Forbidden Fruits

Latex lurks, waiting to strike . . .

My inability to eat, enjoy, savor, relish and otherwise delight in the myriad exotic fruits of Brazil is quite possibly the only downside of my living here. Years and years ago, way back in adolescence, I found out the hard way that I am allergic to what are known as the stone fruits of the rosaceae family, namely, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots and pears. Can't eat them. Can't rub them against my lips. Prefer not even to look at them, if I can help it. A little later in life I also developed an allergy to latex. Those brightly-colored, but now dangerous, rubber gloves lying by the kitchen sink? Threw them out. More years were to pass before I would finally learn that what I have is a fairly unusual latex-fruit syndrome.

Here in Brazil I instinctively steered clear of two widely-available and beloved fruits, mango and papaya, no matter how often they were pressed on me. I don't really know why, they come from altogether different fruit families. But something about them made me lump them together with my forbidden fruits. And I'm sure glad I did because recent studies have found that mango and papaya cross-react with latex allergies. Whew, that would have been a close call, given that my allergic reaction skips the mundane itching and swelling, and runs straight to life-threatening anaphylaxis. And there's probably no antidote available in our local hospital, to boot.

So what is it like to live in a country full of fruits I either can't eat or am too scared to try? Probably something akin to how a diabetic feels in a candy store. Frustrated. Deprived. Wistful. Resigned. Here's a sampling of some exotic Brazilian fruits to which I unfortunately have to give a wide berth:

Bacuri

This fruit is ugly to look at, but I'm told it has a pleasant sweet and sour taste. However, it exudes a yellow latex when pressed, so you won't see me even touching it.

Buriti

This fruit, high in both vitamins C and A, is frequently used to treat burns because of its soothing qualities. And The Body Shop now uses it in their baby moisturizers, so there might be something to the claims.

Caqui

Also known as the Japanese persimmon, caquis were introduced to Brazil by the Japanese immigrants who came to work the coffee plantations in the early 1900s.

  

Cupuaçu

The cupuaçu is an entire pharmacy in a fruit. It will stimulate your immune system, lower your blood pressure and your cholesterol levels, improve your brain function, boost your gastrointestinal system and keep your cardiovascular system flowing. Or so I'm told.

Fruta-do-conde

We just planted a fruta-do-conde (sugar apple) tree, and am I ever happy about that. Many people believe that this fruit kills cancerous cells more effectively than chemotherapy. If our tree bears fruit, I plan to try this one.

Graviola

Graviola, or soursop, is also said to have anti-cancer potency. But it is also used to treat herpes, coughs and arthritis.

Murici

The skin of this fruit is often used as an astringent.

Pupunha

There is a tremendous commercial market for the palmito, or heart of palm, plant on which the pupunha grows. But outside of the Amazon region, there is little demand for the fruit. Not surprising, since it's toxic until cooked. But boil it for a while and you'll benefit from high levels of anti-oxidants and vitamin A.

Tucumã

Another nutritious, good-for-what-ails-you fruit, full of vitamins A, B and C.

Since I have no adverse reactions to berries or cherries, I have taken a few chances here, and found that I can indeed enjoy some Brazilian fruits:

Acerola

Another of the so-called "superfruits," acerola has 32 times the vitamin C as regular citrus fruits. It's used to fight anything from a cold to a cough to  the  flu, and from cancer to diabetes. It is said to strengthen teeth and bones, lower cholesterol and help keep your skin firm.

Carambola

The carambola, or starfruit, has the reputation of interacting badly with drugs, much like the grapefruit. Stay away if you suffer from kidney failure, kidney stones, or if you're undergoing kidney dialysis treatment. Can't say why I risked eating this one, but I did. Dee-licious!

Jabuticaba

The amazing jabuticaba, a fruit that grows right on the trunk of the tree. It's really funny to see — and really delicious to eat. I've had this one both right off the trunk and in jelly form. But my favorite way was as a full-bodied, dry wine . . . 

Pitanga

Also called the Surinam cherry, and like cherries the pitanga fruit is delicious and sweet — the seeds, however, are toxic. I've had the fruit, and spit the seeds.

