Consuming sustainable products from the Amazon rainforest is the continent’s mission – 06/14/2023 – Josimar Melo

Have you ever been to the Amazon? Do you know what tucupi is? Have you ever eaten?

These are questions that I repeated to my gastronomy history students to verify that the overwhelming majority of those Brazilians had never tasted Amazonian products.

The memory came to mind when I landed in Bogotá two weeks ago, where I would center a debate table precisely on the Amazon, at the Alimentarte event.

In addition to my testimony about Brazil, other countries that share the Amazon would have representatives there: chef Virgilio Martínez and researcher Jan Brack (Central), from Peru; chef Marsia Taha (Gustu), from Bolivia, and Colombian chef Andrews Arrieta (Açaí). The theme: “Amazon, axis of Latin America’s gastronomic identity”.

This table was born six months earlier, in another country, Mexico. It was during a debate on the unity of gastronomy in Latin America, held in the city of Mérida, where –this time from the audience— I thought that this had always been a very abstract discussion. What countries divided by two languages ​​have in common; leaning over two distinct oceans; half marked by an imposing mountain range, the other half centered on forest and savannah?

That day I suggested that, in order to stop focusing on abstract or ideological ideas (a patriotic unit that never pleases me), we should focus on what can concretely influence the continent’s gastronomy: the Amazon.

It is true that 64% of the forest is in Brazil; but it is still divided by eight other countries. In all, it can contribute to biodiversity, culture and gastronomy.

But that’s not all: other countries, even though they don’t have the forest in their territory, are directly dependent on it. Argentina and Uruguay don’t have the Amazon, but they wouldn’t have their precious product — beef — without their wonderful pastures. And these only exist because they are watered by the… Amazonian forest, through the flying rivers (the currents of air humidity) that it generates.

To give you an idea, there are 400 billion trees creating a humid air mass of 20 trillion liters of water daily, carrying rain far away. Including the pampa gaucho.

The truth is that the Amazon is a country in itself, a biome with a great identity, but which was divided by artificial borders initiated by European invaders.

I’ve traveled, and even slept in indigenous huts, through stretches of the forest in Brazil, Colombia, Peru. If you are willing to go on similar trips, you will realize that there are, yes, differences that were matured by distance, but there are also nations that are unique, maintain their identity, but separated by several borders.

In some countries, tucupi is called ají negro. Pirarucu, the gigantic fish that dominates the menu in the region, was unknown in Bolivia – and today it is an invasive species there. That is, traveling through the extensive region shows us local particularities; but they only enhance the common ground that those peoples have.

The debate now taking place in Bogotá was suggested by chef Virgilio Martínez, who right after that conversation six months ago in Mérida approached me to think about ways to expand this idea.

Indeed, it seems that it is time for the region to be taken over, assimilated and protected by the people of Latin America. In Brazil, the Amazon is 50% of the territory. But only 13% of the population lives there – and the richest centers are far away, ignoring that wealth and the dangers it runs (and we all run).

At the end of my talk, I suggested that one of the ways to assimilate the region is through the mouth, consuming its sustainable products: “comer para sustener” – or tasting to preserve.

_{The journalist traveled at the invitation of Alimentarte}

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