Memories of Rio

Been watching the Olympics, which brings me memories of visiting Rio de Janeiro as a child. At the time we lived a good part of the Southern winter in Montevideo, Uruguay, and the rest—the Northern winter—in NYC (yes, I had school all year round!), and we visited Rio now and then—always a treat!

Remembering Copacabana beach. Ipanema was almost in another planet at the time. Only the most adventurous lived there because the roads to get there were so poor. Enjoyed Copacabana from the shade of our hotel balcony - my red hair and pale skin were made for more Northern, less sunny climes. Didn’t enjoy the heat, either. But the food, oh the food!

Start with the most delicious chicken soup imaginable—canja de galinha! As someone who had previously only known Campbell’s in all its guises, to have a chicken soup in which you could actually find the parts of entire carcasses, complete with skin and bones, was a revelation! Just now I was looking for canja recipes on line—they are soooo sanitized compared to what I enjoyed way back when: they have only meat...no bone, no skin. Of course, as any cook knows, a good strong meat broth needs collagen from bones and skin, and the canja from those days had it in abundance.

Then feijoada—as someone who adores beans, and black beans in particular, this dish was heaven! Especially as it came with another of my most preferred foods, sausage.

But the true pièce de résistance was always the dessert: fried bananas with cinnamon…washed down with a bottle of guaraná—cream soda on steroids. Talk about happy mouth!

Rio was also the first place I saw deep poverty, but that is another conversation.

Picked this morguefile.com picture of Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf) Mountain, along with Urca to the right of it, because it reminds me of the one opportunity we had to go up near there in all our times in Rio...no electricity in most daytime hours in those days. And we could only go as far as Urca—no power for the rest of the ride. Have always dreamed of going to the top. Guanabara Bay (in front) was pretty clean in those days, though, and a boat trip to Niterói across the bay was exciting!