As it gets ready to host the 2014 soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro is cleaning up its beaches by forbidding the sale of coconuts.
The city decreed that coconut husks, tossed aside on beaches by locals and tourists alike, are a nasty eyesore and as of Dec. 1, sale of the fruit is banned on the sand, AFP reports.
"Go on Ipanema beach at the end of the day and you'll see a mountain of coconuts that people have left on the sand. What attracts rats most to the beach are coconut husks," Jovanildo Savastano, the official in charge of the beaches, told AFP.
He said up to 30 tons of empty coconut shells are found each day.
Since writing about the Pea and Mint Soup found on an Italian blog the other day, I've been finding an endless stream of amazing food blogs from various locations around the world. This recipe for (what translates to) Cassava Cream with Crab is from the beautiful website Mixirica in Brazil, and though it is written in Portuguese, the picture itself is worth a thousand words regardless of which language you happen to speak. Again, translators, we can use your help. Please feel free to write the recipe in the comment section below.
Not headed down to Rio de Janeiro for Carnival this year? No worries - you can still have a little taste of the Brazilian festival at home with the Caipirissima cocktail. The drink is a simple, but delicious, combination of rum, lime juice and sugar. It is a take on a cocktail called the Caipirinha, which is sometimes referred to as the national drink of Brazil and is made with a liquor called Cachaça, which is distilled from pure cane syrup.
Cachaça is just finding its way around the US and is not as easily accessible as it eventually might be, given the increasing popularity of Brazilian drinks, so the rum alternative makes getting the flavors of Brazil into your glass much easier for the time being. Use white rum, for a lighter flavor and a cleaner looking drink. You'll also need a muddle to get the full flavors out of the lime.
The recipe, after the jump, gives directions for making a martini-like cocktail, but you can simply muddle the lime and sugar at the bottom of a regular glass, top with ice, rum and lime juice, and drink it that way, too.
One of the most refreshing tropical drinks in my book is Brazil's national cocktail, the caipirinha, made from cachaça, fresh lime juice and sugar. I don't know about you, but whenever I've tasted the white spirit distilled from freshly pressed sugarcane I was always disappointed to find that it scarcely resembled a premium rum. Not that anyone said that cachaça was supposed to resemble a small-batch rum, but I always had my hopes. God knows a premium rum is a beautiful thing.
So I was quite intrigued to learn from our sister blog, Luxist, about the launch of Cabana Cachaça, a double-distilled premium cachaça. The makers of this small-batch cachaça say it has a citrus nose and a smooth, round finish. What sets it apart from other cachaças is that is double-distilled in pot stills as opposed to column stills.
Apparently the 2006 San Francisco World Spirits Competition thinks its pretty good. Cabana Cachaça took a silver medal there. I've a feeling that once I taste I'll be having it straight up instead of mixed.
Square watermelons (and even pyramidal ones) have been around in Japan for several years, and now grocery stores in the UK will sell them, according to the Daily Mail. Tesco will start selling the melons in October for less than £5 (approximately $9), far cheaper than the cube-shaped melons usually retail for in Japan. The melons, which are shaped by the clear plastic boxes they're raised in, will be imported from Brazil.
Like true coffee addicts, the guys over at Forbes have scoured the globe looking for the most expensive coffees in the world. And we're not talking about specialty coffee drinks, but about the beans themselves. Starting off the list at $160 per pound is Kopi Luwak, which we have already heard about, since the berries are digested by civets before the bean is extracted and brewed. This is followed by Hacienda La Esmeralda (Panama, $104/lb), Island of St. Helena Coffee Company ($79/lb), El Injerto (Guatemala, $25-50/lb), Fazenda Santa Ines (Brazil, $50/lb), Jamaica Blue Mountain ($49/lb), Los Planes (El Salvador, $40/lb), Kona ($34/lb), Starbucks Rwanda Blue Bourbon ($24/lb), Yauco Selecto AA (Puerto Rico, $22/lb), Fazenda Sao Benedito (Brazil, $21/lb).
