Caribé: bebida que dá sustança ao corpo e alma cabocla

Abstract

I think that the kitchen is not only a place of food production, but it is also a space for discussion and elaboration of sociabilities, emotions and identities. In this contextI place the caboclo regional cuisine as an expression of the crossbreeding that is proper to Brazilian society, especially in the Amazonian and Pará contexts. Thus I think of caboclo regional cuisine as a landscape that describes and talks about the material and symbolic idiosyncrasies that make up the Brazilian territories of Amazonas and Pará, and which results from a set of knowledge, doings and flavors that derives sometimes from the artisanal fishing, sometimes from the family agriculture and sometimes from the wild fruits and roots of the Amazon. It concerns a unique way of collecting, producing, preparing, eating and living, which is proper to the men and women who live in the countryside and in the cities of the state of Pará.

Therefore, it is in the context of this cabocla regional cuisine that I place the caribé, which is a liquid- food, whose primary ingredient is manioc flour. Thus, the caribé is a food resource historically invented by the caboclos of the Amazon region who attribute to food a curative load, which makes it capable of fortifying, sustaining and reestablishing those subjects who may have been affected by some disease. It is worth noting here the fact that in spite of the importance of this food to the caboclo, there are no written records on how to make it, for its recipe lives only in the memory of caboclos. In other words, the knowledge of how to make caribé is orally taught and learned from generation to generation.

So, according to Mrs. Maria Olinda’s accounts (who is a native of the community of Araí, located in the countryside of Augusto Corrêa, and who has lived in Ananindeua for 30 years, in the metropolitan region of Belém) the caribé recipe is as follows: put approximately 300ml of water in a pot over a fire and, while the water boils, strain approximately 100g of flouron a sieve. Soak the cuí, in other words, the fine, sieved manioc flour, for 10 minutes and after that remove the water. Wait ten minutes and then dilute the cuí in the boiling water leaving the porridge as watery as possible. After boiling it for five minutes, the caribé will be ready and must be consumed immediately, while it is still hot.

It is important to know that nowadays, particularly in the context of the cities in the state of Pará, the caribé has been reinvented, for new ingredients have been added to it such as garlic, salt, margarine or butter to the taste of those who make it.

Finally, as it can be seen, the images of this ethno-photographic essay “tell” and “talk about” the ways of knowing how to make the caribé. The work shown here relies on Daniely Pereira’s skills, under the guidance of Mrs. Maria Olinda, as it is shown in the images that follow.