Posts

The Ultimate Caipirinha

/10 Comments/in ,

In today’s post I am going to tell you about what I think is the best caipirinha there is. I never thought I’d find a fruit that suited this cocktail better than the good old classic limão (lime), but I’m confident that when you try one of these you will agree. The fruit in question isn’t easy to find, but if you can track it down, you will have something pretty special on your hands. Let’s take a look at it shall we?

 

Limão cravo, rangpur lime, canton lemon, hime

Limão Cravo – unassuming looking little fellows aren’t they? This fruit goes by many names (even in Brazil!): Limão Galego, Limão Lava-tacho, Limão Bode, Limão Rosa, Limão Capeta. Outside Brazil the list grows longer still: Rangpur lime, Canton Lemon, Hime Lemon.

 

A confusing list of names for a citrus fruit? After recent posts, I don’t expect any of you to be surprised by that! This fruit was mentioned in the comments of a few recent posts and I had been keeping a look-out for them for a while. You don’t find them in every supermarket, but I managed to track them down a few days ago in the organic section of Zona Sul. As I appear to be going through a bit of a mystery-fruit obsession a the moment, you won’t be surprised to hear that I hurried home to take a better look at these strange things.

 

Read more

Fruit pulp refreshment

/8 Comments/in

If I had to choose between very hot weather and very cold weather, I would choose the heat. Just as well really, because it can get very hot here in summer and the winters are mild. I’m no masochist, I don’t enjoy being too hot, but sometimes it’s worth it for the pleasure of cooling down – think beach/waterfall or less glamorous options air conditioning/cold shower.

And the heat has clearly shaped the drinks culture here – red wine is commonly served chilled (even in an ice bucket sometimes!) and of course beer must extremely cold. Another chilly drink that I enjoy making home starts out looking like this:

Frozen cacau fruit pulp

A frozen block of fruit pulp from the Cacau fruit.

 

Read more

Fruit confusion

/22 Comments/in

First we had questions over the various types of banana available in Brazil. Then more recently there was a great lemon-lime confusion. Today we need to talk about the fruit that has no rhyme: the orange. A few days ago I found myself browsing around ‘Zona Sul’, a fairly fancy supermarket that stocks a good variety of fruit and vegetables. I decided that I needed to try one of these Limas da Persia that apparently go so well in a caipirinha. As I found this mystery ‘lemon’, my eyes wandered to the right:

On the left you can see Lima da Persia. But what is this to the right? Laranja Pera?! A ‘Pear Orange’?!

 

Read more

Lemon-Lime confusion in Brazil

/33 Comments/in ,

Back in my England days there was one thing you could almost always rely on: somewhere in my fridge you would find half a lemon. Always half a lemon. When you have a whole lemon, there are all kinds of uses (for half of it) – squeeze it over some fish, slice it for drinks, the list goes on… But what about the other half?  That would sit in my fridge for days, slowly shrinking and shrivelling and becoming increasingly useless.

Here in Brazil things are different – we have limes! Aren’t limes great? Not only do they have an amazingly fragrant, tangy, zingy flavour, but they are just the right size! You won’t find half a lime in my Brazilian fridge.

But what about lemons? Here in Brazil (in Rio at least) they seem to be very rare. After learning that the Portuguese for lime is limão, I wondered what the word for lemon was. The answer? Limão. Huh? “You use the same word for both lemons and limes?” I asked incredulously. It was like the moment I found out that Portuguese (and Spanish) uses the same word for fingers and toes! (Dedos).

Well, that is the simple answer anyway. In fact there is a way to distinguish between your limões (and your dedos). You get specific.

 

Apparently these limes are from Tahiti! Well, I guess the variety is at least. These particularly large and firm limes are very handy if you want to make yourself a decent-sized caipirinha - the extra juice will ensure that you can still walk after you've polished it off.

Read more

Delicious Rio Roadkill

/12 Comments/in

One of the pleasures of living in a tropical climate is that all kinds of exotic fruit are available year round. Of course “exotic” is subjective term – for me, exotic fruits include mango, guava and papaya (in Portuguese, manga, goiaba and mamão respectively). I guess the average Brazilian would be more impressed with raspberries, rhubarb and blueberries.

Here in Rio, there are mango trees everywhere. They are huge and easily recognisable because of their distinctive finger-like leaves and the fact that they are often heavily laden with fruit.

Look out below! Having one of these land on your head would be unpleasant.

 

As I said, you find them everywhere. I snapped this one in a hospital car park:

Read more