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Hortifruti – great store, brilliant adverts!

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Sooooo, today is my last full day in Brazil for 2 months. Such mixed feelings – it’s going to be great to see my family and friends, start my new job, eat proper cheese and drink proper beer again (in that order). But I’m leaving Brazil! For 2 months! There are so many things I’ll miss that I’m trying not to think about it too much right now. Instead I’m throwing myself into last minute preparations

One of the things I need to do is harvest my beloved chillis and turn them into hot chilli sauce! This time round I’m going for a genuine Trinidadian hot pepper sauce recipe and I’m also going to experiment with a chilli infused oil in the style found in many of Rio’s snack bars and Pé Sujos.

Yesterday, in preparation for all this peppery-cookery, I took a trip over to my favourite food shop in Rio – Hortifruti.

If you can afford it, this place is great. I love it!

 

Hortifruti (sounds like ORtchee-FROOtchee) was such a revelation to me the first time wandered in. The displays of fruit and vegetables are amazing – it’s like they have some kind of beauty contest for fresh produce and only the really sexy ones get through.

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Essential for a Brazilian Christmas?

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A little while back I gave you my top Brazilian supermarket survival tips, born from many hours wandering around supermarkets here in Rio. I remember as a young kid, on some of my first trips abroad, being fascinated by the supermarkets of France (anyone remember Hollywood chewing gum?) and Germany (those yummy ginger cake/biscuits covered in chocolate – yum!). 


And I remember, aged 9, being awestruck the first time I saw Fluff: 

 

Are you a Fluffer-nutter? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6gljDcLrvQ)

Even today I enjoy checking out the weird and wonderful products when I visit a new country. I remember noticing last Easter that all the Rio supermarkets took the same approach to Easter-eggs. They built a kind of wooden framework (a bit like a Pergola) and then hung the eggs at about face-height, meaning you have to duck under the eggs if you want to get past!

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Cock on the Moutain Top

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Well, as usual for Saturdays in November/December, it rained again today. This made it impossible, once again, for me to do a job I’ve been meaning to do for ages (putting up a trellis since you ask). After glowering at the rain for an hour or so, I decided to go and do something else that I’ve been meaning to do for a while – a food mission! 


One of the things I really miss about London is the great variety of world food available. In particular I miss the zingy flavours and spice of Thai, Vietnamese and Indian food. The few Southeast Asian restaurants I’ve seen are either mediocre or expensive (or both!) and the supermarkets don’t stock the ingredients essential to these cuisines, so until today I have had to go without.


Then, a couple of months ago, we were riding on the bus through the neighbourhood of Flamengo when we spotted this:

Although I pass this place everyday on my way to work, I'm always late and so never have time to stop in. Today I made it my mission to go and check it out.


And so, with the weather alternating between light drizzle and heavy downpour, I set off to check out what, as far as I know, is the only Asian market in Zona Sul. I had no idea I was going to find cock on the mountain top…


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7 Tips for Supermarket Survival

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Supermarkets eh? My mum remembers when supermarkets were first introduced – what a novelty it was to be able to pick up and choose the items yourself without having to ask a guy in the brown overalls behind a counter to fetch you a dozen eggs or a pound of sugar. 

 

Nowadays many people see supermarkets as a necessary evil. ‘Necessary’ because, by human nature, we want the convenience of buying all our things in one place and we want to pay low prices. ‘Evil’ because they tend to promote harmful/unsustainable farming techniques, they squeeze small suppliers and competitors out of the market and ultimately lead towards monopolies which are not in the interests of the consumer (phew!).


Still, if you live in a city then you have to be either very rich or very dedicated to the cause to avoid supermarkets altogether. And although I love traditional markets (and use one near my home once a week), I do most of my shopping in a supermarket near work. The following are my top 7 supermarket survival tips:

A traditional shopkeeper (and his long-suffering assistant).

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