Welcome to the jungle

With a new found commitment to getting upclose and personal with my dinner, I thought it about time I went to the top of the food chain with some huntin´, shootin´ and fishin´. Well bamboo rod fishing in the wetland jungle of the Pantanal to be more precise.
My fishing expo begins with a 5am alarm call from approximately a thousand birds. Quite a shock for this city girl, but dawn is the busiest time of day in the jungle. I´m about 6 hours drive into the jungle. No phones. No internet. No one to hear you scream... somewhat dramatic, granted, but you get the picture.
We stroll to the river edge by 7am and set off in search of some fish. The Pantanal is swampland and the river is slow and infested with caiman alligators and the reason for the rods - piranha. Piranha arn´t as dangerous as Hollywood has led us to believe, or at least not at this time of year, I´m keeping all extremeties inside the tin can of a boat all the same.
My guide settles us in a corner and we bait our hooks with beef - for those discerning piranha. Soon my line is twitching and I feel a tug from the depths, I bring my rod up to find the beef gone and no fish. I continue to feed the fish in this way for several hours to the distress of my Croccodile Dundee-esque jungle guide. I sit and wait. It´s not all bad, the passing toucans and sound of the kingfishers make for excellent background entertainment. The occassional bellyflop of the alligators is more disconcerting, however.
After lunch, I´m determind to catch something and changing my rod tactics yields a King Fish within minutes and the illustrious piranha has his knashers around my hook shortly after. Neither are good enough for the pan, apparently. We save the gasping, glugging piranha at the back of the boat and a piao fish (I can´t find a translation for this fish, it has a distinctive yellow underside, though) my guide has caught gets three whacks to the face.
We toss the piranha to the alligator and I catch a live David Attenborough special. The alligator crunches all of the bones out of the piranha before swallowing it whole.
Back on shore, Dundee slaps the piao on his oar, produces a long knife from his shorts, scales and guts the fish right there. He washes it in the river and takes it back for the camp cook. The piao arrives at my plate in an hour cut into small steaks, coated in a lightly spiced batter (almost like a southern-fried spice) and deep fried. It´s a flaky white/grey meat fish and has the earthy taste of all river dwelling swimmers. It´s delicious and light, if a little on the boney side, but fish doesn´t get fresher than this.
It´s great to see so closely where your food has come from, it doesn´t get more organic than catching it wild (sustainably and responsibly, one fish fed the whole camp) and a few days around the jungle camp fire and I´m in full hunter-gatherer swing. Now, where´s that spear, I´m gonna get me a wild boar.

A pig´s ear

The first time I discovered fejoida, a smokey black bean broth, I thought I´d found an incredibly tasty Brazilian favourite - end of story. But, like so much Brazilian food there´s more than just soup in the pot - there´s ladles of soulful history too.
Beans are to Brazilians what rice is to the Chinese - it´s a staple side dish that goes with everything. Black bean broth fejoia can be eaten everywhere it´s creamy from a long simmer and broken crushed beans make it thick, with bay leaves and minimal seasoning it´s simple but oh so effective. Its elusive sibling fejoida, however, is often only served on a Saturday. This struck me as unusual. When I asked a chef why I am restricted to eating fejoida on one day of the week, she told me the story in the soup.
When slaves toiled in the kitchens of the Portuguese settlers, their food allowance didn´t stretch to meat items such as pork. During the week these cooks would squirrel-away cuts of meat such as ears, snout and tail in vats of salt. The staunchly Catholic Portuguese gave the slaves a free day on Saturday so that they could visit the church. This then also became a day of celebrations and time to dust off those precious pig´s ears and conceal them in the black bean stews.
Fejoida is often still made in this way, leaving pork in salt for most of the week to make fejoida on Saturday morning. In some places the ears, tails and snouts continue to be the cut of choice. This gives a salty edge to the black beans and for a modern twist is sometimes served with crisped pork croutons.
All over Brazil kitchens remain loyal to tradition and so the bubbling spitting pots of beans carry the memory of Brazil´s mixed and chequered history.

