Meet the Jungle Cook Alex Atala

Brazil's top chef puts the Amazon on a plate

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Edu Simoes / The Guardian

In the rain forest outside So Paulo, Atala harvests the tuber manioc.

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Early in the 2000s, he bought 62,000 acres of Amazon land with the notion that he could grow produce for his restaurants and improve the lives of local people. "I had this idea that I would make everything better for the people who lived there," he says. "I'd farm sustainably, and they'd be happy to work for me because I would pay more." To demonstrate his goodwill, he had cartons of staples sent to the villagers. But when he arrived at the farm to visit, piles of trash confronted him; the locals had simply dumped the packaging that the food came in. "I was so mad," Atala recalls. "Here I was trying to do something good for people, and they were turning around and polluting the land." He called a meeting of residents and laid into them about littering but soon realized they had no idea what he was talking about. As he writes in his book, D.O.M.: Rediscovering Brazilian Ingredients, they said, "'For us, the packaging of a fruit is its skin, a fish's are its scales, an ox's is its hide, and these things can all be thrown on the ground. You should not have sent us these things wrapped in plastic.' I grew silent as I realized that playing God is not simple at all."

So he got help, both from field anthropologists and from Amerindian leaders working to protect their people's heritage. He helped launch ATA (the word means fire in Guarani), an institute dedicated to providing sustainable opportunities to Amazonian peoples through food. It now markets chilis grown by communities along the Rio Negro. Small jars of the dried and ground peppers are sold in gourmet shops in São Paulo and Rio, where they fetch a high price.

"The Baniwa have always grown chilis," says anthropologist Renato Martelli Soares. "But through ATA they're getting 45 reals [$20] per kilo. They use the money to improve the community. Plus, they get a sense of pride. They want to be inserted into the modern world and see themselves producing a high-value product."

It doesn't hurt that those chilis come with the endorsement of Brazil's best chef. But Atala is determined not to be just a figurehead at ATA, which is why he spends more and more time in the Amazon. On a recent trip, stirring a pot over an open fire, he helped prepare the tuber manioc with Dona Brasi, a lithe woman in her 60s with a reputation for being the best cook in São Gabriel. She was one of Atala's first guides to Amazon food: the tambaqui fish, so large that its ribs are served whole like a pig's; the priprioca root with its subtle flavors of wood and patchouli; the fermented, umami-rich manioc juice tucupi, a common seasoning. In fact it was she, Atala reminds her, who first taught him to cook with ants. "Ah, but you first taught me about--what do you call it?--foam," she responds with a laugh. "You served me a dish with that on it, and I thought it was spit."

Dona Brasi may not agree, but Atala now sees his food as powerful persuasion. By basing his dishes on Amazonian ingredients, he is teaching upscale diners in São Paulo about the bounty that lies to the north and why it's worth protecting. At the restaurant, river fish shows up swimming with tapioca in a tucupi-scented broth. A ceviche made from indigenous flowers is lightly sweetened with native honey, intensely floral and impossibly delicate. And there are ants, of course, carefully placed atop chunks of pineapple so that they add a citric jolt to the fruit.

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