Jambu!! My wife and I are obsessed with this stuff, hah. We went to north Brazil (near Fortaleza) to spend time with her family. Her stepdad kept trying to find cachaça (pronounced "cashasa") infused jambu for me to try. No luck. Even in Brazil jambu is not that well known and is hard to find. It's easier to get in the north (closer to where it grows supposedly). We've been doing a running poll where we ask all her Brazilian friends, family, etc if they've tried jambu and most have never heard of it. Back to our time in north Brazil: eventually we're at a wonderful gourmet restaurant and we ask if they have any jambu and the waiter goes to the kitchen and comes back with the chef. Not only did they have a quality cachaça with jambu for us to try but the chef also prepared a jambu flower with some kind of oil. My whole mouth got numb. Also if you find yourself quite drunk the first time you try cachaça with jambu (like I was) take care to only have a little sip because a big one could make you throw up. Side note Brazilians call the "pins and needles" sensation of having a leg fall asleep "formigando" which comes from their word for ants ("formiga"). In other words instead of "pins and needles" they think of it as ants crawling on your leg. Anywho jambu is definitely an experience and Brazil is a very cool place. Also you can gain brownie points with Brasilians by spelling Brasil with an "s" ;D
I did a road trip from the extreme south to São Paulo (1500km+) last month and found jambu-infused cachaça in the four different states I've been to. Def a recent thing though. I even saw jambu risotto and pastel (stuffed fried crust pie).
Oh hell, cachaça in general is such a strong liquor. I remember when I was in Brasil last I went to a restaurant where they had a bottle sitting in the front with little cups just to pour yourself a shot if you wanted one, almost like where you'd find free mints and toothpicks in many other countries. It took me by surprise that they'd have such a strong liquor sitting in the front of a place to drink for free after lunch like that, but when in Brasil... Would love to try some with jambu in it. Reminds me a little bit of salmiakki koskenkorva out of Finland [1], which is salty licorice vodka, salted with ammonium chloride, not NaCl, which definitely has a bit of a weird effect on your mouth.
Amazing cuisine in that country and the people are incredibly nice and friendly. Would love to return some day again.
I'm from Fortaleza and never heard about Jambu before. I actually thought it was Jambo misspelled.
Everything you said about Brazil seems true to me. And for anyone thinking about visiting us: people from here a very receptive, especially with curious and respectful tourists.
No problems finding it in Belem 6 years ago. +1 on the "a little sip" - but I think that's true for any alcoholic beverage one drinks for yet another effect than the ones induced by alcohol (e.g. Absinthe).
Minor nit: Sichuan pepper is not a chili pepper or closely related to black pepper. It's the husk of the fruit of a tree that grows in the region. It's not particularly spicy on its own - the appeal is the numbing, tingling sensation (called málà, literally numbing spiciness) which serves as a complement to the capsaicin-based spiciness that Sichuanese cuisine is known for.
Even more minor nit: ma2la4 is actually the combination of flavors of both numbness (ma2, 麻) and spiciness (la4, 辣). The latter is commonly used outside the combined descriptor to signify normal capsaicin spice in food.
Off topic, but the "ma" in mapo tofu also uses same character from ma2la4, but also serves to give a visual description of the dish. That character is also used to refer to a pockmarked person, and the po2 is from one of the various ways to refer to grandmother. You could probably go as far to say it's something of a pun.
Thanks for explaining that. I always wondered how sichuan pepper could cause such a different reaction to regular black or chili pepper, and now it makes sense
I only recently became aware of the Sichuan "pepper" or at least its effects. Maybe I had somehow managed to never get it in large enough quantities to notice (I have certainly eaten Sichuan/Szechuan food many times in my life), but a recent experience with a a Sichuan dish that had a lot of Sichuan oil in it gave me the full mouth-numbing experience. I have to say I have been hooked ever since.
For decades Sichuan pepper was loosely banned then required to be heated to import in to the US (and likely other countries) because of a fear of citrus canker and the heat killed the numbing chemical. That has changed but you still need properly prepared and relatively fresh husks to get the effect. I've eaten Sichuan food my entire life but never had anything numbing until I went to China.