Palha Italiana

"I have this theory that chocolate slows down the aging process . . . it may not be true, but do I dare take the chance?" 
Author unknown, but my kind of gal

Palha Italiana, literally "Italian straw." Nothing to do with Italy. Nothing to do with straw. But this ultra decadent Brazilian dessert speaks to the chocoholic in everyone. It's delicious. It's criminal. It's a perfect balance between candy and cookie. It's kind of like the Italian "salame di cioccolato," probably the result of Italian immigration to Brazil, or Turkish Delight cake. It's also very similar to America's very own fudge brownies, as long as the brownies have something added in, like nuts or peanut butter or Oreo cookies. But, still, Palha Italiana is a very Brazilian addiction.

salame di cioccolato

Turkish Delight

Fudge brownies with peanut butter

The ingredients of palha italiana are simple: one carton of sweetened condensed milk, one package of vanilla wafers, 4 TBS powdered chocolate and 2 TBS butter. (The proportions of the last two ingredients are all over the place — some recipes use 8 to ½, some 3 to 2, some 2 to 1 . . . you're on your own here).





Pound the wafers into little pieces and reserve.






Put the condensed milk, the chocolate and the butter into a saucepan and begin mixing over heat. As soon as the chocolate mixture starts to pull away from the bottom of the pan, turn off the heat and mix in the wafer pieces. Mix until you have a "dough."

Plop the dough out onto a flat, butter-greased surface. Open the dough up by pounding on it with the palms of your hands. Let cool, cut into rectangles, and watch people devour them.

Debate & Drop-off

There's nothing like going to a partisan event with a partisan crowd. Mark and I were in London in 1998 at the time of the final World Cup game between Brazil and France. Brazil was expected to win. We had the inspired idea of going to watch the game with Brazilians at a Brazilian restaurant. As you all may know, Brazil lost, but it was still a great, roaring crowd to be with. Another time, Mark and I found ourselves in Rio during the weekend of the Oscar broadcast. We thought it would be fun to go to an "Oscar Event" we'd read about that was to be held at a video club. We found ourselves among diehard movie fans. They groaned when their favorites lost, cheered when they won, and in the downtime between Oscar presentations they kept busy by playing a hard-fought film trivia contest. People at our table were thrilled to learn we were Americans, by the way. They had some idea we'd know all the answers. Well, we didn't. Our table lost, and embarrassingly, too. So, what better way to watch the first Presidential debate than to drive to Rio and attend a "Debate and Ballot Drop-off" event with a group I belong to called Democrats Abroad Brazil. We'd get to meet these people who I, at least, felt I knew from our back-and-forths on Facebook, cheer on our candidate and deliver our absentee ballots to a consular official handcuffed to the Diplomatic Pouch.

We were all set to attend this partisan gathering at a bar called Devassa, in Ipanema, when we were informed just days before to show up at the Marriott Hotel on Copacabana Beach instead. The Marriott? Really? Well, yes, we were told, the consular official would feel more comfortable attending a "bi-partisan" event, so other American groups were being added to the invitation. But wait, a bi-partisan event at the partisan Marriott? A hotel owned by fellow Mormon and fellow Lake Winnipesaukee mansion retreat owner Bill Marriott, who just happened to introduce Mitt Romney at a fundraiser a few weeks ago by praising his ability to tie up a yacht? That Marriott?
 
Okay, off we went to the Marriott, our least favorite hotel in that tourist-trap stretch of Copacabana Beach. We found the surprisingly young consular official, who accepted our ballots and stuffed them into her very unofficial-looking pocketbook. We met the indefatigable Melissa Mello e Souza, our group's leader and secret weapon, off in a corner indefatigably registering new voters. I looked around, searching for other familiar faces from my Facebook group. I saw instead an awful lot of people who looked as if they knew how to tie up yachts. We ate the over-priced Tex-Mex food offered by the hotel, and then settled in to watch the debate. Our very well-behaved crowd even paid heed to Jim Lehrer and foreswore partisan reactions. No applause, no booing, no cheering, and no throwing of nachos at the screen.

Watching the debate-watchers

Melissa's voter-registration table

I admit to having felt a tad uncomfortable in this Republican redoubt, at least initially, but as the debate slogged on the audience began to react a bit, and the reactions made it clear that the Democrats Abroad turnout far out-numbered that of the other associations involved in the event. And I don't know whose hand was guiding this, but the couple that sat at our table turned out to be extremely affable and gratifyingly like-minded. You know you can relax when the conversation flows from the very polite "And how long have you been in Brazil?" to a discussion of the emotional significance of a New York deli sandwich. You know you can rejoice when they pull out their "Vote for Obama" T shirts. And you know all's right with the world when your only worry is whether or not you've got enough guest rooms back home to lodge all your new friends.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TROPICAL DAYDREAMS! Tomorrow marks my one-year blog anniversary. When I started blogging, I thought I would do it for just one year. What could I possibly find to blather about beyond one year? Well, I've been so heartened by my readers' comments and feedback, both on the blog itself, via e-mail or Facebook, and in person, that I feel I must blog on. And so I shall. One year more?

