• About
  • Contact
  • Orders / Pedidos
  • Press

One Day Café

~ good eats from a small kitchen

One Day Café

Category Archives: brazil

Cooling Off with Caldo de Cana

05 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by Anonymous in brazil, travel

≈ Comments Off on Cooling Off with Caldo de Cana

Tags

beach drinks, Brazil, caldo de cana, drinks, liquid sugar, natural wonders of the world, non-alcoholic drinks, sugar cane, traditional Brazilian food

Caldo de Cana

“Cane broth”.

Certainly not the most tempting of monikers, but after seeing carts hawking caldo de cana all over southern Brazil from the highways of Paraná to the beaches of Santa Catarina, I had to give it a try.

Caldo de cana is essentially raw sugar cane juice, made by peeling the canes and running them through a pressing machine. Many of the street carts use a hand-cranked press, and you can watch as your drink is squeezed from what looks to me like a couple of dry sticks. The result is a yellowish, milky liquid that is served super cold, with a splash of lime. Sounds gross, looks gross, tastes great.

Caldo de Cana Cart

I was sure it would be too sweet for me, but I actually found the unique flavor really appealing and super refreshing. Perhaps one of the reasons it’s so popular in the sweltering heat of Brazil. Of course, given the high sugar content, it’s certainly not going to help you get into bikini-wearing shape. But if you’re on vacation here, you’re probably already indulging in caipirinhas (Brazil’s national cocktail made with the sugar cane rum cachaça) soooo let’s just look at it as the lesser of two evils.

I leave you with this gratuitous picture I snapped of a portion of Iguazu Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world and our last stop in Brazil. The falls stretch for a whopping 1.7 miles and include anywhere from 150 to 300 individual waterfalls, depending on the water level. Absolutely stunning.

Iguazu

Now, on to northern Argentina and Chile. Nos vemos!

Filling Up on Seafood in Florianópolis, Brazil

01 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by Anonymous in brazil, travel

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

beaches, beans, Brazil, feijão, fish, Florianópolis, pirão, seafood, shrimp, traditional Brazilian food, travel

Last week, we arrived in Florianópolis — Floripa, as it’s referred to locally. Located in the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil, Floripa includes one main island with a group of smaller islands, a continental portion, and a whopping 42 beaches. Helloooo paradise.

Florianópolis, Brazil

In between work calls and emails (a.k.a. reality) we spent seven glorious days exploring the picturesque coastline and sampling the local cuisine. Some of the beaches, like Lagoinha do Leste, are completely isolated and tucked away and suit our tastes perfectly. Others, particularly in the northern part of the island, are teeming with locals and tourists and plenty of eateries to ensure there’s no reason to leave the beach. We like that, too.

I was excited to finally try Brazilian feijão, a black bean stew and common side dish usually eaten over rice. It’s the basis of what many recognize as the country’s national dish, feijoada, which also includes salted pork and beef. And every meal (seriously….EVERY meal) was served with pirão, a traditional gruel made with fish stock and manioc flour. It was not a hit. The texture was odd for me, something like a congealed, tepid stew, and flavor-wise it was pretty bland. An acquired taste, perhaps?

Feijão (thumbs up!) and pirão (thumbs down)

feijão at the top (thumbs up) and pirão below (thumbs down)

But seafood is definitely the foodie focus in Floripa, with pages of every menu dedicated to various preparations of fish, oysters and shrimp. Lagoons all over the island are dotted with colorful fishing boats, and full of people tossing their fishing nets in the water.

Aside from a ton of fruit (side note: I swear the bananas are sweeter) we averaged a meal a day, which may not sound like much until you lay eyes on the meals. We tried a few different versions of almoço platters, which included fried fish, feijão, pirão, fries, and a “salad” that was always some combination of beets, carrots and tomatoes. I really liked the anchova grelhada version. I had feared it was going to be a bunch of tiny salty anchovies of the packed-in-oil variety, but it was actually a gigantic, mild white fillet.

Anchova Grelhada

By far our most ambitious meal was the sequência de camarão, or “sequence of shrimp”. The name strikes me as both accurate and misleading at the same time. It is, indeed, a sequence; every time we thought the final dish had arrived, another one showed up. But it’s so much more than shrimp. There was crab, calamari, buñuelos de algas (fried balls of seaweed), a ton of different fish preparations, and of course, more  feijão, pirão, fries and salad. We were actually slightly horrified because it was so clearly more than two people could possible ingest, but we put a good hurtin’ on it.  The highlight for me was the peixe mole: chunks of fried fish topped with tiny shrimp in a savory red mole sauce.

Sequencia de Camarão

Thus far, our mission to detox from the Argentine diet of meat, empanadas and pizza has been a success! Albeit short-lived, as we’re crossing back into northern Argentina this week. It was fun while it lasted, Floripa.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,479 other subscribers

One Day Cafe on Facebook

One Day Cafe on Facebook

algarrobo antofagasta appetizers and sides argentina brazil breakfast and brunch buenos aires chile desserts drinks ecuador entrees etiquette food trends france lima los órganos mendoza north carolina peru pittsburgh recipes restaurants san pedro de atacama tips & how to's travel Uncategorized uruguay

katrina’s twitter feed

  • RT @EliManning: Verizon is giving away Super Bowl tickets, and obviously I’d love to be your +1. Head to Verizon and enter for a chance to… 3 days ago
  • RT @rgay: We’re hanging with my niece while she does homework and ummm homework has changed since I was a kid fr. It’s so intense! Like wha… 4 weeks ago
  • RT @DrewBledsoe: As you gear up for your Fantasy Football playoffs, reliability is imperative. Check out this week’s Most Reliable Players… 1 month ago
  • RT @Verizon: 🎉🎊🏆 Verizon Small Business Digital Ready just won GOLD for “Best New Service” at this year’s North American Best in Biz Awards… 1 month ago
  • RT @ScottHanson: Reliability is a top priority for your fantasy lineup, so be sure to check out the Most Reliable Players list this week, p… 1 month ago
Follow @katrinacabrera

Blogroll

  • David Lebovitz
  • Gringo in Buenos Aires
  • Homesick Texan
  • Kelly Poindexter – Pastelera
  • La Panza Porteña
  • My Beautiful Air
  • NOLAchef
  • Pick Up the Fork
  • San Telmo Loft
  • Smitten Kitchen

On Bloglovin’? Follow Me Here!

Follow on Bloglovin

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • One Day Café
    • Join 118 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • One Day Café
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...