O Interior

Sunday we spent the day visiting family in the "interior"--that is--the countryside of Salvador. It is green, green, green with rolling hills, lakes and rivers, and lots of small farms. With that comes fresh, delicious farm products, and one of my favorite things--"feiras", or farmers markets. We were in the town of Sao Sebastiao. There are many farms in that area that raise cows for meat and dairy products, so cheese and REAL milk (as opposed the the boxed, room temperature supermarket shelf variety we use in Salvador) is found there. For dessert we had homemade "ambrosia", which is not at all like the weird 50's throwback of marshmallow, whipped cream and canned fruit that still seems to show up at the random potluck or thanksgiving table in the U.S. Brazilian ambrosia is a type of doce de leite made from fresh milk and tastes like caramel with spices like clove and nutmeg. In the interior there is also an abundance of sugar cane and regional fruits. Liquors made of these fruits are popular--and definitely home brewed. These are liquors of two popular fruits---caju and jabuticaba:



This was a liquor de cacau (so tasted like chocolate) dressed up for the festival of Sao Joao, a popular countryside festival of Northeastern Brazil:


I hope to get back to the interior for some feiras one day soon....