Paquetá Island

Once upon a time, Mark and I were frequent travelers, but for the past six months we have rarely ventured farther than the closest supermarket. Maybe it was encroaching age that was at last taking a toll. Maybe we were feeling that by living in Búzios we were already at the destination. And we sure don't have any business reason for going anywhere anymore. So why subject ourselves to all that airport unpleasantness and all that road rage? Last week, though, we decided to scratch the one little travel itch we have felt of late. We took advantage of a long overdue resupply and stock-up visit to Rio (two and a half hours to our west) to make a day excursion to a tiny little island called Paquetá up near the northern shores of Guanabara Bay. Paquetá is nowhere near as close to the consciousness of Rio residents as, say, Staten Island is to the consciousness of Manhattan residents. Still, there is something provocative in the mere anomalousness of this little dot on the waters. So we went.


And you know what turned out to be really really nice? The ride out and the ride back. Now I had my share of Staten Island Ferry dates back in my college days, especially when the ferry ride cost a mere nickel and my dates, also students, were badly strapped for cash. The late-night trip to Staten Island and back is fabulous. But this Paquetá ride? You pass right alongside the strangely greenish wedding cake architecture on the so-called Fiscal Island. You pass under the monumental Rio-Niteroí bridge. You thread between hulking containerships waiting to load and unload cargo at the port of Caju. And if you return, as we did, to downtown Rio at dusk, take care, because your heart just might soar. Dusk turns to sunset and then dark. The lights of the business district are all atwinkle, the Christ Redeemer Statue atop Corcovado is ablaze, Sugarloaf is alight, the brightly-lighted ferries to and from Niteroí cross back and forth in front of you, aircraft comes in to Santos Dumont Airport so close that you can smell the jet fuel. Spectacular.

A scorching 45 C in Rio (113 F!)

And our day on the island? It can't be held against Paquetá that we visited on what was reportedly the hottest day of the year here in southeastern Brazil. After all, who would even suspect that you would have something called "the hottest day of the year" in winter? We ended up spending most of our time in the garden of the Casa de Artes drinking bottled water in the shade and sucking on olives and mopping our brows. That had not been our original plan. We had planned to take full advantage of this car-free island and rent bikes to go exploring. But the people who did rent bikes also wound up in the garden of the Casa de Artes and they drank more water than we did.

The invitingly shaded Casa de Artes

The famous bird cemetery on Paquetá

Toward the end of the afternoon, we took a pedal taxi (slightly motorized, actually) as far as the world's only known bird cemetery. Strange place to find oneself. We walked along a couple of the civilized-looking beaches. If they get the pollution in Guanabara Bay cleaned up in time for the Olympics in 2016, maybe people will be able to swim at them again. We looked at the pretty historic houses. We repeated over and over how smart we had been not to have packed a bag and looked for some place to check in. The lodgings on offer were grandiose in name (the Palace Hotel, the Hotel Lido) but short on comfort. The glory of this little island is that there's nothing to do there. But that's also the problem. There's nothing to do there. So what's worse? What the Americans would do with such a place at the edge of a major population center — a Travelodge here, a Starbucks there, a TGIF down the way? Or what the Brazilians do, which is nothing?

Blogs I Can't Write

Just one button short of news anchor decorum

There are a lot of blogposts I can't write. I am completely stymied by a deeply ingrained strain of American puritanism coupled with a strong desire not to offend my Brazilian friends. When I was growing up it was common etiquette not to talk about sex, politics or religion, but these are not the problem topics for me here in Brazil. No, there are other subjects way more delicate, provocative or touchy than that classic trio. Just as an example, there's no way I would ever write a blog about the differences in style between American and Brazilian women. No way. Unh-uh. If I'm still surprised when I see the two-sizes-too-small fit of Brazilian women's clothing, causing all kinds of intimate body parts to protrude and bulge, I guess that's my problem. If I still roll my eyes when I turn on the evening news and see killer décolletage on a serious female news anchor, that's my problem, too. And this is, of course, a two-way street. Plenty of Brazilian women roll their eyes at me — at my comfortable, oversized clothes, often purchased in the men's department. But as I said, this subject will appear in no blogpost of mine.

