What Do People Eat in the Amazon Rainforest?
The people of the Amazon eat many types of food, including meats, such as fish, wild boar and birds, various fruits, nuts and insects. Amazon’s vast jungle provides an open area for the people to hunt for meat, and its forests are rich with exotic fruits, spices and nuts that the people gather.
Some common dishes other than fish include juanes from the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, which consists of rice, herbs and meat. The meat used in juanes is often chicken, and the dish is packed inside a banana leaf, which provides a biodegradable packaging solution. Another dish is suri, or the grubs of the palm weevil, which are skewered on sticks. Brazilian barbecue includes various meats, such as chicken, pork and beef, and it is available at a rodizio, which is a unique restaurant where customers pay in advance and receive different meats.
The people of the Amazon also eat bush meat, which includes different types of animals like monkeys, deer, reptiles, pigs, peccaries, rodents and primates. Some fruits gathered and eaten by the people of the Amazon include passion fruit that grows on vines, acai berries and aguaje, the widely eaten bright yellow fruit that tastes like carrot. Commercially distributed spices, such as cinnamon, vanilla and ginger, are also used by the indigenous people and nuts, such as Brazil nuts and cashews, are common as well.
