Tacacá

Tacacá descends directly from indigenous Tupi cooking of the Amazon basin, predating Portuguese contact. Its name and method come from a Tupi manioc preparation; the dish was carried into the riverside towns of Pará and Amazonas and became urban street food, sold by tacacazeiras — women who set up stalls in the late afternoon. The defining ingredients are all native to the region: tucupi and tapioca gum from manioc, and jambu (Acmella oleracea), the 'paracress' whose flower buds and leaves contain spilanthol, a compound that numbs and tingles the mouth.

Served scalding in a gourd bowl you cradle in both palms. First the sour, savory hit of fermented-tasting tucupi — tart, almost like a thin vegetal broth gone tangy. Then the strange part: the jambu leaves set off a cold electric tingle that spreads across the tongue and lips and makes you salivate. The tapioca gum is gelatinous and slippery, the dried shrimp chewy and intensely salty. You drink the liquid down and pick the shrimp and gum out with your fingers.

Raw manioc juice contains hydrocyanic acid and is poisonous; tucupi is made safe by long cooking. The pressed yellow liquid is boiled for hours — often left to ferment first, then simmered with garlic, chicory leaves (chicória do Pará), and salt — which drives off the volatile cyanide and concentrates the sour, savory flavor. The tapioca gum is the wet starch paste that thickens on contact with the hot broth into a clear gel. The jambu is blanched briefly so it softens but keeps its tingling spilanthol active.