Desserts were my gateway to the kitchen – like a kid who’s in a hurry to get to the “sweet” part of the meal. In my childhood, I had the good fortune of knowing a wonderful cook, Lúcia, who ruled over the pots and pans, but allowed me to help…with the desserts, and nothing more.
Among my aunts back home, the notebooks containing dessert recipes were always the most neatly kept. To this day I have my notebook with a red suede paper cover: it was where my mother and my aunts – and my own childish handwriting – recorded everything, from the rainbow jello to the pudim de leite – all homemade.
To my delight, I soon began to prepare the rice pudding I learned from my maternal grandma, the manjar de coco (I always removed the prunes, but later I learned to love them), the pudim de leite, pavês made with all sorts of chocolate, the sorvetões. These were easy to re-create. While still young I learned that even if you follow each step of a recipe, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. I needed that ace in the hole, the trade secret hidden behind the copper pots that cook jams and fruit preserves. Curious about how everything was made, I’ve always enjoyed to watch the process. The beauty of a fruit in a pot, being transformed into something different and wonderful! Not to mention the sweets that came from the farm: the goiabada cascão, the dulce de leche, the doce de coco ralado. And, at last, the sweets my aunts brought back home from their travels: candies made of coffee, milk…
In Brazil, sweets seem to be the combination of a necessity and a whim. Since the arrival of the Portuguese, desserts were incorporated and adapted
to the menus. Fruits were subject to all kinds of experiments: they were turned into jams, candied, gave flavor to custards, puddings, fillings. The recipes from the Portuguese convents were embraced and practiced. Milk and sugar felt madly in love and were combined in the dulce de leche and other delicacies. Coconut and corn came into the sugary versions of foods. And chocolate began to grace the tables after the 19th century.
And so our collection of sweets slowly was formed – plentiful, rich, signaling pleasure and diversity – and, with it, our utter vocation for a type of happiness that comes in small bites, but very diverse ones.