Cuisine of Pará

The traditional food of Pará, a Brazilian state, blends Indigenous, African, and Portuguese influences. Its core ingredients come from the Amazon rainforest and include shrimp, crab, other seafood, fish, poultry, bush meat, and duck. These meats are typically cooked with leaves like maniva, chicory, and coriander, along with peppers and herbs. Dishes are prepared in clay pots or barbecued while wrapped in leaves and soaked in tucupi, a yellow sauce made from cultivated manioc root. Food is served in bowls, clay containers, wrapped in banana leaves, or in urupemas, which are sifters woven from vegetable fiber.

Cassava flour, especially manioc flour, is essential in Pará cuisine. Cassava is also used to make tucupi, a yellow broth eaten with meat, fish, or seafood, alone, or with jambu. Once consumed only by the poor and Indigenous people, cassava and its derivatives are now a staple for all families in Pará.

Tapioquinha is a tapioca starch dish that resembles a pancake and can be filled with chocolate, cheese, or jelly. It is most commonly eaten with butter or coconut, often for breakfast or an afternoon snack, accompanied by coffee with milk, and sold in simple shops, street carts, and snack bars.

Duck in tucupi, or pato no tucupi, uses duck meat, tucupi, and jambu, an herb from northern Brazil. The tucupi broth must be boiled for several hours to remove toxins. After baking, the duck is cut into pieces and stewed in the tucupi. Boiled jambu is then placed on top, and the dish is served with rice and cassava flour.

Maniçoba is a festive dish of Indigenous origin. It is made from finely ground manioc leaves boiled for at least four days to remove hydrogen cyanide. The cooked leaves, called maniva, are mixed with salted pork, dried meat, bacon, and sausage. It is served with rice and cassava meal, and is typically eaten during the Círio de Nazaré festival in Belém.

Piracuí, known as fish flour, is made from crushed or shredded dried salted fish, commonly Acari, Tamuatá, or Bodó. The fish is cooked or roasted, the meat separated, then toasted with salt in a wood-burning oven until it has a flour-like texture. It is stored and later eaten with olive oil, onion, and cassava flour, or used to make fried dumplings called bolinho de piracuí.

Tacacá is a typical dish of northern Brazil, especially Pará.