ACAI, A GLOBAL SUPER FRUIT, IS DINNER IN THE AMAZON

Clustered high up in the slender, tilting palms of the eastern Amazon, the little purple orbs known as acai look mighty, like blueberries that took a very wrong turn out of Maine. These are no mere muffin makers, though.

Virtually unknown outside the Amazon two decades ago, and until 2000 not exported from Brazil, its major producer, acai (pronounced ah-sigh-EE) is now an international celebrity, riding the wave of the antioxidant craze and rainforest chic. On the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, surfers seeking an energy boost spoon acai smoothies from bowls. In the United States, companies touting its antioxidant powers blend the fruit into Snapple red tea; Red Brick Pizza’s frantically trendy multigrain, whole-wheat artisan crust; and everything from dietary supplements to beauty products.

But for families who live here along the winding, interlaced rivers at the hub of acai production, the fruit has long been a vital part of their diet, a cheap way to fill up and a taste of home. And now, for some, it is a source of newfound prosperity.

In places like Cameta, a town of about 117,000, and Belem, the capital of Para State, a bowl of acai pulp is a filling side dish especially valued by poorer families.

Unlike the pulp used in Rio’s smoothies, the kind here is not pre-sweetened or frozen, but fresh from cylindrical machines known as batedores de acai, “acai beaters,” that remove the thin layer of fruit from the pit. Most every neighborhood has stands or small stores where customers get a daily or weekly supply.

Acai’s international reputation as an energy booster and diet aid tickles those who grew up with it as a caloric side dish.

“I find it funny,” said LetÝcia Galvao, a psychologist who was having a lunch of seafood and acai with her husband and 1-year-old daughter at a restaurant called Point do Acai. “Generally, when you have acai here, you take a nap. There, it’s an energy drink.”

Galvao said that her brother, a doctor living in the southern state of Parana, wasn’t a big acai fan growing up. But these days he asks anyone visiting him from Belem for a liter of the fresh stuff.

“Acai has the taste of our land,” she said. “It’s a way of reconnecting. It’s a taste of childhood.”

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Dinner in the Amaxzon