Brazil
Day 35: Salvador
At the Mercado São Joaquim. Soon to be redeveloped, it's a hustling, bustling place where you can get fresh chickens, a surprise shoe shine, and just about anything else.

'Each day that goes by I like it more, much more,' she declares adamantly. 'Cooking for me is like having sex. I feel complete, as if I was having a great orgasm.'
'It must be exhausting every time you make a meal.'
She considers this for a moment, then chuckles.
'No. Making love is more exhausting.'
As a series of fierce downpours whip in off the bay, buffeting the little restaurant, Dadá efficiently but unhurriedly puts together a banquet. Apart from the moqueca, there are mussels with coriander, and redfish stuffed and served with coriander, the kidney bean and shrimp dumplings known as acareje, and farofa, the yellow manioc flour fried in oil with bacon and onion to which I'm rapidly becoming addicted. Then passion fruit and mango to cleanse the palate. Dadá leans across the table when I ask her what makes Bahian food so special, so envied in Brazil.
'Bahian cooking is like the Bahian people. It's very colourful, it smells good, is full of flavour and has a soul.'
When we come out there's a patch of sun amongst the downpours. Whatever the guide books may think about her restaurant, Dadá has been responsible for the best meal I've yet had in the North-East. She's a remarkable, ambitious and determined woman who you feel can do anything she sets herself to. Except, perhaps, for the one thing she really needs to be able to do. Clone herself.
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PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Brazil
- Chapter: Day 35: Salvador
- Country/sea: Brazil
- Place: Salvador
- Book page no: 154
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