Oi gente! I don’t have much to report from Sunday. I attempted to make some progress on my work, but it took me so much of the day to settle on a topic that I didn’t accomplish much. This morning I had a practical class on Bahian food at a culinary school in Pelorinho. We watched an expert chef prepare arroz de coco (coconut rice), moqueca de camarão (shrimp moqueca), vatapá, and farofa amarela. The basis of many of the Bahian dishes is onion, tomato, cilantro, palm oil, coconut milk, salt, and lemon juice. Dried shrimp is also present in many of the dishes and the smell of it cooking with coconut milk and palm oil is unlike anything else that I’ve ever smelled.

Many of the Bahian foods have their origins with candomblê and the dishes that are prepared for the orixás. In Africa these dishes were offered to the orixás and never eaten by humans as a matter of respect. In Brazil the traditions of the different tribes mixed and as a matter of necessity the slaves began to eat the food that they prepared.

Our chef also made a point to explain that if you go to São Paulo and ask for typical Paulisto food you will get pizza. São Paulo lost its traditional dishes as it globalized. Seeing as to how pizza isn't my thing, I’m in the right city for eating tasty traditional foods!

When I got home from classes this evening I started to work on my homework until Conchita came in. She fell outside of our apartment and her knees and hands were scraped up and bleeding. She told me that she broke her arm a few years ago and she has metal in her right arm that throws off her equilibrium. I made her some chocolate milk and got to play Dr. Amy.