Tarts of Rio

Life on the road has peaks and troughs, just when you think you´re down on your luck a cake emporium changes the course of your day.
After a morning of being turned away by every tourist agency in downtown Rio de Janeiro I bump into a Brazilian girl who offers to act as a translator as we go to the airport. Erica spends 20 minutes trying to help me buy a flight before I decide that I can´t afford it. I offer to buy her a coffee by means of thanks, instead she offers to take me to a cafe where she needs to buy a tea cup for her husband in Canada. I´m sold when she mentions something about Portuguese pastries.
So, flights missed long forgotten, I arrive at Confeiteria Colombo. I´ve visited more than a few cake cafes in my time, but even my jaw thuds against the tiled floor on entering the enormous tea room. The high walls open into a balconied second floor with stained glass ceiling. The walls are all covered with grandiose mirrors that remind me of Parisian cafes. The whole building seems preserved in its decadent art noveau style from the late 19th Century. I fear my apparel of shorts and vest may be out of place among the starched-collar waiters.
At the entrance, in front of rows of round table tops, two glass fronted cake counters are laden with intricate and diabetes-inducing delicacies. There are tarts with carefully blowtorched meringue toppings, brigadeiro (sweet made from condensed milk) and gateux of various fillings, but the specialties here are the traditional Portuguese pastries and flans.
We sit down and Erica points out some traditional treats for me to try and we share a pot of coffee. I order the Pastel de Belem and a flan. The Pastel de Belem is essentially a custard tart, but it is far removed in sophistry from the rubber-middled eggy kind you find at Gregg´s the bakers. The pastry is a light crispy almost puff almost filo - I don´t know how they achieve this but it´s lighter than air. The custard centre, burnt slightly on top, is a confectioner style custard. It´s smooth and creamy with a velvet-vanillery warmth that coats the mouth. There´s also a barely perceptible hint of cinnamon. The tart disappears with alarmming speed.
The flan is a mini tower of custardy cake, although quite similar it´s firmer than a creme caramel. It has a grainier almost cake consistency with a nutty-almond flavour. It sits in a light, thin moat of caramel.
In the auspicious room with it´s serious waiters, marble table tops and ornate decor, I´m transported to an era of European splendour. Where furniture and decorations were shipped across the seas from Belgium to bring the best and latest styles to the cultural heart of Rio.
The cakes reduced to crumbs, I´m sad that I´ll probably never eat a Pastel de Belem here again and I bemoan the stodgy ineptitude of Gregg´s gelatinous custard offering. On second thoughts, it´s probably for the best - I´m not sure they´ve developed a pastry-gorgers anonymous yet.

Back to school

"In Brazil we have a saying, Put some water in the beans. It means, I´m bringing a friend to dinner so make the food stretch." So says my new Brazilian cooking guru Simone at the beginning of my cooking lesson at Cook in Rio. This phrase highlights so much of the open-hearted, open-doored warmth I have found all over Brazil and when you sit to eat at a Brazilian table you´ll find there´s more to Brazilian food than mere sustenance.
We start the lesson with fried mandioca or to give them their native Indian name Aimpim frites. Here is the first history lesson of the day, the main influences at work in Brazilian cooking are Portuguese, African and native Indian. Mandioca is a long brown root that is known in African cuisine as cassava. When the Portuguese first started to bring slaves to emerging Brazil they mixed with enslaved Indians and found many of the same foods in their cooking. The native people of Brazil used Mandioca ground into a powder like a rough flour. Back to the cooking pots, where long chips of mandioca are being par boiled as you would with potatoes before roasting. They are then added to soya oil for a light fry. While they cool off, we prepare a drink called batida de coco. This something else Simone is insistent on, that the chef always needs to have a drink to aid creative culinary juices. Batida de coco is one shot of cachaça and one shot of coconut milk with sugar and cinnamon. We sit down to our mid morning snack and shot and the chips taste like a British potato chip but with a firmer middle.
Creative juices stirred we get started on the main event, Brazilian favourite Moqueca. This is made all over Brazil but it´s really a Bahian dish. Bahia is the coastline with the first capital of Brazil Salvador at its centre. Bahia is the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture and Bahian cuisine is rooted in the traditions of the African slaves. Moqueca is a stew of fish and coconut milk usually served with rice and farofa. We make our moquecha with fish but it can also be made with prawns. We throw in a filleted fish followed by the head and tail, Simone tells me that all the flavour is in the bones so these bits are essential. Frying onions and garlic in orange palm oil I immediately see how the dish gets it´s beautiful pale sunset colouring. The fish is then thrown in with the coconut milk to cook and rings of peppers are added. A small amount of cumin is used for seasoning and fresh coriander is chopped in. We also fry chopped banana in mandioca flour and onion to make the side dish farofa.
Before we sit down to eat Simone shows us how to prepare the most Brazilian of drinks, the capirinha. Sugar, cachaça and some expertly mashed limes on ice for a taste so sharp and sweet it refreshes instantly.
After ten minutes of simmering, the moqueca is ready for the table. It´s beautifully delicate, the most prominent flavour coming from the palm oil, punctuated with the fresh coriander. I can´t affiliate palm oil with anything we have in the west, it´s almost like a nut oil but it has such a unique flavour. The fish and banana farofa are wonderful together, the bananas adding a hint of sweetness. The mandioca flour soaks up the ample coconut sauce and it´s all very light and heartwarming in the same instance. At the table Simone tells me how important the Brazilian dining table is, phones are left unanswered and the through-traffic of people who have been dropping in all day are dispelled for the important table talk.
I realise as Simone talks to me about her life, offering advice on everything from the best kitchen knife to who not to marry, that if you want to get to know Brazilian culture, history and social graces you should forget the museums and tour guides - it´s all right here in the orange soupy residue left on my plate.


