As a kid, I can remember cringing when my mom would announce that my Dad’s favorite coconut cream pie was our dessert. As an adult, for some reason, this genetic love for coconut has caught up with me. I really like coconut and coconut flavored things.
Lucky for me I’m in Brazil – the land of all things coconut. In addition to the coconut itself, Brazilians have managed to create some incredibly sweet concoctions using this ingredient.
Unhealthy, but delicious.
There has been a feira in the center of town over the past week or so. Coming back from traveling to an empty kitchen made it way too convenient for dinner. This isn’t a bad thing though. There is no better way to experience a culture than through some fair food.
This was the ‘Festival of Song,’ in honor of Maringá, because Maringá is the ‘Song City.’ Similar to a festival held last spring (fall in the northern hemisphere), it had foods representing the different cultures of Brazil. I have more to say about that later. I want to talk about the coconut desserts.
This is one of my favorite coconut fair-foods. I have no idea of the name, but it is basically large chunks of the coconut which is candy coated. It comes to you warm and is so good!
I know the picture makes it look like a cup of chicken nuggets, but trust me, it is coconut. My husband got a dessert that was shredded coconut in sweetened condensed milk (another favorite dessert ingredient among Brazilians).
These treats can be found at the cocada stands. Cocada is the name of another dessert sold there. It is the shredded coconut and the condensed milk portioned out onto a sheet and then baked or dried in some way. One stand had it with added passion fruit and with pineapple. We gave those a try too, and of course they were great. The pineapple one was like a candy pina colada.
We do have to pace ourselves. Good thing these feiras don’t happen every week. As you can imagine the desserts are incredibly sweet. My dentist would not be proud, but when you only have two years to try a whole new culture full of food you can’t pass up the local feiras!
Lucky for me I’m in Brazil – the land of all things coconut. In addition to the coconut itself, Brazilians have managed to create some incredibly sweet concoctions using this ingredient.
Unhealthy, but delicious.
There has been a feira in the center of town over the past week or so. Coming back from traveling to an empty kitchen made it way too convenient for dinner. This isn’t a bad thing though. There is no better way to experience a culture than through some fair food.
This was the ‘Festival of Song,’ in honor of Maringá, because Maringá is the ‘Song City.’ Similar to a festival held last spring (fall in the northern hemisphere), it had foods representing the different cultures of Brazil. I have more to say about that later. I want to talk about the coconut desserts.
This is one of my favorite coconut fair-foods. I have no idea of the name, but it is basically large chunks of the coconut which is candy coated. It comes to you warm and is so good!
I know the picture makes it look like a cup of chicken nuggets, but trust me, it is coconut. My husband got a dessert that was shredded coconut in sweetened condensed milk (another favorite dessert ingredient among Brazilians).These treats can be found at the cocada stands. Cocada is the name of another dessert sold there. It is the shredded coconut and the condensed milk portioned out onto a sheet and then baked or dried in some way. One stand had it with added passion fruit and with pineapple. We gave those a try too, and of course they were great. The pineapple one was like a candy pina colada.
We do have to pace ourselves. Good thing these feiras don’t happen every week. As you can imagine the desserts are incredibly sweet. My dentist would not be proud, but when you only have two years to try a whole new culture full of food you can’t pass up the local feiras!
No comments:
Post a Comment