Your use of of the Wade-Giles "Szechuan" is telling; when written as such it refers to subclass of Chinese-American food catered to American tastes. It's great food in its own right, but not what its name suggests.
In Sichuan they put this stuff in everything. Start off with a breakfast of Numbing & Spicy beef noodle soup. Mid morning a snack of cold rice noodles with lajao & haujao paste on it. ChuanChuan for lunch, Hot Pot for dinner and finish it off with a spicy BBQ in the evening.
I once had these in a speakeasy in downtown Louisville, KY with a cocktail called "Acid Cat Spirit Guide." We ordered a round of them and all the guy said was, "eat the flower and drink the drink."
It was a pretty fun experience! The flower itself does not taste good—very grassy with an unpleasant texture—but the numbing effect was really fun, especially experienced as group.
I grow these and you can find them on rareseeds.com known as toothache plant. They are also know a Sichuan Buttons. It’s fun giving them to guests. This year some bugs got to them but I think they will recover. I wanted to make a cocktail with them.
any tips on creating cocktail recipes, or good cocktails to make at a party? I want to learn to make fun cocktails now that the standard starting price of a cocktail in the DC area is $12-15 (way too expensive for my taste) but don't know how to start. Buying liquor is easy because it can be used in different cocktails, but I want to avoid spending a lot for some ingredient that only works in a single recipe
I was wondering about what Sichuan Pepper is. It's Huajiao. Yeah. I loved the numbing effect along with other actual hot peppers for hot pot. My Chinese ex, however, loved it so much literally got stomach ulcer and later also had Cholangitis and had to have surgery. It's a lot of pain, so please do not over indulge.
Im sorry for laughing at your comment, it was fun to read and now Im wondering how much does it affect on general population, surely chinese population must have a huge % of people with ulcers at the very least
There's also a prickly ash native (I think) to the american midwest. It must be pretty closely related to the sichuan one because the husks look very similar and have the same tingly property, though the other flavors are muted in comparison. It's equivalent to mediocre quality imported sichuan pepper.
I used to forage it back when we could only get the really shitty stuff in the states, though I haven't gone looking for it for years now since we can get the high quality easily these days.
Visiting the deep amazon during COVID, I literally ate too much stuff (one of those nice, AYCA amazon lodges). Every date, I mixed all kinds of delicious things in a buffett setting, and constantly loaded with carbs. It was vacation, after all.
I normally do intermittent fasting and stay away from carbs during the work week. I don't do buffet and usually don't have 2 daily meals, let alone 3.
So, after 2-3 days of repeating the feast -3 times a day-, my stomach and intestines finally went on strike. I ended up with a strong reaction with a loose stool. 2 days later, it would still not go away. It was constant. I was chained to the bathroom. The rest of the family didn't overeat + mix everything, so naturally they were totally fine.
Finally on the 3rd day, I gave up on waiting it out and asked for help from our jungle guide.
He told me to have oregano tea, so had 2 cups. The change was instantaneous. Just like the article, all the locals from the amazon knew this was the standard remedy for diarrhea.
I googled this afterwards. None of the top hits for home remedy for diarrhea even mentioned oregano tea once in their articles. A medical dietitian had a 1 word link back to diarrhea in a "oregano health benefits" article [1].
Its crazy how ignorant we are of natural methods, and makes me wonder what other wonderful natural medicines are waiting to be re-discovered in the amazon.
Where did you go in the Amazon and how did you get there? I was surprised to learn that not many Brazilians have ever been to the Amazon. But it makes sense once you realize that it's hard to get there and it takes a long time.
I'm Brazillian and lived in Rondônia, extreme west of the Amazon. Never heard about oregano tea being good for the intestines, will try it if I ever need again.
Now, don't put so much trust on the "knowledge of the natives". That knowledge is not maintained by centuries because native indians didn't develop writing, so recipes vary a lot even from one city to another; there are different fruits or plants which have the same name in different regions and the same fruit or plant may have different names in different regions. It is also not tested with a large genetic pool since these groups are very small, familiar with little genetic diversity.
Read about Copaiba oil. It's a Brazilian oil from a tree. This thing is amazing. I used to always have earache after a couple of days diving in the ocean until I used one little drop of Copaiba oil in my ears. No more earache. Never again! It has multiple uses. Take a look at it.
