found in jambu called spilanthol, an ingredient in many proprietary toothache powders and other such medicines.

Pato no Tucupi wouldn't be Pato no Tucupi without tucupi. And tucupi is not something you can make at home. Belém's central food market, Ver-o-peso, has hundreds of tucupi vendors, and the ingredient is available sporadically Brazil outside the Amazon basin, but it is not exported. Because of this, we realize that the recipe below is not something that you're likely to cook at home - you'll just have to fly to Belém yourself if you want to try it. But a culinary visit to Belém without a recipe for Pato no Tucupi would be incomplete. So here it is - enjoy.
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RECIPE - Duck in Tucupi (Pato no Tucupi)
Serves 6

2 small free-range ducks (about 2 lb, 1 kg, each)
juice of 5 limes
5 heads of garlic, smashed
2 cups white wine
4 very mild chile peppers (Anaheim or similar)
salt to taste
6 quarts (6 liters) tucupi
1 bunch alfavaca (Amazonian basil)
1 bunch chicory
6 bunches jambu
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Wash the ducks well in running water. In a large bowl combine the ducks, lime juice, three of the smashed whole heads of garlic, the white wine, 1 chile pepper, salt and water to cover. Marinade the ducks, refrigerated, for hours in this liquid.

The next day, preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Remove the duck from the marinade, pat dry and in a non-stick roasting pan, roast the ducks for 90 minutes. While the ducks are roasting, combine the tucupi, 3 chile peppers, 2 heads of garlic, the alfavaca and the chicory in a large stockpot and bring to a boil. Reserve.

Remove the ducks from the oven, let cool slightly, and cut or chop into serving-sized pieces. In a large saucepan, combine 2 quarts of the seasoned tucupi and the duck meat and simmer until the duck is very tender and beginning to fall off the bone. Meanwhile, wash the jambu in plenty of running water, the blanch in boiling water, refreshing immediately in cold water. Reserve the jambu.

Bring the remaining 4 quarts of seasoned tucupi to a boil. Divide the duck meat between 6 deep soup plates. Divide the refreshed jambu equally among the plates, the pour hot tucupi over all. Let stand for a minute or two to let the jambu warm thoroughly, then serve immediately, accompanied by plain white rice and toasted manioc flour (farinha).

On The Road - Belém (Pt. 3) - The Three Cornerstones

The cuisine of Amazonian Brazil, and in particular the cuisine of the city of Belém, is complex and elaborate, even in its most traditional form. Ingredients are transformed almost beyond recognition. In fact, a single ingredient might show up in various metamorphic forms in the same dish. Giant fish are reduced to bite-sized chunks or smoked, dried and grated, nuts are ground into flour, leaves are cooked for a week without stopping to eliminate their poisons, and fruits are dried, pureed or distilled - all in the goal of increasing the flavor on the plate (or banana leaf) that arrives at the table.

No matter how much manipulation and reformation is going on, though, it's clear that the entire culinary culture of Belém rests on three basic types of foodstuffs. Almost every dish, savory or sweet, will have at least one of these groups in its ingredient list, many have two, and often all three groups are represented in a single dish.

Pato no Tucupi

These three groups of food which rest at the bottom of Belém's pyramid of ingredients are manioc in all its many forms, the animal life that abounds on and in the fresh waters of the Amazon River basin, and the cornucopia of fruits and vegetables to be found in the world's largest rain forest. Take, for example, the region's most iconic and famous dish, Pato no Tucupi (Duck in Tucupi). This marvelous and marvelously complex dish consists of river duck (pato) cooked and served in a broth of tucupi (wild manioc root which is peeled, grated and juiced, then cooked to eliminate the toxins) enlivened with the surprisingly anesthetic leaves of the jambu plant, native to the rain forest. All three food groups are represented in a bowl of Pato no Tucupi - manioc in the form or tucupi, riverine duck, and jambu, the exotic harvest of the jungle.

In upcoming posts Flavors of Brazil will highlight each of these categories of food as we explore the cuisine of Belém. But next up, there's the recipe for Pato no Tucupi.

On The Road - Belém (Pt. 2) - The Links

Although our current series of posts on the Brazilian city of Belém is intended to give a good overall view of the gastronomic culture of that vibrant, and let's say it, HOT, city, this is not the first time Flavors of Brazil has dealt with the foods of Belém, of its state, Pará, or of the Amazonian region that contains half of Brazil's territory.

We first reported on the region back in February, 2010, when we posted an article about how the Amazonian fruit açaí was gaining space in North American and Europeans food consciousness, and have since published a dozen or so articles directly concerned with Belém.

Rather than repeat information that we've already published, we've decided to post quick and easy links to previous;y published material on the blog. These links are below.

Starting with our next post, we'll get into the matter at hand.
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Flavors of Brazil posts about  Belém:

1.   Açaí Makes the New York Times - 24 Feb 2010
2.   INGREDIENTS - Jambu - 14 May 2010
3.   RECIPE - Jambu Rice (Arroz de Jambu) - 15 May 2010
4.   Pirarucu - An Endangered Giant - 06 Sep 2010
5 .  From the Rivers of the Rain Forest - Aviú - 22 Mar 2011
6.   MARKETS OF BRAZIL - Ver-o-peso Market, Belém - 30 May 2011
7.   The Story of Carmelita - Ver-o-peso's Queen of Amazonian Fruits - 31 May 2011
8.   SEAFOODS OF BRAZIL - Amazonian River Prawn - 01 Jun 2011
9.   FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Tucumã do Pará - 03 Jun 2011
10. Chibé - An Indigenous Staple Goes Upmarket - 29 Sep 2011
11. FISH OF BRAZIL - Tucunaré (Peacock Bass) - 31 Jan 2012
12. FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Bacuri - 01 Apr 2012