Hühnerfüße II

Jaja, die dekorativen Krallen – hatte ich gestern danach gelechzt? Ich bekam sie heute Mittag in rötlicher Brühe serviert. Und, ganz ehrlich, ich probier das ja gern mal, aber nochmal möcht ich das nicht haben. Das sah aus wie eine Greisenhand, die da aus der Brühe ragte – mehr noch, wie eine Wasserleichen-Greisenhand mit Hühnerfußporen, also diesem typischen Fußmuster eben. Der Fuß besteht eigentlich nur aus graupeliger Haut und einer dünnen Fettschicht – ich kann mir das gegrillt ganz gut vorstellen (der französische Wwoofer, dem ich das heute u.a. erzählt hatte, hat auch ganz begeistert von gegrillten Hühnerfüßen geschwärmt, fand in Suppe gekochte aber auch wenig appetitlich), aber gekocht ist das einfach nur schwabbelig – nicht gut!! Besonders, als ich todesmutig schon das meiste abgenagt hatte, und nur noch eine Kralle verblieb, die wie ein anklagender Wasserleichenfinger in Schwabbelrosa auf der Brühe schwamm … mmmh, ein Genuss.

Jedenfalls kann ich das nun auch abhaken (nach Hammelhoden, und ich überlege gerade, ob ich sonst noch was Absonderliches gegessen habe?), möchte es aber auch nicht unbedingt wiederholen.  Ich frage mich allerdings mit leichtem Unbehagen, ob Li und Gan mich nun als „eingewöhnt“ ansehen und so langsam, aber sicher ihre ungewöhnlicheren Spezialitäten auftischen …

Frutas Tropicais

Brazil – who would have thought? – has so many wonderful fruits to offer. Yes, yes, I know, that`s hardly news, but do you know more than the usual, pineapple, mango, papaya, banana, and do you know how they grow? – There are so many more, and I have prepared an image feast of fruity yumminess for you:

Cacau grows straight from the stem

Glorious gooey Cacao pulp!

Number one in my book is, of course, Cacau, which I have already presented to you in an earlier post (by the way, have added some pics there as well, just scroll back). It`s hard to describe the flavor – it doesn`t taste like chocolate at all, rather like a mango, but better … – just try it if you get the chance, you`ll see!

Cacau beans laid out to dry

Another fruit that grows in a way that you might find unexpected (we certainly did!) is pineapple, abacaxi. Funny story which I am going to tell you real quick as I need more text anyway because otherwise the pictures will dance their wild dance of madness again and end up on top of each other and to the far right of the sidebar (the second and third picture of the previous post first sort of overlapped and then I discovered you can actually see the third one when you move your mouse to the far right – somewhere …), anyway, I`m digressing: we were very confused in the beginning because of the pronunciations of abacaxi and abacate (avocado)! Looks different enough, but the Brazilian pronunciation is actually quite similar, as the ending –te is pronounced –chi. –xi in turn is pronounced like „she“, so, okay, it is not a homophone but close enough to someone who is still trying to pick up the language. – Back to the plant, tadaaa:

Meet the Pineapple Plant!

Blossoming Pineapple

See, isn`t it weird and wonderful? It`s grows like a flower! Like the blossom of a flower in an artist’s imagination who has smoked you-know-what, except it’s real!

Well I have a third picture of the pineapple but I need to produce some text first, because otherwise weird things happen again. So I am going to tell you some fun facts about abacaxi:  the greatest part of it (70%) is eaten in the country of origin, as it doesn’t ripen any more once it’s picked. Besides juice, it can be processed into jam, wine and other alcohol (wonder what, but Wiki doesn’t say). There is a substance called Bromelin in the plant which is used in a number of different ways: to make meat tender, to soften the texture of gelatine, to stabilize latex paint, to tan leather, and, in medical ways, to help digestion. It is also anti-inflammatory and works against metastases. In short: yay, abacaxi! 

Moving on to abacate, now that I have pointed out the linguistic similarities. Before you protest: it is indeed a fruit!

Avocados grow on trees, like apples. The avocado tree we ransacked at Fazenda Agua Boa in Bahia was huge, and it produced huge avocados as well.  We went with Aline, the farmer’s wife, and she coolly chopped down another tree with her machete, cut off the branches and used it as a long poking device to shake down loads of avocados.

Avocado Tree

More text is needed now, but, haha, actually can’t wait to tell you the fun facts about avocados:

They have already been cultivated by the Aztecs, who

Guacamole with Gwen's bread

called them ahuacatl , which means testicles. I can see where that’s coming from, but the species we were harvesting were actually really round (and huge …).