These don't taste great on their own (kinda grassy) but they give a more intense pins & needles feeling.
They're much stronger than any sane amount of Sichuan pepper -- but shorter lasting, and they change food's flavor in a slightly different way. I can't quite describe how, as I've only had them with a specific cocktail at Mcclellans Retreat in DC.
I'd recommend it if you're ever nearby, cool drink and it's also a great neighborhood cocktail bar.
> similar to – but stronger than – the Chinese spice
Most Sichuan peppers sold in the West have been sitting around for years and have barely any numbing effect. There are also two different common varieties: the one almost always seen in the West is Zanthoxylum bungeanum, the red Sichuan pepper
(红花椒), but in China they also use a lot of Zanthoxylum armatum aka green Sichuan peppers (麻椒 or 青花椒). The green ones are much more strongly numbing and can even be eaten fresh (藤椒), with an effect not unlike putting Pop Rocks into your food!
I've also always felt that "numbing" is a wholly inadequate translation for 麻, which in Chinese is also used for anesthesia, the hemp plant, etc. It doesn't just numb your taste buds, but alters them: for me even plain water tastes thick and salty afterwards.
If people are interested in trying something different, they also mention cachaça. Sometimes called "Brazilian rum" which is a bit inaccurate. It's getting easier to find, but it's still best to avoid the cheap versions (such as the 51 brand which is terrible). Look for restaurants serving a cocktail called a caipirinha, which is the national drink of Brazil, as the best intro.
I was a bit obsessed with Sichuan peppercorns a few years back..
If one wants to have a good introduction to them, Huang Fei Hong Spicy Peanuts are on Amazon and many asian grocers.. they consistently have fresh and numbing pods mixed in.
I've never got good numbing Sichuan peppercorns retail in the US, but have gotten some really strong ones off of Amazon.
Nice, now I have the urgent need to go to one of the true Chinese restaurants that I know, the sichuan style beef maybe is not the same that you are going to find in china, but it’s really different enough from the rest of Chinese restaurants that I know
Jambu taste/effect is very weird but very pleasurable. I really hope it launches and get popular.. I live in south of Brazil and NONE of my local friends ever tried or heard about it.
[+] [-] kaycebasques|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eliseumds|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] O__________O|3 years ago|reply
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:9...
Also known as: Electric Daisy, Paracress, Eyeball Plant, Toothache Plant, Jambu, Brazilian Cress, Sichuan Buttons, Buzz Buttons, Tingflowers, Novacaine Plant, Phak Khraat Hua Van, Brede Mafane, Agrião Do Para, Peek-a-boo, Spilanthes acmella
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acmella_oleracea
[+] [-] alecst|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kaze404|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamal-kumar|3 years ago|reply
Amazing cuisine in that country and the people are incredibly nice and friendly. Would love to return some day again.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmiakki_Koskenkorva
[+] [-] marcodiego|3 years ago|reply
Everything you said about Brazil seems true to me. And for anyone thinking about visiting us: people from here a very receptive, especially with curious and respectful tourists.
[+] [-] Zababa|3 years ago|reply
It's the same thing in French, we say "J'ai des fourmis dans les jambes" ("I have ants in my legs").
[+] [-] jlg23|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muaytimbo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcosdumay|3 years ago|reply
As you said, you will only find jambu on the North. I have no idea why people don't ship it around.
[+] [-] twalla|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lofatdairy|3 years ago|reply
Off topic, but the "ma" in mapo tofu also uses same character from ma2la4, but also serves to give a visual description of the dish. That character is also used to refer to a pockmarked person, and the po2 is from one of the various ways to refer to grandmother. You could probably go as far to say it's something of a pun.
[+] [-] silicon2401|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MonkeyMalarky|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hvs|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BashiBazouk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Stevvo|3 years ago|reply
In Sichuan they put this stuff in everything. Start off with a breakfast of Numbing & Spicy beef noodle soup. Mid morning a snack of cold rice noodles with lajao & haujao paste on it. ChuanChuan for lunch, Hot Pot for dinner and finish it off with a spicy BBQ in the evening.
