Food Culture Map makes social and cultural deliveries

Chef Guilherme Guzela, with more than 20 years of career, started the afternoon of Wednesday (17th) with an affectionate sermon. “It’s too big. It’s not clear, it’s not enough sugar,” scolded Marisa Graça Siqueira, 80, sitting in her wheelchair, while crushing a little cashew apple with her hands, analyzing the consistency. The chef watched her in wonder.

Guilherme squatted beside him to clear up doubts and understand what he had done wrong. He won a compliment: “The color is good”, conceded Dona Marisa. An audience listened with teary eyes to the conversation between what could have been a grandmother and a grandson. “We ground the peanuts by hand until we had a blender”, recalled Dona Marisa. The scene took place in the cafeteria at Hospice Erasto Gaertner, a palliative care unit at the institution in Curitiba, during one of the cooking classes that Guzela prepares based on patient recipes.

The event is part of the social actions calendar of the Food Culture Map, a project by Montenegro Produções with resources from the Culture Incentive Law. In early August, the Hospice received a vertical garden with herbs for seasoning and tea from the Mapa da Cultura Alimentar, as well as strawberry seedlings and flowers to feed the stingless bees in the garden. The colorful PVC structure is installed next to the cafeteria and exudes aromas of basil, mint, sage, thyme, fennel, oregano, curry and lemon balm.

Mapa da Cultura Alimentar launches exhibition and book in September

The Food Culture Map will have a double debut on September 6th, at Shopping Mueller: this is the launch date of the recipe book with ingredients from Paraná and Santa Catarina and the opening of an exhibition with artistic installations that celebrate the diversity of Brazilian food culture. Since April, the team has been organizing initiatives such as cooking classes and gastronomic experiences.

Back at work, attentive to the correct sweetness, Guzela redid the recipe dictating the measurement of the ingredients and the step by step in a loud voice, receiving the approval and occasional corrections from Dona Marisa, who sent representatives of the family to the workbench to verify the ground peanuts, whipped egg whites and the texture of the dough.

“This cajuzinho recipe doesn’t use condensed milk, right, Dona Marisa?”, the chef confirmed in a loud voice. “God forbid!” she replied. “The white is what gives the point and joins all the ingredients”, explained Dona Marisa.

For decades, she prepared the sweetie for the family’s children’s parties, such as the birthdays of her children Rodrigo Siqueira Reis and Fernanda Siqueira Reis. “In July of this year, she made 150 cajuzinhos because she received a visit from a friend her age, who had not eaten this sweetie since childhood”, revealed Fernanda. During a few weeks in July, Dona Marisa gathered strength to prepare her children’s favorite recipes before returning to the palliative care unit.

When she arrived at Erasto Gaertner, Dona Marisa handed the recipe written in her own handwriting to the nutritionists, under the title “Cajuzinho da Mamãe”. The preparation will be one of those that will appear in a future hospital recipe book – and you can check it out at the end of this article.

Now for the project Food Culture Map, the preparation of cajuzinho at the Hospice gained another dimension: that of symbolizing the appreciation of knowledge and memories of a generation. “Recipes are ways to immortalize the important people in our lives”, defined Guzela.

The cooking class brought together Hospice staff and companions. The patients, with the exception of Dona Marisa, received their portions of cajuzinho in their own room. Dona Marisa modeled two little sweets, dipped them in crystal sugar, happily chewed them and went up to her room to wait for the new batch of cashews, lying down comfortably.

Mama’s Cashew