Typical Amazon dishes & CUISINE
Fish dishes
Fish is the main protein in the Amazonian cuisine. There are dozens of exceptionally tasteful species of fish: peixe nobre (noble fish), the pirarucu (the palargest world freshwater fish) and the tambaqui are good examples. They are big fishes, almost boneless, and delicious when grilled over charcoal.
Also exceptional are smaller fishes like surubim, curimati, jaraqui, acari and tucunar. The freshness and the special flavour of all those species of Amazon fish make the dishes based on them truly ravishing. They are usually served grilled, but they can also be fried or presented in tomato sauce (escabeche), coconut milk or stewed in tucupi (a true marvellous sauce, made of fermented manioc juices).
Amazon Dishes
Manioc is also a major component of Amazonian cuisine, besides the Amazon fish. Many dishes include the manioc, as it is the case of pato no tucupi (duck in tucupi), a typical Amazon dish (and probably the most famous), based on the exotic sauce of tucupi. It's also the case of tacaca, a shrimp soup, available everywhere, including street corners and docks. Or manicoba, a dish including pieces of meat, sausage and chicory leaves (besides the manioc).
Also common in the Amazonian food is an adapted version of vatapa, a bahian seafood dish. See, Entertainment, Night Life, Cuisine, for details about these and other Brazilian dishes.
Amazon fruit and juices
The other staple of Amazonian cuisine - besides fish and manioc - is local fruit and the juices and ice creams based on them. There are, in Amazon, unique tropical fruits - unknown or seldom commercialized even in other Brazilian regions - which make one's mouth water. Taste, for example, the acerola, the peroba, the graviola, the fruta de conde (or ata), or the cupuassu, the most exotic of all (the cupuassu looks like an elongated coconut, but its taste is much more exotic). Taste also thea acai, the most common Amazon fruit dessert, or palm tree juices as tapereba, buriti or bacuri. It's delicious and unique.