What is eaten in the Amazon?
From Kiwilimón for you

What is eaten in the Amazon?

By Shadia Asencio - 2022-08-15T13:28:54Z
Mosquitoes sense my fresh blood. It is the novelty and not its taste that makes me a delicacy for them. I catch one on my cheek while Casia, an indigenous woman from the Uitoto tribe of the Amazon, guides me deeper into the jungle. It has rained a lot in recent days, so the air at kilometer eleven of Leticia, Colombia, is hot and humid. The ground is muddy and full of vegetation, as expected. After about twenty minutes, we arrive at a building made of palm and wood: Casia's family's maloca. The maloca stands under four pillars that represent the cosmos and the unfolding of creation, as Taita Walter, Casia's husband, tells me. This is a sacred place where communities gather to participate in rituals, make important decisions, and eat. The maloca is square and houses a couple of beds, cooking fires, and the mambeadero, where they prepare and share mambé along with other ancestral medicines, like yagé and rapé. Next to the building is the chagra, an indigenous agricultural system in a spiral form that dates back to the Mesoamerican milpa and the circular terraces that cross the Andes.Work does not wait, and I am not here to be a tourist but to cook, to heal, and to learn local knowledge alongside the women. Claudia is already peeling the palm leaves with which she will weave baskets to carry food and objects. Meche is preparing lunch. Like every day, they will eat (we will eat) casabe: culture and edible proof of survival, made from bitter cassava.It is no surprise that if the flora and fauna of the Amazon astonish with their size, sculpture, and exoticism, what ends up on the stove does too. Perhaps the most important aspect of Amazonian gastronomy is, in addition to the technique, the uses and customs surrounding their environment, the knowledge of the medicine in each ingredient, and the close relationship between nature, food, and culture. A consciousness based on sustainability avoids easy waste in the face of abundance: there is a respect for ecological calendars, for planting what nourishes them, the fish, and the animals. That habitat that fills the plates to overflowing is recognized as a gift from Pachamama, Mother Earth. That is why shamans are so important. Permission must be sought from the guardians of the jungle, the respective ritual must be performed, and access to the spirit world is needed so that harmony and balance are preserved in the jungle.The Amazonian PantryFrom this territory bordering Brazil and Peru, the brightly colored fruits with rhythmic names (aguajé, camu camu, copoazú, arazá), the tubers and roots with sweet, sour, and pungent flavors, the freshwater fish and even worms and larvae like mojojoy, from which a “fat” is extracted to prepare broths or simply fry. I tasted it mixed with cocoa days later in Bogotá, at chef Leonor Espinosa’s restaurant Leo, recently named Best Female Chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Her menu showcases the fruits of her conservation efforts in communities across different regions of Colombia. Each dish is a journey that tells stories about ingredients and techniques but also about people with names and surnames.In the case of the ingredients from the Amazonian pantry, everything emerges from the earth, grows on the bark, or ripens high up. It is common to find stews with cashew, turmeric, ginger, and the root of açaí. From the river, delights like dorado, cachama, tucunare, and even piranha are caught, which are prepared fried, breaded, or covered with some sauce. Locals and chefs adore the meat of pirarucú, one of the largest freshwater fish, however, indigenous people avoid large fish and animals because “they are the owners of the river and the jungle.” Community is formed in the maloca around coca (masculine element) and cassava (feminine element). The day's recounts, the tribe's events are shared around the gobeje – a long pestle with handles used to crush or grate the cassava to make flour. “If you know how to prepare casabe, you can get married,” Casia tells me, while the women nod in agreement with a smile. I better jot down each of the instructions. Better safe than sorry.  Meche, Wilson's cousin, shows me how to use the gobeje to crush the cassava that has been soaked for three days and holds a delicious wild aroma. But it is until I try to sneak a little to taste it that I learn it is toxic due to the amounts of cyanide it still contains. “No, it’s not ready yet,” she tells me horrified. After nearly an hour of working it with that large wooden block, the result is a smooth paste that is transferred to the tipití, a long plate made of palm that is twisted to extract the poisonous liquid. The women ask me for help so that I can insert the top handle into a high beam. Once the difficult feat is accomplished, they insert a tube into the bottom handle to turn it until the flour is squeezed out. Casia, with her wisdom and experience, tells us when to lower the tipití. Then we take it out to sunbathe so that Grandfather Sun can dry the flour completely. Finally, all that remains is to sift it over a giant sieve. From the cassava, fariña is processed, present in our casabes and in a large number of local preparations; from the liquid that was squeezed out, a reduction is created to which a pungent fermented chili is added, known as tucupí sauce. To make the casabes, we place the sifted flour on the budare, a stone plate about 80 centimeters in diameter, which will give it that characteristic shape. We let it cook under the heat of the stove for about twenty minutes until the bread looks cooked and the firewood has imparted its splendor to the aroma and flavor. After three hours of preparation, I take a piece: it is victory.This casabe is just one of the many recipes that exist. Each tribe displays its culinary creativity in order to remove toxicity, giving it particular shapes, flavors, and textures. For example, a day earlier at the Hábitat Sur reserve, I attended a cooking class with Lucy from the Tikuna tribe. In addition to making fried fish in coconut sauce with turmeric, we made a small casabe that was not fermented but washed. The result was a bread with a glutinous consistency that reminds one of Japanese mochi. Meche, Casia, Claudia, and I share lunch. They eat a fish stew thickened with fariña and I, as the guest, a salad of tomatoes with red onion, pickled with cocona with a citrus taste and a grilled fish. In Amazonian cooking, almost everything is grilled or fried and eaten immediately, but if meats and fish need to be preserved, they resort to moquiado, or moquia’o as they say. The technique consists of placing a stove with different types of firewood (which will give different flavors to the meat or fish) and then hanging the protein a few centimeters covered in ferns and other leaves, so that the food does not touch the direct fire and is prepared with smoke and time.I also got to taste moquia’o on the tasting menu at Leo restaurant. The chef's interpretation is a small piece of smoked meat presented on a tiny stone oven. The meat is garnished with potato ferns that add flavor and visual appeal to a dish that is unforgettable in itself. Her tasting menu is a journey of art, technique, love for the ancestral, and flavors that scream “novelty.”My experience with Meche, Claudia, and Casia in the Amazon is also memorable. While we digest and I continue to munch on pieces of casabe, the conversation becomes lively. I am more of a listener than a participant, but I enjoy being with them. I laugh a lot; I feel like I’m flying. I can’t help but appreciate the significance of this day in my journey. I leave thinking that Amazonian women are like their food: equally vibrant, they possess an energy that delights the body. Perhaps that is another of the fruits of living in this paradise, perhaps it is another of Pachamama's gifts.Spicy as ChiliAuthor: Anastasia Candre, poet of the Okaina-Uitoto People, La Chorrera.Tasty and spicy Its delicious aroma This is the heart of the Uitoto woman Furious and her lips burning Uitoto woman.Her fragrant body Like the perfume of the chili flower Her voice strong and spicy She calms her burning anger alone Her sweet heart And starts to laugh ji, ji, ji.The chili, heart of the woman The chili, the feminine strength The chili, medicinal plant of the Uitoto woman It is the true teaching and knowledge The flame that does not go out In her sweet home.