Indigenous peoples in South America have been fabricating an alcoholic beverage with avocados which later inspired the production of egg liqueur in Europe.

They eat them sweet and salty in Brasil; add some sugar and fruits and you’ve got a lovely shake, mix them with Açai for a luscious pudding, or make the trusted guacamole. (The best one, in my eyes, needs tomatoes and sour cream, apart from the obvious ingredients like lemon juice, garlic and onions.) We made some pretty fabulous guacamole with wild ginger as well, see pic. In the background, you can see the yummy, yummy, yummy bread Gwenda baked. It only lasted a few minutes, nay, seconds, until we had gobbled it all …

Next is another pleasant surprise: Maracuja! Written the same way, but pronounced very differently than the German version!

Maracuja - the more decayed it looks from the outside, the yummier from the inside!

Maracuja seeds and pulp

I just knew it from a mixed juice, „multi-vitamine“, which I didn’t really like that well, too sweet and sticky. But, it has a hint of the real maracuja in it, which is just so much fresher and more sour (a good thing in my book). Wonderful with ice and water, and it also makes a very good caipirinha, which we discovered on our last night at Takashi’s … 🙂

It is also known as passion fruit – actually it’s Latin name is Passiflora edulis , which means edible Passion Flower … – wow! (or so I’m guessing, after my summer crash course of Latin – not so sure about the passi-prefix!) – But on the other hand, I just read that it can be used as a mild sedative. Hm … calming or arousing, take your pick!

In Mexico, it is eaten with lime and chili powder – mmh, I would like to try that!

Next up is Goiaba, an understated type of fruit. It doesn’t look like much, lying there in the bucket, right? Oh, but don’t judge this book by its cover! The fresh fruit, when sufficiently ripe, tastes really good, aromatic, sweet and sour (just bite into it like you would do with an apple) – but it’s nothing compared to the Goiabada, a sort of jam that you can make with the fruit. It is so dense and silky and goooood! In Brazil, they sometimes eat it à la Romeo e Giulietta, the star-crossed lovers from opposing families … in this case, salty cheese combined with the soft sweetness of the Goiabada – no Capulet or Montague would have opposed this union, I’m sure.

Goiabada in all its glory

Would have been something for my father, who prides himself in eating sandwiches comprised of all kinds of rather opposing ingredients, like jam and mustard and salami or something like that …

Our next fruit is hailed as a wonder berry in Hollywood and beyond – meet Açaí! People are raving about it, since  it has large quantities of vitamin C, vitamin E, and more antioxidants than other fruits. Well I guess the real reason it’s so popular in tinseltown is because it’s supposed to help you lose weight really fast.

Acai palm tree

Acai berries

It grows in bushels far up on palm trees with really thin, tall trunks. Not that easy to pick … people either use long ladders and / or poles with

Washing acai berries

machetes tied on the end, or, if they’re real athletic,  they climb up there. Helps if you’re skinny and lightweight!

It’s also supposed to keep you awake – I know one Brazilian who has an açaí-smoothie every time he goes out.

Depois …

So I´m back. We had some coffee, ran around Ubaitaba for a bit, went grocery shopping and are now laden with bags so we decided to wait for the bus in our little internet café.

Let me just take a moment here to tell you about the wonderful fruits they have here, and food in general (if it isn´t the ever-present rice and beans). A few days ago, I ate the best fruit of my life, so far.  Did you know that you could actually eat the … well it truly is: slime that covers the cacao beans inside the fruit? It is soooooo yummy!! Tastes a bit like lychee only a lot better. You have to stick it in your mouth and then suck on it until there´s only the grain of cacao left. Mmmh!

Then there´s acai, the main crop on Norberto´s farm. You might have heard of it, as it´s hailed the new magical berry in Hollywood and beyond. We went with Norberto & Co. to „process“ it one afternoon. Basically we had to wash casket over casket of those little round, dark purple berries, and take away little leafs and branches and stuff like that. Then they were put into this inventive machinery (Norberto is a Daniel Duesentrieb [Gyro Gearloose], it seems) and pressed and processed so that just the pulp was left. What´s interesting is that the whole berry is almost entirely made up of the stone; the fruit is just a thin layer. But when you process it, you get about 70% of the original weight, so that´s a lot. It is put into plastic bags and then frozen and shipped elsewhere (Hollywood?).

They also have avocado trees, and let me tell you, they are huge! I had always pictured them nice and small, more like bushes, but the one we went to was enormous (as are the avocados). Aline opened a path for us with her huge bush knife, I followed, carrying the puppy, and Gwenda with little Hugo.

