Brasilidade Series - The Amazon on your plate: an interactive food experience with Susan Gerber-Barata

The Amazon on your plate

Have you ever thought about eating some of the Amazon forest? Susan Gerber-Barata, a Swiss-Brazilianwoman who lives in the Amazon Region, suggests just that. In a fairly civilized Brazilian part of the Amazon there is a treasure to be found, food that is as tasty as it is unknown. Some foods like açai (the locals like to combine them with tapioca pearls and fish or shrimp) and cassava roots are known abroad.Others, like fish - if you wanted, you could eat a different fish every day for a whole year without ever repeating – or fruits that are still unknown. There are more than 200 edible fruits, some with flavors so strong that you "eat" their perfume right away. These local foods can jump straight from the indigenous pots onto our plates. Susan chose one example from this wealth of options: the cassava root. There are two types of cassava in the Amazon, one of them is deadly poisonous and is made edible by the ingenious indigenous tradition. Cassava roots become coarse-grained flour, something like the poor's daily bread, tapioca or a kind of rustic tapioca pearls. The liquid that results from the process is called "tucupi". The traditional dish "tacacá" is made from it. In this workshop, participants can engage with questions, or just sit back and enjoy the show and tell of stories about unfamiliar foods from the Amazon. 

Please click on the link to read some of the books by Susan Gerber-Barata: Amazon on the plate

More information on this event: mit-brazil@mit.edu

For more information on Global Languages / learning Portuguese at MIT: Portuguese Studies or languages@mit.edu

For more information on MISTI MIT-Brazil please visit https://misti.mit.edu/mit-brazil / &  apply for IAP & Spring 2021 Paid Remote internships with Brazilian organizations.

Fill out this form if you want to attend, and you will be sent the Zoom link and password.