[+] [-] spaceman_2020|3 years ago|reply
Incredible how good just rice, a dash of light soy sauce, an egg, and a good helping of chili oil can taste.
[+] [-] ryangittins|3 years ago|reply
It was a pretty fun experience! The flower itself does not taste good—very grassy with an unpleasant texture—but the numbing effect was really fun, especially experienced as group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acmella_oleracea
[+] [-] showerst|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wil421|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silicon2401|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaycebasques|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NelsonMinar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmmartins|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConfusedDog|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] firekvz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giraffe_lady|3 years ago|reply
I used to forage it back when we could only get the really shitty stuff in the states, though I haven't gone looking for it for years now since we can get the high quality easily these days.
[+] [-] IG_Semmelweiss|3 years ago|reply
I normally do intermittent fasting and stay away from carbs during the work week. I don't do buffet and usually don't have 2 daily meals, let alone 3.
So, after 2-3 days of repeating the feast -3 times a day-, my stomach and intestines finally went on strike. I ended up with a strong reaction with a loose stool. 2 days later, it would still not go away. It was constant. I was chained to the bathroom. The rest of the family didn't overeat + mix everything, so naturally they were totally fine.
Finally on the 3rd day, I gave up on waiting it out and asked for help from our jungle guide.
He told me to have oregano tea, so had 2 cups. The change was instantaneous. Just like the article, all the locals from the amazon knew this was the standard remedy for diarrhea.
I googled this afterwards. None of the top hits for home remedy for diarrhea even mentioned oregano tea once in their articles. A medical dietitian had a 1 word link back to diarrhea in a "oregano health benefits" article [1].
Its crazy how ignorant we are of natural methods, and makes me wonder what other wonderful natural medicines are waiting to be re-discovered in the amazon.
[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/266259
[+] [-] kaycebasques|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcodiego|3 years ago|reply
Now, don't put so much trust on the "knowledge of the natives". That knowledge is not maintained by centuries because native indians didn't develop writing, so recipes vary a lot even from one city to another; there are different fruits or plants which have the same name in different regions and the same fruit or plant may have different names in different regions. It is also not tested with a large genetic pool since these groups are very small, familiar with little genetic diversity.
[+] [-] jcmoscon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwkoss|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silicon2401|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzbzq|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] showerst|3 years ago|reply
They're much stronger than any sane amount of Sichuan pepper -- but shorter lasting, and they change food's flavor in a slightly different way. I can't quite describe how, as I've only had them with a specific cocktail at Mcclellans Retreat in DC.
I'd recommend it if you're ever nearby, cool drink and it's also a great neighborhood cocktail bar.
[+] [-] wawjgreen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thematrixturtle|3 years ago|reply
Most Sichuan peppers sold in the West have been sitting around for years and have barely any numbing effect. There are also two different common varieties: the one almost always seen in the West is Zanthoxylum bungeanum, the red Sichuan pepper (红花椒), but in China they also use a lot of Zanthoxylum armatum aka green Sichuan peppers (麻椒 or 青花椒). The green ones are much more strongly numbing and can even be eaten fresh (藤椒), with an effect not unlike putting Pop Rocks into your food!
I've also always felt that "numbing" is a wholly inadequate translation for 麻, which in Chinese is also used for anesthesia, the hemp plant, etc. It doesn't just numb your taste buds, but alters them: for me even plain water tastes thick and salty afterwards.
[+] [-] mmanfrin|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acmella_oleracea
[+] [-] tambourine_man|3 years ago|reply
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ETqUAfnN47M
[+] [-] kaycebasques|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheCowboy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thiagocsf|3 years ago|reply
Great in small sips as a palate cleanser when having bbq.
[+] [-] Nihilartikel|3 years ago|reply
If one wants to have a good introduction to them, Huang Fei Hong Spicy Peanuts are on Amazon and many asian grocers.. they consistently have fresh and numbing pods mixed in.
I've never got good numbing Sichuan peppercorns retail in the US, but have gotten some really strong ones off of Amazon.
[+] [-] Sporktacular|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joking|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thiagocsf|3 years ago|reply
Reminded me of tucupi, which has been popular for longer, and also causes a numbing sensation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucupi
[+] [-] gusbremm|3 years ago|reply