He tossed the coin up and I called “Heads!” – he looked down and the expression that appeared on his face told me I’d lost. My friend and I were 18, travelling round New Zealand and had just decided which of us was going to make a rather awkward phone call.
One of us had to call up the bus company and arrange a spot on the bus that was coming through town the next day. The problem was that we were staying in a town called Whakapapa.
Whakapapa is in Tongariro National Park, New Zealand. Like much of New Zealand, it is spectacular.
“Er… so what? Just call up and tell them you’re in Whakapapa!” I expect you’re thinking. Well we had just read in our guide book that the Maori pronunciation of the letters “Wha” should sound like “Fu”. Seriously? One of us had to phone up a stranger and say all bright and breezy: “Hi there! Can I book two seats on the bus from Fuckapapa tomorrow?”.
Looking back I can’t think why we were so reluctant to make the call, but as slightly timid 18 year olds I guess neither of us felt very confident about this whole “Fuckapapa” thing (was that really the proper way to say it?). For the record, I made the call, I pronounced it “Fuckapapa” and the woman on the phone didn’t bat an eyelid!
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When you’re not familiar with a language, it can be tricky to get the pronunciation right. In Portuguese, my name (Tom) means ‘tone’ which seems quite appropriate because although it is spelt the same, it sounds very different to its English equivalent. I discovered this the hard way when I first got to Brazil.
https://i0.wp.com/eatrio.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/tom-jobim-at-ipanema_1_t0f20.jpg?fit=375%2C375&ssl=1375375tomlemeshttps://eatrio.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/eat-rio-logo.pngtomlemes2013-04-12 18:14:302024-02-29 16:47:28Brazilian Portuguese Tom
Something rather strange is going on around here right now. Everyone is taking about tomatoes! Specifically, everyone is talking about how the price of tomatoes in Brazil has gone through the roof! Here’s an example:
Precious crop. “I was going to buy you a diamond ring, but preferred to buy you a tomato.”
And this was the situation in a supermarket in Rio last night:
R$12.79/kg tomatoes. This converts to US $6.43/kg or approx $3 for a pound of tomatoes.
https://i0.wp.com/eatrio.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/DSC_1941.jpg?fit=500%2C364&ssl=1364500tomlemeshttps://eatrio.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/eat-rio-logo.pngtomlemes2013-04-08 14:44:572024-02-29 17:07:16The price of tomatoes in Brazil
I’m feeling pretty excited today – not only is it Friday, but I’ve just discovered the existence of Cachaça de Jambú! We looked at jambú before when I told you about Tacacá, the soup from the Amazon that makes your lips and tongue go numb (surely one of Brazil’s weirdest dishes).
Jambú is an Amazonian herb that gives tacacá its anaesthetic property. It looks rather like a weed, with straggly stems and strange yellow/red pom-pom flowers.
The Jambú plant in flower.
In Brazil’s northern states (such as Pará and Amazonas) the leaves and flowers of this plant are added to soups and stews. It has quite a nice flavour actually but it’s the strong numbing, tingly effect that really sets it apart from other greens.
And now they’re putting it in cachaça! I should be clear here, I haven’t tried it yet but you can be sure i’ll be doing my best to hunt it down at the earliest opportunity!
I heard about cachaça de jambú from this article in Folho de São Paulo. To be honest I don’t know much about it – is the practice of adding jambú to cachaça a new thing or have people been doing it for years? From what I can tell it is made by simply infusing regular cachaça with jambú leaves.
Mmmm, Cachaça de Jambú. Image from Folha de São Paulo.
https://eatrio.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/eat-rio-logo.png00tomlemeshttps://eatrio.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/eat-rio-logo.pngtomlemes2013-04-05 13:45:482025-12-13 14:17:39Cachaça de jambú!
As someone who uses Rio buses every day, this is a rant that has been building up for a while. I started writing this last night and finished it off this morning.
