{"id":276235,"date":"2020-07-09T15:56:42","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T18:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=276235"},"modified":"2020-07-10T10:45:50","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T13:45:50","slug":"tv-series-shows-link-between-falafel-and-acaraje","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/tv-series-shows-link-between-falafel-and-acaraje\/","title":{"rendered":"TV series shows link between falafel and acaraj\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 \u201cThe Muslims slaves had falafel and, when arriving in Brazil, they couldn\u2019t find chickpeas. So, they started adapting [the recipe] using beans,\u201d said Nega Teresa (pictured above<\/em>), a cook from Rio de Janeiro, in the documentary series \u201cA Hist\u00f3ria da Alimenta\u00e7\u00e3o no Brasil<\/em>\u201d recently launched on Amazon Prime Video. The eighth episode of the series, called \u201cAfrican Diet\u201d, addresses the African influence in Brazil\u2019s dietary habits. The series is based on a book of the same name by anthropologist Lu\u00eds da C\u00e2mara Cascudo (1898-1986) and divided in 13 episodes.<\/p>\n

In an email interview, the director of the series, Eugenio Puppo, talked about the work and the relation between falafel \u2013 an Arab patty made from chickpeas \u2013 and acaraj\u00e9 \u2013 a dish traditionally encountered in Bahia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say anything for sure about a dish or food habit, because that would be a very limited view on the interaction process between cultures. However, some people that study diet say that acaraj\u00e9 is an adaptation from falafel, that when North Africans came to Brazil or influenced the Portuguese culture, it led to substitute chickpeas with cowpeas,\u201d Puppo said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The acaraj\u00e9 made by Nega Teresa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The traditional acaraj\u00e9 is made from peeled beans formed into a ball and then deep-fried in dend\u00ea<\/em> (palm oil), split in half and stuffed with hot pepper, vatap\u00e1<\/em>, caruru<\/em> and shrimp, as Nega Teresa explains in the documentary.<\/p>\n

As for falafel, it is made from ground chickpeas and several spices and herbs such as onions, garlic, cumin, cilantro, parley, Syrian pepper and even cinnamon formed into a ball and drizzled with tahini-based sauces or served in Arab sandwiches.<\/p>\n

The director says that it is impossible to pinpoint the time when this derivation occurred and that there are two plausible hypotheses. \u201cIt was probably when enslaved Africans came to the region of Rec\u00f4ncavo Bahiano. Another hypothesis is that the North African food culture were already absorbed by the Portuguese, because of the long-time occupation of the territory by the Moors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Puppo elaborates on the second hypothesis, saying that, when we talk about the European origins of the Brazilian cuisine, they were already loaded with several prior cultural interactions between Portugal and other peoples.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point is that Cascudo sees the country\u2019s colonization process as a key point to start thinking about the Brazilian diet, with an anti-regionalist approach. Of course, that is a simplification, an all-encompassing view even, but the encounter between these three figures \u2013 the Portuguese colonizer, the Indian, and the slaved African \u2013 creates, he says, a dynamic in our diet that lasts up until now. That is why he says that. But the Portuguese legacy already had other legacies on its own,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Puppo says that other two ingredients in Brazilians\u2019 daily diet \u2013 olive oil and honey \u2013 probably come from this Arab influence in Portugal and Brazil.<\/p>\n

Other episodes of the series tell the history of ingredients and recipes typically encountered across Brazil, such as cassava flour, maize, couscous, coconut milk, banana, tucupi, Portuguese influences, and others.<\/p>\n

Quick Facts<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA Hist\u00f3ria da Alimenta\u00e7\u00e3o no Brasil\u201d (2017)
\n13-episode documentary series
\nDirector: Eugenio Puppo
\nAvailable on Amazon Prime Video<\/a><\/p>\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Screenshot<\/div>\n
Screenshot<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Documentary series \u2018The History of Diet in Brazil\u2019 is available on Amazon Prime Video. The eighth episode, \u2018African Diet,\u2019 talks about the influence of enslaved Arab-Muslim Africans in Bahia’s traditional dish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":276222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[16151,13326,16144,16152,16153,16154,16150,16149],"class_list":{"0":"post-276235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-acaraje-en","9":"tag-bahia-en","10":"tag-escravos-muculmanos","11":"tag-eugenio-puppo-en","12":"tag-falafel-en","13":"tag-historia-da-alimentacao-no-brasil-en","14":"tag-history-of-diet-in-brazil","15":"tag-muslim-slaves"},"wps_subtitle":"Documentary series \u2018The History of Diet in Brazil\u2019 is available on Amazon Prime Video. The eighth episode, \u2018African Diet,\u2019 talks about the influence of enslaved Arab-Muslim Africans in Bahia's traditional dish.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}