Brazilian foods of the Amazon

by Joan Peterson

​Brazil was the first destination I covered in my EAT SMART series of international culinary travel guide books. I ventured there for a couple of months, thinking I’d write a simple pamphlet containing an alphabetical list of menu items with English translations and a similar list for foods available to buy in the colorful outdoor markets. That was in 1992 when there was little to nothing specifically published for travelers about the cuisine at foreign destinations, and menus in English were infrequent, so I thought I’d help fill the informational void. As it turned out there was so much else to cover about the cuisine of Brazil, including food history, regional specialties, and phrases to use in the restaurants and markets, in addition to the menu and market food lists I had originally planned for a pamphlet. Thus I chucked the idea of a pamphlet and decided that I’d better write a food guidebook instead.

Among the many awesome learning experiences I had in Brazil there were a several that took place on the Amazon river. For example, when I was exploring the food markets in Manaus, the capital and largest city of the state of Amazonas, I was approached by a young man from the United States who had intended to backpack from the southern tip of South America to as far north as possible in North America, but when he arrived in Brazil he met the love of his life and married. His in-laws ran a boat excursion business on the Amazon, and he wondered if I would be interested in taking a trip with them. My answer was sure, if I could be the only one on the boat (they accommodated fewer 10 people), and if I could have, in addition, an English-speaking guide who could tell me all about the food of the area. I was in luck. The next day I took off in a boat with the man’s father-in-law as pilot and his mother-in-law as cook, who prepared my meals in a lean-to kitchen off the back of the boat, and an English-speaking guide. 

2017 Gourmand Cookbook Awards
Best Culinary Guidebooks Series in the World
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Winner - Best Food Book of the Year
ForeWord Magazine Award
Finalist - Travel Book of the Year

My guide was a delightful young man known as a caboclo, an inhabitant of mixed Portuguese and Indian ancestry, who lived in the hinterlands of the Amazon rainforest. He introduced me to the unique flavors of some of the myriad tropical fruits and to some exotic local fish, which he had the cook prepare for me on the boat, such as the enormous pirarucú, whose flesh resembles the white meat of chicken more than that of fish. This mammoth fish, which reaches lengths of almost 10 feet and 485 pounds, is the most valuable commercial fish of the region. It is marketed primarily in a dried, salted form. A popular dish made with this fish is posta de pirarucú seco ao leite de côco, or slices of fish served in a delicious coconut sauce. Certain inedible parts of this fish are also valued. The large, brown-tipped scales are sold as fingernail files and are used in a variety of handicrafts, especially masks. Even the tongue is recycled, its raspy surface useful as a grater. ​

Pirarucú. Photo credit: Global Aquaculture.

Posta de pirarucú seco ao leite de côco. Photo credit: Hirota Food

Tambaquí. Illustrated by SV Medaris

Another economically important fish featured on menus is the tasty tambaquí. This amazing fish is equipped with powerful, molar-like teeth for crushing its food—the fruits and seeds, especially the hard seeds of the rubber tree, that fall into the water of the flooded forest. A regional specialty is picadinho de tambaquí, which is a mixture of fish chunks served with rice, jambú leaves and toasted manioc meal. The beautifully colored tucunaré, or peacock bass, is also a prized food fish. It is the coveted catch of fly-fishermen who are beginning to discover the thrills of angling for it in the Amazon basin. A considerable number of catfish, such as surubim, caparari, and filhote, can be sampled. Filhote are juvenile specimens of the largest fish of the Amazon, the giant piraíba, which reaches lengths of 12 feet and weights of 440 pounds. All of these fish must be tried in the restaurants and seen in the markets! 
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After this fascinating exploration of some of the foods of the area, I experienced an unforgettable night time return to port. Sitting on the boat’s rooftop deck, I was entertained by a spectacular display of firefly pyrotechnics and the stars of the southern skies, unobscured by the pollution of civilization.

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