Keep in mind that many beans in supermarkets (and cafes) are "Blue Mountain-style" or "Kona-style" and do not necessarily contain all of the beans that the name suggests, which is why prices in some venues appear to be lower. The Starbucks blend is worth noting because it is part of the company's Black Apron line, a selection of frequently changing premium coffees. Premium, however, doesn't always mean better, especially because several of the prices given here are for the green beans, and a good or bad roast is vital to achieving a quality cup of coffee from high quality beans.
Greenpeace
is targeting European McDonald's as a catalyst for the destruction of the rain forest half a world away. According
to a report entitled "Eating up the
Amazon," the eco-watchdog organization says that the
soybeans that European fast food restaurants use to feed their chickens are grown in illegally deforested areas of
the rain forest.
In Brazil, soybean farming has become so profitable that ranchers are selling off their now-valuable pasture land
to farmers. The reason that this is illegal, says the group, is that there are regulations in Brazil that require
landowners to keep 80 percent of their land forested. Once the ranchers have sold their cleared pasture land, they
simply clear new land. Selling of chunks of their property means that they are keeping themselves under the 80 percent
margin set by the government, but it does mean that the rain forest is getting smaller. There is also talk of ranchers
and farmers using near-slave labor to harvest and tend the crops and an insinuation that the fast food companies might
be simply turning away from the problem, if not outright promoting it.
A New Zealand company is using some unusual tactics to grab
customers' attention. The Brazil cafe commissioned a company to create specialty branded trash cans to promote their
coffees. The trash cans are shaped like coffee cups, complete with protective sleeve and stir stick, and shout
"Coffee taste like crap?" insinuating that coffee drinkers should ditch their sub-par beverages and head for
a Brazil location, to which the cans helpfully point the way. Located in a popular Auckland neighborhood with many
independent cafes as well as corporate chains, the cans that were placed outside a Starbucks had their slogans removed
by Starbucks employees who were unhappy about them. There is little doubt that the company wasn't a big fan, either.
Despite what you may have heard, spiking your cocktail with an energy drink like Red Bull won't improve your
stamina or make you any less impaired. At least, those are the findings of a recent study from researchers at Federal
University in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A test group of 14 healthy individuals received double blind samples of water,
alcohol, an energy drink and an energy drink cut with alcohol. They then maxed out their physical capabilities on a
cycling test. The results for those who'd had alcohol were pretty much the same as the results for those who had
alcohol with an energy drink. Good to know, I suppose. But I think for many, the point of a drink like Red Bull and
vodka isn't to get less impaired.
The study appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and
Experimental Research. An abstract is available here.
Now that we know how foods gain acceptance,
there are a few items poised to rise in the eyes
of mainstream eaters in the upcoming year. Some of these are just making their way onto the plates of foodies, while
others are already beginning to appear in widely available products. The popularity of all of these items is sure to
rise over the coming 12 months. Chimichurri is an Argentinean dipping sauce that has a spicy,
intense flavor, though, like salsa, its ingredients and heat are highly customizable. Already a regular at high-end
eateries, it is beginning to show up on mid-range menus, too. Churrasco is a Brazilian style of
barbeque in which fire grilled meats are both roasted on and served from a large skewer. The meal also usually includes
tapas-like appetizers, which had gained tremendous popularity in the past few years. Premium
breads are fast making their way into homes across the country, with ordinary grocery stores carrying decent
baguettes and fast food restaurants offering their sandwiches on ciabatta or artisan sourdoughs. There are whole chains of restaurants that have sprung up around artisan-style
bread, indicating that it is only a matter of time before people can properly discern between French and focaccia. Regional Mexican is developing the same way that knowledge of regional Italian developed over the
past 40 years. Spices and dishes from the Yucatan and
Oaxaca, including unusual spice rubs and moles, are fast gaining
recognition as people begin to view Mexican food as having more than just meat, cheese and hard taco shells. White Tea is high in antioxidants and has piggybacked into a larger recognition on the tailcoat of
its well-known relative, green tea. Lacking the slightly grassy flavor of green tea, which skyrocketed into national
sight after being widely publicized by Starbucks this year, white teas are being offered in increasing numbers by
purveyors of tea. Dulce de Leche is a creamy, caramel-like sauce made of sugar and condensed
milk. Its rich taste and familiar appearance have led to a growing fondness for the treat, which has already appeared
in many high end, but widely available ice creams.