Back in November last year I found myself waiting for the bus after work. It had been a long day in the office and by the time I got to the bus stop it was already dark. At that time of night, with steady traffic, my journey home would take around 2 hours.
I waited and waited, watching eagle-eyed for my bus. It is important to stay alert when waiting for buses in Rio. If you don’t pay attention, a bus can easily fly past – they won’t stop if you don’t stick your arm out and at the crazy speeds they travel you can blink and miss one. On top of this, some buses just don’t stop – this is incredibly frustrating, especially when you’ve waited a long time and you’re at the start of a long slog home.
On this particular occasion I had waited about 25 minutes when my bus finally came into view. The guy in front stuck his arm out at the same time as me and we both frantically waved, willing the bus to slow. At the last possible moment the driver slammed on the breaks and pulled to a halt about 3 bus lengths past the stop. We both turned and ran along the dark road to get to the open doors of the bus.
The other guy had run on in front of me and jumped up into the bus first, but as I was jumping in through the open doors behind him, I realised that the bus driver, oblivious to my presence, had already started to pull away, accelerating hard. I was half in the bus with my left hand on the bright yellow hand rail but the other half of my body was still outside the bus. The acceleration of the bus slammed me into the side of the doors that were still open. As the bus picked up speed I clung on desperately with my left hand and tried to swing the rest of my body in while the bus continued to accelerate. It was touch and go for a moment and I came very close to falling out on to the road and possibly under the wheels of the bus.
After a few of seconds I managed to grab onto the hand rail with my right hand and pull myself in. I was in a dazed state of shock as I stumbled up the stairs, past the surprised driver. I paid the attendant and pushed my way through the turnstile. As I sat down I realised that I had just come very close to having a very serious accident. The bus driver was shouting something back at me and although I couldn’t make out the words, I got the impression from his defensive tone that he was telling me it was my fault. It was only after I had sat down that he pulled the lever to close the doors.
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Fast forward to tonight, 2nd April 2013, and I’m waiting at my bus stop again. A few hours ago I heard the news that a bus had fallen off an overpass in Rio’s Zona Norte, killing at least 7 people and injuring who knows how many more. The full details aren’t in yet, but it sounds like this accident was caused by an argument/fight between a passenger and the driver, possibly because the bus was going so fast that it had missed the passenger’s stop. Reports from the survivors say the bus was travelling at high speed and several passengers actually got off the bus before the crash because they were afraid of the situation.
The Rio bus crash of 2nd April 2013. Vanderlei Almeida / AFP – Getty Images
Portuguese Idioms are a constant source of confusion and amusement for me. A few months ago, one of my Brazilian colleagues and I were discussing a technical issue at work (I won’t bore you with the details – if you knew the details, you’d thank me for not boring you with them). Things were going well until he said that he thought we might be “Procurando pêlo em ovo”.
[pause…]
“You think we’re…searching for a hair in an egg?” I asked, clearly baffled. I thought about it some more. “Is that like looking for a needle in a haystack?”. Now it was his turn to look confused! However, his confusion didn’t last long as he cleverly countered with “You know, like procurando chifre na cabeça de cavalo.”
Touché! I scrambled for my dictionary to find the meaning of ‘chifre’ (it means ‘horn’). The full phrase translates to “Searching for horns on a horse’s head.” Both Portuguese phrases mean to look for something that isn’t there. The English phrase (to search for a needle in a haystack) has a slightly different meaning: to search for something which is there, but which is effectively impossible to find because it is hidden in such a huge space or amongst a huge number of other items.
A haystack (Portuguese: palheiro) – the perfect place to hide a needle!
These things make sense once you have someone explain them to you, but they can stop you in your tracks if you’ve never heard them before. Since that day I’ve been collecting these interesting Portuguese idioms and today I thought I’d share a few more.
https://eatrio.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/eat-rio-logo.png00tomlemeshttps://eatrio.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/eat-rio-logo.pngtomlemes2013-04-02 08:41:532013-05-17 13:53:10Portuguese Idioms: Armless John and the fat chicken next door