For more information about the Cook in Rio cooking class, go to www.cookinrio.com

The wild north-west

As my bus travels north the view from my window gets more dramatic. The land becomes rugged and dry and communities are set farther apart. In the province of Salta huge mountains and canyons divide remote communities living in dustbowls hours from civilisation. With this, the topography of the cuisine changes and this diverse north-western province has developed an interesting culinary identity.
Maize plants dominate local agriculture and the corn from these is the key ingredient in two local specialities. Humitas and tomales are both made with mashed corn wrapped in their maize skins and boiled. They both have a slight spice, more of a picante paprika flavour than fiery chilli. The tomales adds pink shredded veal and the humitas a melted cheese middle. Their sweet pepper flavour is delicate - I enjoy eating both. The corn and paprika spice remind me more of Mexican cuisine than anything I´ve seen through the rest of Argentina. They have a mushy consistency, but with a splash of local relish of tomatoes, onion, garlic and vinegar they both make a delicious entrada (starter).
Another local specialty, Locro, takes the corn and veal in a soup with butterbeans, a root vegetable similar to a turnip and chopped chives. The colour of this soup is a durgy yellow that´s not immediately appealing. The first taste almost makes me recoil, it´s got an overriding flavour of animal fat. It reminds me of traditional British dumplings, it´s lardy infact. It dawns on me that there are white lumps of something spongy in my mouth, which could be lard or even mondongo (tripe). As I persevere the fat becomes moderately more bearable and I notice that the veal tastes very good and the underlying flavour of corn, cut through with the chives is pleasant. There´s an earthy almost manure flavour left on my tongue, that reminds me far to much of the cow´s habitat and starts to put me off again. This is peasant fodder good and proper, it´s not fancy it´s hearty and it´ll keep the meat on your bones in the chilly mountains, but the prevailing fatty taste eventually gets the better of me and two thirds remains untouched.
As the terrain becomes more dry and mountainous in the west the ubiquitous cow gets replaced with goat. This filters down to the table where empanadas are filled with queso de cabra (goat cheese) and restaurants advertise the other local hero the cazuela de cabrito (kid goat stew).
When I decide to try the cazuela in Cafayate, a small town south west of the city Salta, the only place serving the fabled stew looks none too salubrious. After gingerly giving my order, I await my meal watching the waiter stamp out bugs on the cracked tiled floor. Thoughts of food poisoning start to flicker across my mind, but I´m far too polite to leave without paying and perhaps the threat of a crippled stomach is the price a food writer must pay on occassion. I vow to have one mouthful, before a swift exit.
I almost laugh when the waiter brings me a near overflowing bowl of the most delightful looking stew. It´s got huge rougly hewn chunks of cabrito interspersed with long shredded carrots, red and green peppers and onions. It´s glowing with orangey colour. Its light watery sauce is tinged from the carrots and added pimiento, with small daubs of oil on the surface. I eagerly cut a piece of cabrito and find that it tastes like a less sophisticated cousin of lamb, it´s light and tender and streets ahead of the tough older goat you find in Caribbean cuisine. It´s firm to the knife but surrenders easily in the mouth. Heaped with the vegetables and some sauce, which I detect has a splash of local torrentes white wine in it, reminds me of food from the Basque region of Spain.
This stew has depth, rustic charm and bags of flavour, it could be made with lamb, but I can´t believe my own words here, I think the goat gives it its edge and idiosyncratic peasantness. Well who da´thunk it - I´m a goat convert.

NB This food writer experienced no food poisoning in north-west Argentina.