Local Cuisine

A Glossary of Bahian Dishes

Rich with African influences, Bahian cuisine comes with its own ingredients and terminology. Here is a list of the most common dishes and ingredients:

Abará (ah-bah-rah): Usually made by Baianas on the street, this is a tamale-like wrap made with bean paste, onions, and dendê oil, cooked in a banana leaf, and served with ginger and dried shrimp sauce.

Acarajé (ah-kah-rah-zhey): Similar to the abará in that the dough is made with mashed beans, but the acarajé is deep-fried in dendê oil and stuffed with a shrimp sauce, hot peppers, and onion-tomato vinaigrette.

Bobó de camarão (boh-boh dje cah-mah-roun): A stew made with shrimp, cassava paste, onion, tomato, cilantro, coconut milk, and dendê oil.

Dendê oil (den-de): The key ingredient for Bahian food, this oil comes from the dendê palm tree and has a characteristic red color.

Ensopado (en-so-pah-do): A lighter version of a moqueca made without the dendê oil.

Moqueca (moo-keck-ah): Bahia's most popular dish, the ingredients include any kind of seafood stewed with coconut milk, lime juice, cilantro, onion, and tomato. Though the taste is similar, this stew is much thinner than a bobó.

Pirão (pee-roun): As popular as farofa in the rest of Brazil, this dish looks more like a polenta or porridge. Cassava flour is added to a seafood broth and cooked until it thickens.

Vatapá (vah-tah-pah): One of the richest dishes, the vatapá is a stew made with fish, onion, tomato, cilantro, lime juice, dried shrimp, ground-up cashew nuts, peanuts, ginger, and coconut milk. The sauce is thickened with bread.

How Sweet It Is: Bahian Desserts

To say that Brazilians have a sweet tooth is like saying Italians are fond of pasta. Most Brazilian desserts are just a few ingredients shy of pure sugar -- not surprising, given that Brazil was once the world's largest sugar producer. Visitors often find desserts overwhelmingly sweet, and nowhere is this truer than in the sugar capital of Bahia. From the Portuguese, Bahians inherited the habit of making sweets with egg yolks; they then combined this with coconuts imported from Africa and the perfect dessert was born.

Most traditional sweets are just variations on those three ingredients: Cocada, the little clusters of coconut you see everywhere, are nothing more than grated coconut with white or burned sugar; quindim, something between a pudding and a pie, is made with coconut, an incredible number of egg yolks (at least 10 per tiny serving!), and sugar; manjar, a soft pudding often served with plum sauce, combines sugar, coconut milk, and milk. My personal favorite is Baba de Moça -- coconut milk, egg yolks, and sugar syrup. The name translates as "girl drool."

Acarajés & Abarás

Everywhere you go in Salvador you'll see Baianas -- women dressed in the traditional white hoop skirt, lace blouse, and turban -- sitting behind big cooking pots serving up acarajés and abarás, falafel-like snacks made with beans, onions, and dendê oil, either deep-fried (acarajés) or cooked in a banana leaf and served with ginger and dried shrimp sauce (abarás).

Although the costume is always the same, there are Baianas, and there are Baianas. Each has her regular spot, sometimes inherited from a mother or aunt. Abará de Dona Olga in Pelourinho on Travessa Agostinho Gomes -- in front of the Moderna Funeral Home -- has been serving up abará for over 50 years, daily from 5pm to 3am. Outside of Pelourinho, by the lighthouse Farol da Barra, look for Acarajé do Farol Celia. This lady also sells excellent coconut sweets, daily from 1 to 11pm. At the end of Barra beach, next to Barravento restaurant, is Acarajé de Dona Jó, open Tuesday through Friday from 4 to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 6pm. The queen of all acarajés is Dinha, who runs the Casa da Dinha, Rua João Gomes 25, Rio Vermelho (tel. 071/3334-0525); she has traded in her metal tray for a little restaurant but still sells the best acarajés in town. Also worth trying are the moquecas -- 25 combinations of fish and seafood. Open Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 4pm and 6pm to midnight, and Sunday from noon to 6pm.