Eating
Salvador, Bahia
I’ve been waxing over the American tradition of pre-meal bread. JUST
a few manioc grains. It’s all I ask! I loved the manioc-coconut baked polenta
type thingy they had at breakfast today. The café de manha [breakfast]
also included pineapple, mango, honeydew type melon, sliced meat, yogurt,
cereal, bread, friend plantains, coffee cake, and a sugary cinnamon looking
thing I went without. Oh, and tangerines and fruit salad. The young girls
who work here are sweet and money, and bring me 16 oz glasses of fresh
orange juice. I can’t imagine they think I’ll down that. Yesterday it was
more like 24 ounces.
I spent half an hour at the Internet
place and edited their marketing copy to promote their service. I head
happily to the Pelourinho, to Restaurant SENAC, the state run cooking
school for a late lunch. All you can eat for $16 plus $1 for water and
tip. Well worth it.
The girl students wear long very drapy African fabric skirts and sashes
with headdresses. The boys, all young men, in black pans with white waiter
top. . It’s kind of like a banquet hall. Every time they do something wrong
like drop a fork, I wonder if someone is subtracting a point from their
grade. The waiter in training actually walked over, lifted my water bottled,
and wiped the water ring from the table!
Lining the white wall, steel tub after tub of Bahian "comida tipico."
Stewed gherkins with ham, black eyed peas, okra stew, acaraje, shrimp and
onions in palm oil, manioc/pinto bean mixture, vegetable stew, coconut
fish stew, pureed beans with coconut, four types of rice, peanut mush,
feijoada – which I confirmed I don’t like, eggfish souffle, cozido – somehow
translated as vegetables when in reality it has three meats and no visible
veges.
I return for seconds on the pumpkin puree. I hope leaving food on my
plate is ok, in the spirit of experimentation. I’m getting all the veggies
I need for the next week today. Just in case. Wood floors, nice fans, starched
waiters. The view from this comfortable bustling room is of rundown homes
and apartments across the hill. Isn’t it funny how something can be picturesque
from afar and a scary health hazard/eyesore up close.
I am fully prepared to endure a sugar induced black out to thoroughly 
document
these desserts if need be. Quindim de yaya. The best dessert name I’ve
ever seen. It’s flan but with a thick layer of coconut. Fried bananas,
thin strips with cinnamon sugar and darkly cooked. Yum! Dark coconut candy,
caramelized flakes. The same in white, just like a Mounds filling. Coconut
flan, good but even better when I couple it with the coconut candy or friend
banana. Ambrosia, not sure what it is. Made from grain? The orange fruit
paste resembles earwax and is not much more tasty, not that I’d know.
The benefit of using the same ingredients repeatedly (coconut, bananas,
sugar, butter, eggs) seems to be you can create different flavors and textures
yet they all combine so well when eaten together. Wow! It has no butter.
Bananas prata, sugar, water, cinnamon I find out later from the cookbook.
I made one last investigation of the ambrosia and caramel bananas. Yes,
they’re still heavenly. Now with sugar coated mouth, I eagerly watch o
café being poured. The young waiter did not track my three trips
to the dessert table, or saw nothing funny in it like I did. I could just
hang out here all day.
How delightful, a cinnamon stick to stir the coffee. I am at Mesa No
15. I learn the phrase “fechar a conta,” to close the bill. I want to explain
how to increase their tips by offering to photograph tourists, but I won’t.
I can’t help but chew my cinnamon stick like we do in Mexico. It may be
the waiter’s quiet but I have a lot of trouble understanding him. Then
it occurs to me – what if this cinnamon isn’t clean?
I like that I and the other people I interact with are exuding strong
friendliness. I feel like I can wink at people, and the guys always give
big smiles and the thumbs up sign to say “tudo bom.” Lots of Rasta hairdos
here, both on the “100% Negro” (as the tshirts say) and lighter people.
I hear the story of why the Pelourinho is so artistic is that the government
planned it that way. When they revitalized the district, in they process
they ejected non artists from the area to make room.
Back at Atelier Maria Adair, civilizacao. Aaah, Caracu Cerveja Escura,
desde 1899. As dark as Xingu, as cold as the Pacific. Disco music.
“o artista se chamava Prince” booms into the room-sized bar. Bright lights
against the tutti fruti exerior make the streets a different kind of painting.
Garlic arabic bread has satisfied me, as has a buzz from the molassasy
beer.
After the beer, I arrived at the Ballet Folklorico theater, where a
crowd gathered to figure out how to get tickets.
[Wild dances and a new friend]
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