Fruits and Vegetables
Brazil is the country in the world with the most fruits (check this out by reading the book Fruit in Brazil). Need I say more? The choices are unbelievable, so go ahead and splurge! If you go to Rio, the place to buy fruits and vegetables is your neighborhood's street market or "feira." (Other cities have street markets too. Check with your friends and neighbors.) I don't need to say this, but here it goes: my Brazilian friends always wash fruits and vegetables well and peel them. Markets in the Amazon will have completely different stuff, except for the usual oranges, mangoes and so on. There and also in northeastern Brazil the selection of tomatoes and lettuce, for instance, will be limited, but all manners of more exotic veggies are available. We have superb photos of the Ver-o-Peso river market in Belém, don't miss them!
Feiras happen once a week, always on the same location. You don't need to get there really early, though. My friends usually go after 11 AM, when prices start to go down and you still get a great selection. Many Brazilian men love to go to these markets, by the way. Men and women will shop with large straw bags or little carts like the one in the picture.
Brazilian bananas - large or tiny - are sweet and taste fantastic, because they are not harvested green to travel around the world....Brazilians like to eat them fried for dessert or as a garnish for meals.
There are many varieties of oranges in Brazil, including "limas" (which are not limes, but a bittersweet orange) and laranja-lima, also called laranja-do-céu (heaven's orange, an apt and well-deserved name, considering how sweet and tasty they are) in Rio Grande do Sul. Tangerines are very, very sweet, you got to try them to believe it after the tart ones we have here. Limes are called "limão galego" and lemons "limão Tahiti."
Sweeet "laranja lima." Yum... Piles of sweet tangerines.
You should also try more exotic fruits like fruta do conde, papayas, jabuticabas, passionfruit (for fresh juices) and cashews (the same). More on Brazilian exotic fruits on Sherbets and Fruit Juices.
A bowl of juicy jabuticabas. A bowl of my beloved pitangas
This page continues on Page 2. There were just too many great photos for one page!