Belém Local Customs

Pato (duck) no Tucupi is a tipical food from paraense cookery, made with tucupi (a broth made with wild cassava) and jambu (a native variety of paracress).
Widely consumed on Cirio de Nazaré period, in October, but you can find it in several tipical restaurants in Belém over whole year.

More photos in October when I will go to Belém. Awaits.

Tacacá is a kind of soup and is well loved and widely consumed. It is made with jambú (a native variety of paracress), and tucupi (a broth made with wild cassava), as well as dry shrimps and small yellow peppers. It must be served extremely hot in a gourd.

You find a lot of places for buying Tacacá, like República Square or Nazaré Av.

Delicious!

Tacaca is a dish of indigenous origem. This delicious soup is typical of Belem. In spite of that it's sometimes hard to find it.

The ingredients are: cooked manioc, shrimps, jambu (Amazonian plant), tucupi (yellow sauce extracted from a peeled root of wild manioc) and seasoned with pimenta de cheiro (sort of piquant pepper).

It is usually served in drinking vessel made of gourd. But don't expect to get a spoon! You drink the liquid and the rest you get with a toothpick. Sometimes life can be so simple... :)

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No stay in Belem would be complete without sampling the remarkable variety of tropical fruit the region has to offer, and which form the basis for top quality juices and ice creams. Most have no English or even Portuguese translations.

Palm fruits are among the most common; you come across acai, taperaba, tucuma, bacuri and buriti. Also good, especially as juices and ice cream, are jenipapu, murici, ajiru, pupunha, graviola, fruta de conde, guava, acerola, mango, passionfruit, cashew, cacau, papaya, umbu and, most exotic of all, cupuacu.

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The name guarana comes from its intense use for centuries by the Guaraini Indians. Guarana is plant native of the Amazon. It has round fruits with an intense red colour in bunches. After being dried by the sun, its skin opens, exposing the round white and black seeds that resemble the human eye. When dry, they are toasted by the fire and grinded like cocoa.

It contains caffeine and because it obtains stimulating substances, it is consumed by millions of people as natural energy drink. Its powder is consumed mixed with fresh water and Guarana soft drink you can get all around the country.

Guarana da Amazonia is made by mixing different substances together. You can get it only on the northern part of Brazil. In Belem there are many street vendors offering this miraculous blend. The recipe can vary but the main ingredients are: guarana powder, guarana syrup, grinded peanuts and cashew nuts and water. To get even tastier and nutritious drink, different local fruits can be added, as acai, cupuacu, bananas, avocado... In one word: heavenly!!!

I am not really a beer lover however always like to try something new. But I love the fruit, especially tropical fruit, so I thought: Bacuri beer? Hum... Why not? It would be a pity not to try it. So I took one, and another time some more. I've never tasted anything like that! It was absolutely delicious!!

You can get bacuri beer at Amazon Beer, a beerhouse at Estacao das Docas, that has its own small brewery.

So sorry for the bad photo. It did not work neither with flesh nor without it :(

Cerpa is most recognized and famous beer of the state of Para. It's a market leader. You can choose between:

- Cerpa Pilsen 600ml, traditional
- Cerpa Export 300ml, known nationally and internationally, a synonym of status and sophistication
- Chopp Cerpa (draught beer), regional preference of bars, restaurants and great popular feasts

One of the most important economic plants of the Amazon is Brazil nut. It's in fact a seed of an enormous Brazil nut tree which is native to Amazon rainforest. It has high caloric and proteinic contents.

You can find Brazil nuts all around Belem, from Ver-o-Peso to other markerts and shops. But the best ones I bought from street vendor. They were the freshest I've tried. The seller had to break the woody seed capsule to get the seeds, then break the seeds and finally peel them. Yummy!! Brazil nuts that we usually buy in Europe can defenitely not be compared with the ones that you find in Belem.