The girl from Ipanema

Tall and tan and young and lovely

The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes - ah

Who doesn't know this song? The beautiful song, composed by Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim, is one of the most played songs in the world and was performed by many artists worldwide.

Recently, Scott Vogel published an interesting article in the Washington Post entitled "The girl from Ipanema, a cruise to the muse". There, the journalist reaffirmed a story that many people in Brazil believe to be truth: Vinicius de Moraes wrote the lyrics of the song in a bar in Ipanema called Veloso (now Garota de Ipanema bar), inspired by a beautiful young girl named Heloísa or Helô. Scott Vogel writes about the trip he made to Brazil to meet her and about the fun he had in a cruise ship along the coast of the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. When he finally meets Helô, a tall, tan, lovely and not so young woman anymore, she gives her testimony on how she became aware of the rumors about having inspired the song.

Another version of the story, however, is explained by Ruy Castro in his book "Bossa Nova: The story of the Brazilian Music that Seduced the World" (p. 239-240):

It has already been explained, but people find it hard to accept the truth: Jobim and Vinícius did not write "The Girl from Ipanema" in the Veloso bar (today called Garota da Ipanema). It was never the duo's style to write music sitting at a table in some bar, although they had probably spent the best hours of their lives in them. Jobim composed the melody meticulously on the piano at his new home in Rua Barro da Torre, and it was originally intended for a musical comedy entitled Blimp, which Vinícius already had worked out in his head but had not yet committed to paper. Vinícius, in turn, had written the lyrics in Petrópolis, near Rio, as he had done with "Chega de Saudade" six years earlier, and it took him just as much work. To begin with, it wasn't originally called "Garota da Ipanema," but "Menina que passa" (The Girl Who Passes By"), and the entire first verse was different. As for the famous girl, Jobim and Vinícius did in fact see her pass by as they sat in the Veloso bar, during the winter of 1962— not just once, but several times, and not always on her way to the beach but also on her way to school, to the dressmaker, and even to the dentist. Mostly because Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, better known as Helô, who was eighteen years of age, five feet, eight inches tall, with green eyes and long, flowing black hair, lived in Rua Montenegro and was already the object of much admiration among patrons of the Veloso, where she would frequently stop to buy cigarettes for her mother—and leave to a cacophony of wolf-whistles.

I am among the ones that find it hard to accept the truth. I prefer to believe in Vogel's version. It is more romantic. Besides, because of Helô, many girls like me grew up dreaming of one day finding an artist to inspire. And speaking of artists, let's check this video with Tom, Vinicius, and their masterpiece:

Moqueca

The word "moqueca" originates from the Tupi word "moquém", which was a system used by the native Brazilians to cook potatoes and different kinds of meats, especially fish. They wrapped the fish in leaves, put it in a grid made of sticks and grilled it on fire. With time, people stopped grilling the fish on fire and started using the stove. Through the years, moqueca has received contributions from the Portuguese (olive oil) and Africans (dende oil and coconut milk) and has become a typical Brazilian dish.

Nowadays, we have many different kinds of moquecas, depending on the meat used: fish, oyster, crab, shrimp, lobster, ray, etc. The moqueca from Espírito Santo State, called "moqueca capixaba" is different from the moqueca from Bahia State, known as "moqueca baiana". While the latter has dende oil and coconut milk, the first lacks those ingredients and has urucum seeds instead.

I am going to give you here my recipe of "moqueca baiana" made with fish:

Moqueca de Peixe (Fish Moqueca)

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds fish (any white fleshed fish like red snapper, grouper or red fish)
  
• 1 lime
  
• 1 small tomato roughly chopped, 2 medium tomatoes sliced into thin rounds
  
• 2 bell peppers (1 green and 1 red) sliced into thin rounds
  
• 4 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh cilantro leaves
  
• 1 small onion roughly chopped, 1 large onion sliced into thin rounds
  
• 2 garlic cloves
  
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup dende oil
• 1 cup coconut milk
• pickled jalapeños thinly chopped, to your taste
• 2 teaspoons salt

How to prepare:

1. Cut the fish into 2-inch pieces.
   
2. Combine 1 small tomato, 1 small onion, 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro, 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 garlic cloves in a food processor and process until pieces are very small. Mix it with juice of 1 lime.
   
3. Cover both sides of the fish with this mixture and marinate in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
4. Use the half of the bell peppers, tomatoes and onions cut into round slices and half of the remaining cilantro to make layers on top of each other in a large saute pan.
5. Cover those layers with the fish and the marinade.
6. Make other layers with the remaining bell peppers, tomatoes, onions and cilantro to cover the fish. Add the jalapeños (I use 1 teaspoon for mild flavor).
   
