Brazilian sayings #1: Sweet but hard!
I was wandering through a market yesterday when I saw Rapadura for sale. I’m not 100% sure what the best translation of rapadura is – originally I thought I could just call it ‘raw sugar’, but now I’m not so sure. Well, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words and I’m sure you’d rather just look at the picture:
Raw sugar? Solid Muscovado? I don't know! Hard brown block of unrefined sugar seems a bit verbose. Let's just stick with rapadura shall we?
So you can see, it’s a solid block of unrefined sugar. This stuff was originally developed in the 16th century in either the Azores or the Canary Islands (thanks Wikipedia) as a way of conveniently transporting small amounts of sugar in hot, humid climates. It is made by crushing sugar cane and then boiling down the juice until it reaches a consistency that can be molded into blocks. But there is more to it than that.
You can’t mention rapadura without talking about the Northeast of Brazil. Since the 1500s, Northeasterners have been growing sugarcane and producing sugar and so rapadura has become a popular sweet. Yes, it’s just raw sugar. Yes, they like to eat it just like that, as a candy. Did I mention before that Brazilians have a sweet-tooth?!
There are other ways to taste this Northeastern treat. Those golden nuggets in the cocktail on the left are rapadura. This is much more my kind of thing.
Rapadura is also part of a rather good Brazilian saying: Rapadura é doce mas não é mole não – Rapadura is sweet but it is not soft. It is used in a similar way to the English phrase “good things don’t come easy”. Yes it is sweet, but it is hard – personally I suspect that Rapadura has persisted as a self-imposed way to stop the Northeasterners from eating all their sugar at once!
And in doing my usual exhaustive research, I came across this little, erm, gem. I shouldn’t be surprised really – the word does contain the word “Rap” doesn’t it? Maybe it’s because I’m not down with my Northeastern homies, but to me this RAPadura looks a little ridiculous. But having said that, there are some nice images of the Northeast, and taking pride in where you come from is kind of cool isn’t it?
Ah its also called jaggery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaggery). Its widely used in indian cuisine!
Ah cool! Don’t tell the Brazilians, but I think Jaggery is a waay cooler name too!
What’s this talk of Jaggery subversion. You must adhere to the language of the land! :-)
And Colombians call it panela…in Colombia it’s considered more or less a health food, they give it to you as a drink dissolved in boiling water with lemon when you’re sick. The first time I saw someone make that I thought, sooo you’re making brown sugar water?? I kind of love it though. And I LOVE the doce de amendoim here, which are stupidly sweet and kind of like eating pure rapadura, but they don’t break your teeth off (they just rot them).
Hi Eva, is that the same as Pé de Moleque? I had some of that a couple of weeks ago and really liked it. However, it did feel like I was eating all my calories for the week in one go! :)
I think Pé de Moleque is quite a bit harder, doce de amendoim are the brown rectangles you seen in pretty much every kiosk (they are normally in a plastic jar, not individually wrapped) and they kind of melt in your mouth…and they definitely have all your calories at least for the afternoon, which is another reason I love them. I´ve seen “Pé de Moça” too which is kind of a cross between the two, softer but still really peanuty (doce de amendoim is really much more sugar than peanut)
Normally I’m not such a big fan of super-sugary things, but they definitely have a way here with sugar and peanuts. I’m a big fan of paçoca too – I just have to make sure I don’t have more than 2, otherwise I feel sick :(
Tom,
Doce de Amendoin is very similar to Pacoca, but it’s a little bit more moist and I like it better too. Pacoca is very dry.
Pe-de-moleque is “Peanut Brittle” and it is very hard.
Abracos
Ray
Mmmm, it sounds like I have to try this Doce de Amendoim. I just hope this isn’t a gateway doce which will lead me on to stronger, more sugary sweets… ;)