🇧🇷 Brazil · Para and the Brazilian Amazon
TacacáAmazonian tucupi and jambu soup
A hot Amazonian soup served in a gourd bowl (cuia): tucupi (a yellow broth boiled from wild cassava juice), cassava starch (goma de tapioca), jambu leaves, which leave a tingling in the mouth, and dried shrimp.
Origin and history
Brazilian press and the federal news agency describe tacacá as a dish with Indigenous roots, central to the food identity of Para and the Amazon. A text in O Liberal says Indigenous consumption goes back to the 18th century and that its systematic street sale was consolidated between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a trade traditionally carried out by women. Iphan opened a public consultation in 2025 on registering the trade of tacacazeira as Brazilian cultural heritage.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 45 min
- Hands-on
- 45 min
Ingredients
- 1 liter1 quart tucupi (boiled, fermented wild-cassava juice), bottled tucupi from Brazilian shops
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 8 leaves chicoria-do-Para (culantro) or common cilantro leaves
- 1 pimenta-de-cheiro (mild aromatic chile), plus 4 small ones to serve; any fresh, mildly hot pepper works
- 1/2 bunch jambu (leaves and a few flowers), stems removed
- 12 medium dried salted shrimp, rinsed to remove excess salt
- 1 liter1 quart water, to boil the shrimp
- 80 g1/2 cup tapioca starch (goma de tapioca)
- coriander and salt, to taste, salt lightly
Method
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1. Put the tucupi in a pot with the garlic, chicoria and pimenta-de-cheiro and bring to a boil, then cover, lower the heat and simmer about 30 minutes.
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2. Add coriander and a little salt, because the tucupi makes salty flavors stronger; set the broth aside with the chicoria.
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3. Boil water to cover the jambu and cook it until it wilts like spinach, then plunge it into ice water to keep it green; drain.
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4. Rinse the dried shrimp, boil them in the liter of water for about 10 minutes, then drain, keeping the water and the shrimp apart.
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5. Let the shrimp water cool, stir in the tapioca starch until smooth, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is a translucent porridge.
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6. Divide the tapioca porridge among bowls (cuias), add the jambu, chicoria and very hot tucupi broth.
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7. Top with the shrimp, a small pimenta-de-cheiro and jambu flowers, and serve boiling hot.
Notes
- Quantities follow a Brazilian recipe for four (Elle Brasil, from a Le Cordon Bleu book of Brazilian recipes); TudoGostoso's version, with no servings stated, uses 2 liters of tucupi, 500 g of dried shrimp and two bunches of jambu for a bigger pot, and cooks sour polvilho (cassava starch) in the shrimp water until it thickens into a porridge.
- Jambu leaves leave a slight tingling in the mouth; use less if you are cautious. It is sold frozen outside Brazil.
- Fresh shrimp, cleaned and boiled with salt, can replace dried shrimp (the Elle tip); the flavor is milder. Common chicory-type herbs and any mild fresh pepper can stand in for the Amazonian ones.
- Tacacá is sold by tacacazeiras, traditionally women, on the streets of Belem and across the North, and is served in a natural gourd bowl (cuia), which keeps it hot.
- Raw tucupi is poisonous because of hydrocyanic acid and is made safe by long cooking; always use tucupi that has been boiled, as sold bottled.
Adapted from Elle Brasil, O que e tacaca e como preparar essa receita and TudoGostoso, Tacaca.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.