Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, has a unique cuisine influenced by its location on the Amazon River in the heart of the Amazon jungle. The city has colossal fresh water fish, mouth-numbing plants, communal street tables with bottomless bowls of powdered manioc, and a crazy variety of fruits that I’ve only begun to try.
For an overwhelming introduction to all the foods available here, I went to the wonderful Mercado Municipal Adolpho Lisboa, a smelly, cacophonous, claustrophobic, unsanitary food market on the riverside. The magazine Travel + Leisure says that “for sheer, seedy Conradian romance, few bazaars compare with the fish market in the frenetic river port of Manaus, smack in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon: the biggest city in the world’s biggest forest.”
The tastiest fish inside Mercado Municipal Adolpho Lisboa is tambaqui, which is deliciously meaty and often prepared baked or grilled. The man below is scaling tambaqui inside the old fish market. In the background you can see another dozen tambaqui waiting to be scaled. (I didn’t check whether the fish were dead.)
A favorite restaurant is Bar do Armando at Largo de São Sebastião, a 19th century city square overlooking the world-famous Teatro Amazonas opera house. I usually order the bolinhos de bacalhau (fried fish balls).
Another common bar food is meat on a stick — beef, chicken, or pork — skewered on a grill that is usually in the sidewalk or street side. You eat the meat with spoonfuls of farofa, a powder made from manioc, which everyone is scooping out of a big container by the grill.
I’ve also been eating a lot of tacacá, a staple soup of northern Brazil made from gelatinous tacupi broth (a manioc derivative), dried river shrimp, yellow peppers, and jambu, an herb that makes your tongue tingly and numb. It’s best served inside a gourd shell, which is nestled in a oven basket to make it easier to hold. You’re supposed to sip the soup directly from the bowl, although a large toothpick (the size of a chopstick) is provided to help scoop out the solids.
A final note: This is a beautiful yellow can, no? It reminds me of Rolling Rock, whose aesthetically pleasing neon-green cans more than make up for its taste. As with Rolling Rock, I like the can more than I like the guarana-flavored soda.
