AffectiveandgastronomicmemoriesofmyRiodeJaneirosuburbs

*The following text is a personal account by social scientist Jade Moreira

Image description: This is a photograph of an urban park with a small central pond, surrounded by green vegetation. On the left side, there is a green metal railing. In the background, there are tall industrial buildings, with metal structures and electrical transmission towers. In the distance, there is a hill covered with vegetation. The sky is light blue, without clouds.

The first taste of the suburbs I felt was actually a smell. I remember because I was already collecting memories, in 1997, on Rua Leopoldino de Oliveira in Turiaçu. Every day at 4 p.m. the sweet smell from the Piraquê factory would come in punctually through the windows and doors of the house, leaving us weak, filled with longing, even making my brother float on biscuit smoke all the way to the red, tile-colored building.

- Is there any biscuit left, mister?

For us, the generous little snack used to arrive along with the sound of the little church's bell, at 6 pm, mixed with the hymns on the neighbors' am/fm radio. Eating Mirabel and Presuntinho for free is the privilege of being from Turiaçu (a passageway neighborhood between Madureira and Rocha Miranda). It's good when there's room for the body to make these delicious decisions, little cookies and grape soda during business hours with the sound of home, I realize now. Flavors that stretch time.

Piraquê employees always had some packages of cookies, with never-noticeable defects, that the factory discarded and they distributed to the line of children and mothers with babies in their arms, on Conselheiro Galvão. Every day at sunset people would line up at Piraquê's door. Flavors that organize the community, as in street parties.

I tasted the flavor of red currant syrup in other cups - caipifruta, a classic forbidden to minors (good thing that in the little square by Santa Bárbara church legal age was usually flexible, and the drink seemed to want to sweeten a child's mouth) - condensed milk, guaraná, red currant syrup, canned peaches, lots of ice, lots of ice cream syrup in the big plastic cup and cachaça or vodka — the cheapest one from SENDAS —, blender. Snack stalls flashing skewers with seasoned mayonnaise, innovation, best value on the market. After that it was a matter of seeing whether all that mess stayed inside your body amid the commotion of the rides at an improvised amusement park in the little square. Playing around and shaking with a full belly is a ritual inscribed in our smiling bodies. Feijoadas and mocotó broths followed by samba. Suburban flavors are flavors that get shaken up and shared. A kind of party where everything dances, from the pots to the legs.

The legs of women, carrying aluminum food containers to construction site yards, coming back home with money in their pockets. Grandma's legs, held still while her hands danced, decorating the savory pies with geometrically organized toppings, corn, peas, shoestring potatoes, chopped parsley and chives, plots of mayonnaise and roses made from sliced tomato. Children's legs running toward the friend who had the best mom in the world, the one who sent sardine pizza to the school party. I also don't forget the weekends in Rocha Miranda, on Jacê street, I remember the house where my father had a tree with a hammock in the backyard, I can still savor the memory of drinking beans from a mug before lunch, with lots of pepper ever since I was a little kid. With banana and manioc flour too.

In the suburbs it was normal to be playing all sweaty in the street and suddenly someone would show up at the gate with a hose to wash the sidewalk, and the taste of the water gushing out, drunk with dirty hands, was what brought relief and flavor to life.

Image description: The image is a photograph of a lunch served in a cardboard box. On the left side, there are a few colorful bell peppers and a jar containing a red substance. In the center, a grain-grinding machine is partially visible. On the right, inside the cardboard box, there are servings of white rice, lentils, and meat croquettes. In front, on a wooden board, there are some green beans.

Flavors that move the round aluminum takeout containers with cardboard lids, always made by some neighbor, a housewife. So many times they saved us, whether because the gas ran out, because it was cheap, or because it was home cooking. Solid suburban commensality, these weren't just some silly snack, they were actually the salvation on nights when we needed to eat something. Well served, well mixed, perfect composition, and the smell you usually catch around the neighborhood is the smell of that food made right there and served right there. Just shout for Andrea at her gate or call her house, lunch is served. The best and most common recipes made up the pleasure of eating home-style food. Flavors that bring people closer.

In the suburbs, in Rio's North Zone, at home or on the sidewalks, the alchemy is made by suburban housewives. The drowsiness after eating a quentinha for lunch in Turiaçu, Rocha Miranda, or Engenho de Dentro makes us drift away — that food, beyond satisfying people so intimately in the houses and courtyards of the suburbs, feeds back into the cooks themselves, into the financial realities of the women who make art with pots, spoons, and plenty of garlic, in simple kitchens, in their own kitchens.