Aline then cut down a smaller tree and with its stem, poked around until enough avocados had fallen down, each as big as a kid´s head. (admittedly, some more like a baby´s head)

While she was so productive, we were eaten alive by the moskitos and tried not to get hit by an avocado. Later, we got some cacao fruit as well. They grow, weirdly, not at the top of the tree, but out of the stem. It looks really weird, as if a kid had used superglue to stick some yellow beans on trees.

– The first night we went shopping with the family in Ubaitaba, we had some yummy street food called acaraje (I think!). It is made of mashed beans with all kinds of tasty ingredients – shrimps, tomatos, onion, some hot sauce and other stuff I have no idea of ;-). We tried to find the place again for lunch today, but to no avail, so we had some mediocre bacalhao-thingies.

À la française

What is it about the French and food? That it’s a match made in heaven, I mean!

You just have to take a stroll through a French supermarket – Intermarché, Carrefour or, if you’re lucky, the gigantic Géant which really lives up to its name. The assortment is just bigger, and everything is so pretty. Even such a simple thing as a tomato is extremely neat. I can’t show you as I ate the evidence, but the other day I bought tomatoes that looked like flowers!

German products tend to be presented in a way … well, let’s just say they fit the stereotype. Convenient, stackable, but nice to look at? Pas du tout!

There’s the blatant „gut und günstig“ (neat and cheap) in one corner of the packaging, and that seems to be all the creative department could think of.

While in France, you have beauty stacked in the shelves. Take a look at this yoghurt, for instance. What a cute little thing! It makes me want to stretch out in a lawnchair and very slowly eat it with a handful of raspberries. Who wouldn’t want to eat a yoghurt by Bonne Maman, come on!

Then there is the  candy. While it isn’t able to hold a candle to the one-and-only Fruittella*, I do love me a stick of Carambar. It’s a sticky sweet treat which is very true to its German denotation „Plombenzieher“, meaning it’s sticky and goopy enough to pull out your inlays. It is like that, but I love it. It’s very dark, almost bittersweet caramel that you really have to work on – chomp, chomp! There are dumb jokes printed on the inside of the wrapper. I remember eating one, back in highschool, with my then-boyfriend (half-French) in hysterics after I’d been musing on the French’s strange habit of personalizing stuff like mattrasses, and making jokes out of it (maîtresse, of course, is a teacher). So, don’t expect too much when I present to you today’s joke:

Quelle différence y-a-t-il entre un camion et une échelle?

Réponse: passer sous un camion ne porte pas malheur!

Ha, ha. Anyway, the other great thing about the Carambar is that it’s very bendy – the ballerina of the candy world! You can twist and turn and distort it and make all kinds of interesting shapes. Play with your food, mes amis!

While we’re at it, let’s take a look at something as plain as tea bags. They sell them rectangular, and, well, plain over here. Let’s see how they look like in France:

Cuteness! Fluffy little round things, like tiny chicks, and there’s also the triangular type.  Let French designers take over the world, it would be a prettier place!

And of course, you cannot mention the French and food without cheese. French cheese is an awesome thing; camembert for instance is a lot more gooey and smelly and flavorsome west of the border. What I present to you today is not of the refined, noble quality you might expect; in fact, my friend called it a crass kind of cheese. La Fromagée du Larzac. It looks harmless enough, but is very, very savory, more so than ripe Gorgonzola. I like it a lot on really crusty bread, and if you have a friend who makes delicious homemade strawberry jam like I have, try that as well.

The mug it’s in can be used as a lovely rustic wine tumbler, something you will have to believe me on since I’m not going to take another picture (my neighbor already thinks I’m crazy as I spent a good portion of my evening taking pictures of yoghurt – I’m an awful photographer, I’m the first to admit).

*I always like to picture those kind of idioms in my mind, haha

Ode to a Chewy Candy

Today, I would like to present to you a very special friend. Meet the sweet, the soft, the fruity, the one-of-a-kind Fruittella! If you don’t know Fruittella, you don’t know nothing about good candy. Seriously! I am by no means a candy girl. I do like the occasional good chocolate, but other than that, I don’t go crazy over most sweet stuff (and yes, that includes icecream!). I especially don’t like most things that are made out of fruit (and again, yes, that includes jelly), as they tend to turn out very sweet, sticky and unnatural tasting.

Not so Fruittella! Its awesomeness could be explained by a glance at the ingredients: succo di frutta (limone, fragola, arancia) – believe it or not: real fruitjuice, guys! (I magically turn a blind eye at the end of the list of ingredients where it says aromi naturali).

