For main courses we order calapolvo (shrimp, lobster, and octopus casserole) and bobó de camarão (shrimp in manioc stew), and soon the table vibrates like a tuning fork. Brazilians express pleasure in their food with a musical “mmmmm” that sustains a single high note, like the one given to the orchestra at the start of a concert. My wife and in-laws are simultaneously eating and humming, like ventriloquists on The Ed Sullivan Show. The delicious calapolvo reveals a taste of blackberry here, a crunch of cashew there. The creamy bobó is, my wife declares, the best she’s had in a lifetime of eating it. The meal ends with Paraíso Tropical’s signature, a large platter of fresh fruit—papaya, guava, watermelon, star fruit, jackfruit, tangerines, tiny bananas, sweetsop—all grown organically on the adjacent slope or at Beto’s farm, outside Salvador. There are plastic bags to take home the excess fruit, to which Beto adds a big cacao. As we leave he offers to sell me a rooster.
Beto has opened a second Paraíso Tropical, which we visit a few days later. It’s down near the seaside hotels in the neighborhood of Rio Vermelho. This restaurant, which is run by Beto’s daughter, Carla, and her husband, has the same menu as the original but is stylish and quiet, with ochre walls, dark-wood tables, and soft recorded music substituting for the shrieks of fowl. The peixe ao Paraíso, a stew of fish and shrimp with Beto’s trademark pulps and spices, is sublime. We follow it with mousse of cupuaçu (a cacao-like fruit) in guava sauce, puréed frozen strawberries, and, of course, the monstrous platter of fruit. Before leaving, I ask a waiter named Charles if Beto really has 23 kids, 22 of them male, and was widowed four times. Charles pauses to think and then says carefully, “You can believe everything Mr. Beto says ... about food.”
Fortunately for me, Oxalá had the wisdom not to prohibit drinking beer. On Saturday night we head out to the working-class neighborhood of Garcia to have some lagers and listen to chorinhos—lively rondo-style tunes epitomized by the 1940s hit “Tico-Tico No Fubá,” which was recorded by everyone from the Andrews Sisters to Desi Arnaz. It’s after eleven, and we’ve just arrived at Aconchego da Zuzú (“Zuzú’s Shelter”), an open-air restaurant behind an unmarked garden wall. In the large patio, next to a mango tree, four men in folding chairs are playing, respectively, guitar, mandolin, tambourine, and cavaquinho (Brazilian ukulele). Zuzú herself—Juvência dos Santos Barroso—sits with friends at a table next to one wall, nursing a Skol beer. She’s a small black woman with hooded eyes, white hair pulled back in a tiny bun, and the demeanor of a kindly old rabbi. Her face is unlined, which is impressive considering that Zuzú is 98.
Her lifetime practically coincides with that of chorinho, which was developed in the last decade of the 19th century by musicians in Rio de Janeiro who melded European dance-hall music (especially polkas), the Portuguese fado, and Afro-Brazilian rhythms. We sit at a table next to Zuzú’s and order bottles of beer and, at her suggestion, a plate of deep-fried needlefish. The musicians begin to play the zippy “Brasileirinho,” and Zuzú nods to the beat. My wife asks her why she doesn’t get up and dance. “No, no, I’m a widow, and widows shouldn’t dance in public,” she says. But she admits that once she danced all night with a priest, who said it was okay—as long as she danced only with him. Near closing time, women from the audience take turns singing with the band. Zuzú presents her cheek for us to kiss her good-bye, and as we leave she turns her head back toward the music, smiling slightly, still nodding to the beat.
It’s well after midnight now, and teenagers are lining up outside the community center that serves as headquarters for Ilê Aiyê, one of the oldest and most prominent blocos afro in town. (Blocos afro are both carnival bands and organizations promoting education, community development, and black pride.) It’s located in Liberdade, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, where the crumbling buildings put you in mind of Havana. On a stage at the far end of the center’s cavernous three-story entertainment hall, Ilê Aiyê blasts out a driving samba beat that makes Bruce Springsteen sound like Ray Conniff. Hundreds of young men and women dance and mill around. A little guy gestures to me to grab my wife the way he’s clutching his girl, and grins his approval when I do. At least half the young women in the hall are jaw-droppingly beautiful. The ones who really know how to samba are mesmerizing. Feet churning, hips shaking, they radiate joy and sensuality. The girls at the Ilê Aiyê show bring home the lyrics of Caymmi’s beloved “Samba da Minha Terra” (“Samba of My Land”), which declare that someone who doesn’t like samba is either “sick in the head or wrong in the feet.”
A wooden bowl of popcorn sits on the floor at the entrance to Sorriso da Dadá (“Dadá’s Smile”), a little restaurant on a narrow side street in Pelourinho. The popcorn is a candomblé cleanser, the hostess says, that protects against diseases borne by people passing by. The restaurant’s cozy front room has green wooden shutters open to the street, and bird-of-paradise on each of the six tables. Dadá is the city’s queen of traditional Bahian food, and my wife is prepared for traditionally casual service. Will the main courses take long, she asks, trying to determine how many appetizers to order. “You’re in Bahia,” the waiter snaps. “What’s the rush?” We come down to the speed limit and order carne de sol, chunks of sun-dried beef with sautéed onions.
Pinterest
