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| Maracuyá |
I couldn't stay away from this topic for long, especially when it involves tropical fruit. One of the best things about Colombia was its various passion fruits (
maracuyá,
curuba,
granadilla,
badea),
lulo (
naranjilla in Ecuador), and
tomate de arbol. Most of these were made into juices so there is some processing involved (including adding water, cross your fingers). It seems that
maracuyá is fairly common in Peru but the others less so, although I read somewhere that before the Spaniards arrived, the Moche people along the coast made
ceviche with fermented
curuba, called
tumbo in Peru (
Passiflora tarminiana or banana passion fruit). But the Amazon has a whole new collection of fruits for us to explore.
HeNeedsFood is a blog by an Australian ex-chef who visited the
Belén Market in Iquitos, the capital of the Department of Loreto where we'll be traveling. This might be the closest we get to it since markets are not high on everyone's list, especially when the heat and humidity make them odoriferous. The photos are interesting but few of the fruits are labeled. Here are a few that I've identified.
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| Brazil Nut |
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| Pijuayo |
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| Sapote |
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| Chonta |
The
Pijuayo (Bactris gasipaes), a palm fruit as is the Brazil nut, is called
chontaduro in Colombia and is a common street food in southern Colombia, although not in Bogotá when we lived there in the 70s. The
Slow Food Arc of Taste mentions that the Amazonians in Peru make masato out of it, which is a tame form of chicha. And in Peru,
chonta is shredded hearts of palm which is a very popular salad in the Amazon, which we absolutely have to try.
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| Aguaje |
Another palm fruit (there are many) is aguaje from the palm
Mauritia flexuosa. Unfortunately it is very difficult to do Internet searches on many of these Amazonian fruits because almost everything Google gives me are ads for dietary supplements. Everything from the jungle is a superfood nowadays, available in pill form because it appears that the fruit itself is an acquired taste since the flesh is quite dry and tastes like carrots.
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| Camu camu |
Camu camu (Myrciaria dubia) is a cherry-like fruit that grows on a small bushy riverside tree in the Amazon. They make it into juices and sorbets. It's very high in vitamin C but like many tropical fruits, it's quite acidic and you need to add sugar to the juice.
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| Luciano Mazzetti |
Another visit to the Belén Market is done by Peruvian chef Luciano Mazzetti on his YouTube channel
Taste & Travel (
Viaja y Prueba) when he travels to
Iquitos, the capital of the Department of Loreto and where we will land for our Amazon trip. The photography is great but the episodes are in Spanish, Mazzetti speaks lickety split moving from one food to the next, and the background music makes understanding difficult for the non-native speaker. Nonetheless I find his videos well worth the effort and his enthusiasm for the people and their food is contagious, even if you can't understand a word he says!
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| Carachama |
Luciano also visits the
market in Pucallpa, which is closer to Lima and accessible by road yet still in the Amazon basin. In both of these videos Luciano eats a lot of fish and there is one curious fish, the
Carachama, which is a catfish covered with an armor of gray and black scales. It lives in swampy water and feeds on dead wood and its inhabitants. You can read more about it in the
Slow Food Arc of Taste where you can see more
endangered foods of Peru. Actually you can't "see" them because no photos are included, a real shortcoming of the site.
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| Paiche |
Paiche is an even more famous catfish of the Amazon, partly because it is the largest freshwater fish in the world, so you can have filets and not a lot of bones so the people in Lima can eat it at upscale restaurants. Even
Whole Foods carries farmed
paiche. Me, I think I'd prefer
piraña because it is a carnivore and shouldn't taste like mud.
In the Pucullpa video, Luciano also eats
majas, a 9 pound rodent which is cute and is supposed to be very tasty. It is also called a
Paca, or
Lowland Paca and is widespread throughout the Americas in tropical forests.
Iquitos Times has a list of Amazon creatures we can use for reference, if not for food.
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| Paca or Majas |
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| Majas with platano and chonta (heart of palm) salad |