It was the fuel that kept me going when we were wandering around Rome, walking, walking, walking. Pop one in, and you’re ready to go for another couple of kilometers (that’s 1.2 miles for my metrically challenged readers). Here’s a tip: if you plan to put me on a gruelsome task, drag me on an exhausting jungle expedition or the like, just pack some Fruittella. I will follow you wherever you go.

Seriously! It’s soft, it’s (not too) sweet, it kinda tastes like real fruit – what’s not to like? Also, just take a look at this: It’s so pretty! It looks as though it was handmade by this sweet old lady, who carefully carved some adorning lines in the soft gum (see how they are slightly crooked? The signora doesn’t have the same steady hand she used to have 20 years ago, but she is having so much fun that she will not pass on this task to her three beautiful grandchildren who are helping her with this family business by carefully stewing the freshly squeezed fruit juice and letting it simmer for days until its essence is captured in the yummy paste that is to be cut into lovely square junks of tastiness). Isn’t it appetizing???

If you are lucky enough to come across one of those luscious sticks, open up, click, and kick back and enjoy a truly Italian moment!

Ciao belli!

My recent short trip to Rome is a welcome opportunity to start my first very own blog by expressing my love for all things Italian. I know, I know – blogs are so three years ago, as hilarious Marc in Ugly Betty put it so bluntly, and being fond of Italy – yaaawn! – is oh so trite, but what can I say?

Being back in Italy, albeit over busy Easter weekend, has been a feast for my senses, and I’d like to share!

Roma – la città più bella del mondo! Little has changed, although 9 years have passed since I lived there. Sure; the city is full of the usual tourists, and the additional thousands of pilgrims, and the line in front of Castel Sant’Angelo seems to go on for miles and miles (thanks to Dan Brown?!), but the sunshine bounces off the same faded terracotta and scarlet colored house walls, paint chipped off so picturesquely, the same narrow alleys with bumpy cobblestone make you trip, stop, and appreciate a new corner of Trastevere, and the caffè, cappuccino and latte taste just as good and, if you happen upon an artistic barista, are topped with a flower or heart made of the fluffiest schiuma, milk foam. Speaking of coffee – I thought by now it had gotten around that only tourists drink their coffee sitting down in one of the small tables (and who wants to be touristy, even if you are one?), but apparently it hasn’t. Italians drink their coffee al banco, at the counter, guys! It’s three or four times cheaper that way (depending on where you are), and, well, it’s coffee! One delicious sip, or two, and you’re wide awake and ready to go. This is how it’s done here. Back in the day, I had two, three, sometimes four little caffè – espressi – at the counter like that in the course of the day. And if I had them doubled – doppio – and ate the chocolate covered coffee beans they served as little dolce on the side every time, I’d get a coffein rush so big it seemed like pure, strong espresso was running through my veins. Those were the days!

Speaking of coffee, and good one at that: there is no better than the one served at Sant’Eustachio bar near the pantheon. It is always packed, old newspaper clippings tell of its famous visitors (Kissinger for instance), and the baristas are cool as cucumbers (and, partly, mean as a pitbull). They sell all things coffee, and it’s kinda expensive, but oh so worth it. I just had several cups of the ground coffee you see in that tin below, and it just takes me back to Rome after the first sip. Hot tip: use a french coffee maker (French press), it takes away its acidity and makes it nice and soft and round … mh!

Sant’Eustachio was a recent discovery, by the way, and one my Hamburg-bound   friend, with whom I had shared many a good experience (and coffee) in Rome back in the day, was happy to show me this rainy Easter Sunday.  – Had I known that bar all those years ago, I wouldn’t have slept at all for all the coffee pumping through my veins!

On Easter Monday, upon a quick caffè before our roadtrip back home started, we met one of the true Romans, a grand, portly senior of the city who had been born in the quarter, gone there to church, seen the German soldiers march in back in WWII, and always taken his coffee there at the bar Sant’Eustachio, it seemed. He was accompanied by his wife and a signore from Calabria. Both men were wearing dark suits and came across as gentlemen of the old school; the wife was a real lady, residing in one of the forbidden chairs (unless you wanted to pay the triple tourist price for your sip of caffè) like a queen, an impression that deepened when she unpacked a very long, very thin cigarette and sent off the Calabrese with a royal gesture, to go organize her un accendino, a lighter. They could have been anything, wealthy heirs, powerful businesspeople,  arrogant nobili … but they exuded such barely suppressed power that I would like to think we happened to meet three very polite mafiosi on their daily coffee run. Talk about coffee with a twist!