Indigenous fruit

Brazil is incredibly rich in native fruit and these were all eaten, drunk or used in decoration by indigenous tribes before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500. Their native names have lived on.

Some have become international (cocoa, cashew, guavas, passion-fruit), others are found in supermarkets and juice bars in Brazil (açaí, cupuaçú, graviola etc), while a few remain localised or wild (ingá, umbu).

Here are some of them:

Açaí: Palm berry from the Amazon, a popular energy sorbet to have on the beach

Making Açaí juice/sorbet at a beach kiosk

Araçá: Crunchy, refreshing and pear-like fruit with a pink skin and white flesh
Cacau: Cocoa from the Amazon, the word originates from Central American tribes; the white flesh has a subtle vanilla flavour and is amazing in milk shakes
Cajá: Bitter round and yellow fruit, good for jams
Cajú: Cashew nut and fruit (the fruit is popular in Brazil as a juice, nuts get exported)

Pear-shaped cashew fruit and its incredibly hard parrot-beak nut shell

Cupuaçú: Related to cocoa from the Amazon, and great in milk-shakes and ice-cream
Goiaba: Guava, popular as Goiabada- a thick Guava jam which is excellent with cheese

Plentiful goiabas/ guavas at a fruit market

Graviola: Spiny, green skin and pale flesh, also excellent for juices and ice-creams
Guaraná: Red berry full of caffeine, used in commercial soft drinks

New: Guaraná Antarctica, now with Açaí for a double-energy kick!

Ingá: Wild fruit found on the coast, with a white pulp and black seeds in a thin pod

Kids collecting Ingá up high

Ingá up close

Jabuticaba: Small round purple skinned shirt-staining fruit growing on the trunk, popular in jams
Jaca: Jack-fruit; enormous and spiny-skinned, growing on tree trunks, with a delicious yellow flesh

Jaca on a tree trunk

Jenipapo: White pulp and black seeds, also used for body painting by the tribes
Maracujá: Passion-fruit, in Brazil they are baseball-sized, fantastic in sorbets
Pitanga: Mildly-flavoured red berry, growing on sand dunes, great as a cranberry-jelly substitute
Sapucaia: Monkey-head seed pod with a nut inside, traditionally used for trading between tribes
Umbu: Rounded green fruit with a white pulp, roots are also edible, found in the Northeast

Time for a juice break and vitamin boost.