Tasting Brazil: Regional Recipes and Reminiscences

Brazil is better known for its beaches, festivals and rain forests than for its food. Moreover, claims food and travel writer Harris ( Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons ), the nation's ``supercosmopolitan cities, Rio and Sao Paulo . . . have been so influenced by tourism and by the tastes of the rich that it is only by staying a while and scratching the surface that the visitor can see what the food is really like.'' Unearthing the best from what she calls ``the land of meat and potatoes'' here brings rewards: such characteristically Brazilian specialties as a chili and lime sauce, and several versions of malagueta pepper sauce, serve as the complements to the grilled meats and fish that form the basis of Brazilian cooking. A selection of fancifully named, luscious sweets include avocado ice cream (in Brazil, the avocado most frequently appears as a dessert) and a confection known as ``maiden's drool'' because, according to the author, the dessert so tempts young girls that they ``drool with delight.'' Fruity cocktails appear as well. Harris reflects her knowledge of both Brazilian and American markets with a lengthy list of unusual ingredients, and provides substitutions for supersaturated but taste-laden palm oil, as familiar to Brazilian cooking as the ubiquitous malagueta pepper, but repellent to health-conscious Americans. (Aug.)