7. Drizzle everything with olive oil and dende oil. Add coconut milk and 1 teaspoon of salt, stir, cover with a lid and cook over low heat, until the flesh starts to flake, about 20 minutes.
   

Serve this dish with white rice and "farofa de dendê" - soon to be posted here.
Serves 4-6 people.

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Image:
Moqueca, white rice and farofa de dendê - Picture taken by Cynthia Santos

A little bit about the origins of Brazilian cuisine

How far would you go for a different spice on your table? Two blocks? Or would you go overseas to have your favorite spice topping your French fries?

In the early 15th century the Portuguese crossed the seas to have pepper and other spices from India on their table and on the European market. A trip like that in that moment of history was possible because Portugal improved the art of making maps and developed the caravel, a sailing ship also used by the rival of Portugal at that time, Spain.

Can you imagine yourself spending many months on a sailing trip? Wouldn’t you take some of your favorite foods with you? That is what the Portuguese did when preparing the caravels for the trip – supplying the ships with salt, garlic, cinnamon, cloves, cows, pigs, chickens, oranges, spinach, wheat, sugar, cookies, wine and water.

In 1500, on their way to India, the Portuguese, under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral, accidentally reached a new land, Brazil, which was already inhabited by about 5 million natives divided into several different tribes. Pero Vaz de Caminha, the chronicler of the expedition, described in his letter the first contact between the native Brazilians and the Portuguese. According to him it was an awkward moment because of the differences between the two cultures. The native Brazilians were astonished with the chickens since they had never seen the animals before. Native Brazilians domesticated small animals like capybaras and peccaries and also ate other animals they hunted or fished. The vegetables they ate were basically manioc, corn, peanuts, beans and sweet potato. When offered water brought by the Portuguese, the natives spat it out. You can imagine how bad the water must have tasted having been stored in the ship for so long with no refrigeration! It not only tasted horrible but also had a lot of germs! Because of rotten food and old water kept in their ships many Portuguese got sick or even died during the trip.

In 1510, Portugal conquered Goa, a city in India, and established itself as the main country responsible for trading spices with Europe. At that time Portugal did not have much interest in Brazil since it was making money with the spices from India. But when the competition with rivals from Spain, France and England for the same market increased, Portugal turned its eyes to Brazil. It started exploring a tree called “pau-brasil”, from which a substance was extracted to stain fabrics. In 1516 Portugal initiated the European colonization of Brazil and with that started spicing up the food and culture of that country.




The native Brazilians learned from the Portuguese a taste for salt. The natives started eating more salt not only because it was tasty but also for its quality as a preservative for meats. On the other hand, the Portuguese had to learn from native Brazilians the use of manioc since European wheat did not adapt in Brazilian lands. The manioc flour became part of recipes for cakes and other dishes of Portuguese cuisine.

Another curiosity of the relationship between native Brazilians and Portuguese is that the Portuguese themselves became the food of some native Brazilians. Some of the Brazilian tribes were anthropophagic, which means they ate human flesh. But the natives did not eat human flesh for gluttony. They ate human flesh to obtain the qualities of their enemies. Thus, the native Brazilians never ate cowards. Only brave Portuguese prisoners ended up eaten.

The history of coexistence between Portuguese and native Brazilians is full of conflicts and some collaboration. The natives collaborated in the exploitation of pau-brasil in exchange for cheap European products. When the Portuguese began to learn the anthropophagic habits of native Brazilians, they started distrusting the natives and collaboration between the two people stopped. The Portuguese made the natives their slaves. But the natives fought against their colonizers to the death or ran away to distant locations.

Because it was so difficult to make the natives slaves, Portugal decided to look for slaves in another continent, Africa. African slaves became very important for the economy in Brazil due to the production of sugar cane, a plant introduced to Brazil by Portugal. Sugar was called “white gold” at that time. Unfortunately, African slavery lasted a long period in Brazil, from 1550 to 1888.

Ships coming to Brazil from Africa brought not only slaves but also new food, like: sesame, different varieties of coconut, okra, and different varieties of banana. The Portuguese ships transported some Brazilian food to Africa, like manioc and peanuts.

Despite all the pain caused by Portugal to native Brazilians and Africans they contributed to the transformation of their food habits and development of a beautiful culture, the Brazilian culture, so rich because of its mixture of ethnicities.

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Images
Cloves - Picture taken by Cynthia Santos
Manioc - Picture taken by Valentina (Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/trembom/335580385/)