Of Juice…

Juice is a wonderful beverage that you can justify to yourself far more easily than other sweet beverages like, say, soda pop, which apparently rots out your teeth, dissolves pennies, and make you fat.

In Brazil, there are myriad of juices from which to choose.  Many of them unfamiliar to the American palate.

One popular juice is sugar cane juice.  It is primarily sold on street corners.  The sugar cane stands have juicers with gears and gizmos that press the juice out of the sugar cane while you wait.  The juice is a mildly sweet, grass-flavored beverage.

Another is Coconut water, although this is making the journey north as a health food beverage as has Açaí berries.  On a side note, açaí berries also make beautiful jewelry. 

However, a vast majority of Brazilian fruits have about the same make up.  Slime-covered seeds.  To make the juice, the idea was to remove the slime from the seeds and make it drinkable.

                                                                               Passionfruit

 

My personal favorite was maracuja or passionfruit.  It takes some effort to make, but the results are worthwhile.  Passionfruit is generally a smooth, shiny orb which when cut open reveals yellow-slime-covered black seeds.  After being ground in a blender, strained and having water and sugar added, the juice is well worth the effort it takes to make.

One of my not so favorites is cupuaçu.  The shell is hard to crack and not worth the effort.  I would describe the taste as sour dirty laundry.  My mother tried to make it palatable by turning it into ice cream.  Although, I have a hard time turning down ice cream, I had no trouble sticking to my diet with that bowl in front of me.

I much preferred to watch it melt while sipping a tall, cold glass of maracuja juice.