And I will never discuss how middle-class adolescents are raised here in Brazil. I'm such good friends with the parents of some of these kids, I wouldn't presume! I raised no children in any country, so who am I to mouth off? It's just that a lot of these kids don't know what a household chore is. Remember chores? My sisters and I grew up doing chores around the house, it was a natural part of growing up. How can a person ever go out on their own if they don't even know how to do the basics, like make a bed, wash a dish, prepare a simple meal? These kids I know are all such great kids, they're smart, they're talented, they're funny, they care deeply about their families and the world at large. Why should I be so worried? Well, I'm worried because a lot of them are looking forward to participating in English-language exchange programs some day. Boy, are they going to be in for a shock when some host family in Iowa starts assigning chores!

No, this plate does not fly

But let's drop this topic before I end up telling the story of the Brazilian family from São Paulo that spent a weekend with us during our first year here. They brought two adolescent daughters and an adolescent niece, which made for quite a full house. But that was no problem. After all, three girls gives me plenty of extra hands, no? No. For example, these girls thought that plates have wings, and somehow fly into the kitchen after you've eaten. When they were encouraged by their strange American hosts to help carry the dinner plates to the kitchen, they looked at their mother, stood up uncertainly, picked up one plate with both hands and walked with it into the middle of our kitchen, where they stopped. "What do I do with it now?" asked the eldest. Ugh, I simply can't talk about this. Except to mention that we have never invited them back.

Tiny apartment, tinier maid's room

Look, I know plenty of Brazilians who know how to cook, shop, clean, wash and iron clothes, in short, keep a household running smoothly. But I also know an equally large number for whom all of the above tasks are challenging, if not out-and-out daunting. These are the Brazilians for whom live-in help was created. Which is another topic I will not broach, the different attitudes between our two countries on the subject of domestic help. I've never been in a Brazilian house or apartment that didn't have "dependências," one or more rooms stuck away behind the kitchen, earmarked for use by the live-in staff. Now, I know we have maid's quarters in the U.S., and I know the concept exists all over the world. But the tweak here in Brazil is that these rooms, these dependências, don't just exist in the larger houses and apartments. They exist in the smallest of bungalows and even in a one-bedroom apartment. Everyone, absolutely everyone, is expected to have live-in help. And that expectation goes a long way to explaining why kids don't have any chores to do. Don't get me started. I know, different strokes for different folks. Mark and I have one cleaning woman who comes in just twice a week to do the heavy stuff and our friends consider this a flaw in our character, some strange American quirk. Well, some cultural differences run very deep. So I won't mention them here. Frankly, I don't know what I'll write about this week.

My First Five Portuguese Vocabulary Words

When you jump into a new language at a fairly late age, you take the grammar, the vocabulary and the expressions as they come, and tread water as best you can. You learn the basics — hello, how are you, I'm fine, thanks, what time is it? — and with perseverance you keep on building until you reach a whole new level of effective communication — what do you have in the way of anti-wrinkle face cream? Sorry, I can't eat this, I'm allergic to it. How many certified translations did you say you require? But in all of this swirl of language-learning, I will always remember five words I learned in my first couple of weeks in Brazil:

1. Tiroteio [chee-ru-TAY-u] (a shootout) — There are unfortunately lots of shootout stories that make news around the world, and the Brazilian press certainly keeps up its end. As soon as I arrived and started scanning the newspapers here, tiroteio stared me in the face over and over, and it was a mystery to me. It was a romance language word I couldn't hang my hat on. Where were the roots of the French fusillade, or coups de feu? Well, off I went to the dictionaries, and tiroteio has stuck in my head ever since as one of my very first words. Anyway, I at least had a leg up as I began reading Brazilian police thrillers.

Mr. M. himself

2. Jeitinho [szhay-CHEEN-yu] (a manner, a way, or what Americans might call "Yankee ingenuity") — Everyone but everyone uses this word here in Brazil, so I heard it and learned it early on. It's an integral part of the Brazilian character. But it took years for me to understand fully that there's good jeitinho (knowing how to solve a problem efficiently) and bad jeitinho (bribing a public official to look the other way as you add an illegal extension on your house). Some of the best jeitinho I've seen here came from one of our caseiros (caretakers) who had watched his fair share of MacGyver reruns. There was nothing this kid couldn't fix if given a hammer, bubble paper and an empty mayonnaise jar. And that leads us to the next word . . .


