Allrighty then!

Here’s a picture of one of the roskas Joasias the Great made for us. This one is undoubtedly lime, sugar and either cachaça or vodka. This next picture shows the stuff he used. Limes for days, whatever those orange things are (some kind of orangey thing, I think. What the hell was it? Carol??) Then the other thing in the tupperware next to the limes that looks like kiwi fruit.

The procedure is: cut up a bunch of the fruit, smash it in the mortar and pestle, add sugar to taste, add cachaça, vodka, or even rum, and pour over ice. This was more of the type of drinks we had at Trapiche Adelaide. Also the thing Carol fixed for us the first night, and I quote: Carol fixed us a delicious cacophony of Brazilian drinks with fresh fruit: (she tells me umburoska, aceroloska, and cajuroska, It was totally sublime, especially after the TAM-athon we had been through that day. Notice how two out of the three names for the drinks end with “roska.” I have no idea why “aceroloska” is different, and just two letters are transposed. I even looked it up on Google to see if there was an “aceloroska”. There WASN’T! There were, however two entries in Portuguese referring to “aceroloska.” Curiouser and curiouser.

Roska 101: Drinks made from mashed fruit, sugar and vodka. The suffix “roska” was invented as it sounds to the Brazilian ear as Russian as Vodka itself. If you mix
lime and sugar with cachaça, it becomes a caipirinha; lime, sugar and Bacardi (is
there any other rum?) is a caipirissima.
The construction of the flavors of roskas seems to be the only exception to hard and
fast Portuguese spelling rules. Umbu + roska = umburoska; kiwi + roska = kiwiroska; caju + roska = cajuroska; but, acerola + roska = aceroloska, as siriguela + roska =sirigueloska.
I consulted Nelson on this, and he said the rule appears to be according to what
sounds best.

It was all coming together in an insidious way. They were trying to foist their fruits and liquors off on us unsuspecting tourists. There’s no question that a drink made with fresh fruit makes you think you’re having something “healthy”. In the same manner that food eaten while standing up has no calories.

The sight of the limes in the tupperware made me swoon. But so did my seagoing stomach. When Joasias came by and asked what I wanted, I told him how sweaty I was and how I would like water, more water, and maybe one of the little roskas with lime. He complied in a Bahian jiffy, and there sat the roska, begging me to drink it. I took a couple of sips and decided that the water would go down better.

And then came the chicken hearts. My guess at translation would be coração da frango. Whoa! When I ate one, I knew they were delicious. And they were. But my stomach said, “Ben, what in the HELL do you think you’re doing? Drink water and take pictures.” Which I did. I ate a few pieces of the various barbecue, and it was all superb. But I could only take a few bites at a time, and then had to go for copious amounts of water to float it away.