3. Gambiarra [gam-bee-YAH-ha] (jury rig) — If you have really good jeitinho, you can always improvise a successful gambiarra. We thank our very first caseiro for this word. "What are we going to do?" we asked him, staring at the water gushing from a leak, certain that he didn't have the experience or the technical know-how needed. "No problem, I'll do a gambiarra," he said. A what? Well, he had the problem fixed in the time it took us to look the word up in the dictionary. Although a gambiarra originally referred to the mess of theater lights of different sizes and colors above a stage, it has come to mean any kind of creative jury rigging. Every so often even I can do a good gambiarra — at least until we can get a professional in.

The original gambiarra

The new gambiarra

4. Saideira [sigh-DAY-rah] (one for the road) — Here's a great, economical word that really delivers in one delicious mouthful the meaning of four words in English (or five, if you want one more for the road). As soon as I learned it, I embraced it and repeated it often (perhaps too often?). But I never hear it or use it now without seeing this version of Frank Sinatra singing One For My Baby.

5. Bagunça [bah-GOON-sah] (a mess) — I heard this word over and over before I had any idea what it meant. Everything seemed to be called a bagunça: a child's bedroom, store displays, urban signage, the political scene or even a bad Botox job. It all fell into place when I realized it was our "what a mess!" I now use it whenever I can, particularly if I need to end a conversation.  Once you proclaim something is a bagunça, there's nothing more to say.

The Obligatory Mention

No question but that nowadays Mark and I are very alert to any mention of Brazil in movies, books or magazines, or in any other medium, since Brazil is now our personal reality show. Maybe if we lived in Thailand we'd be sensitive to all the references to that country ("Hey, Mark, The King & I is on TV again.") But let's face it, what we've come to call the "Obligatory Mention" of Brazil is so pervasive that half the time most people don't know it's there. Walk into any restaurant in New York, Los Angeles, Vienna or Tokyo and I promise you, you're likely to hear Bossa Nova playing in the background. You may not know that's what you're listening to, but it is. After all, Bossa Nova is great dinner music. It's also great elevator music, and you've heard it there, too, many times.

We've lost count of the number of times we're watching a movie and there's a sudden, unexpected mention of Brazil. A few months ago we were watching Alain Resnais's La Guerre est Finie, a movie set in France and Spain, with lots of talk about Italy. I was dozing off when out of nowhere came the throwaway line, "Bill's going to Brazil." Mark and I looked at each other in solemn acknowledgment of the Obligatory Mention. And just last week we were watching Howard Hawkes's To Have and Have Not. At one point, Lauren Bacall's character, "Slim," explains how she washed up on the shores of Martinique into the arms of Humphrey Bogart. She lists one, two, three countries before pausing dramatically . . . here it comes . . . "and before that I spent a few months in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil."

Read Annie Proulx's Shipping News and you'll find one of the characters at the end of the book say, "No, I've decided to smile, forget and fly to Brazil. Warm. No fog . . . balmy breezes." In Chester Himes's All Shot Up, a detective potboiler set in 1950s Harlem, a character who has to get out of town fast follows the usual route in such cases: "At eleven o'clock that morning Roman Hill shipped out on a cargo vessel bound for Rio de Janeiro." Here's a more subtle reference, in Tony Parsons's Man and Wife: "She seemed to be in high spirits, blasting a plastic football . . . claiming against all the evidence that she was Pele." And then there's a strange, if not wholly incorrect, reference in Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire: "Matilda is a hurricane that formed off Brazil a few weeks ago." Gee, when was the last time any hurricane formed off the coast of Brazil? For that matter, when was the first time? A second reference in the same book ran truer to form: "‘Maybe he got on a plane to Brazil after shooting two people in Enskede,' Bublanski said." (By the way, there's a recurrent theme here, the Escape to Brazil after Committing a Crime, and I'll be talking about it in a future blogpost.)

There was a great Obligatory Mention in an August 28th Op-Ed piece in The New York Times by David Brooks, titled "The Real Romney." With delightful irony Brooks wrote, "Mitt grew up in a modest family. His father had an auto body shop called the American Motors Corporation, and his mother owned a small piece of land, Brazil." But my current favorite Obligatory Mention came on the last night of the Democratic National Convention. Thirty minutes into President Obama's acceptance speech the cameras panned the audience and stopped on a woman carrying a huge sign proclaiming: "Brazilian-Americans for Obama." That's not just an Obligatory Mention, that's plain smart.