Brazilian avocado shake blended thick with condensed milk, lime and crushed ice
Origin: Salvador da Bahia & São Paulo, Brazil
From the journey of Avocado.
Brazil is the country that looked at the avocado and decided it was a fruit: a sweet fruit, to be eaten with sugar rather than salt, blended with milk and honey rather than mashed with chilli and lime. This is not naïvety. It is the result of an independent culinary tradition encountering a new ingredient with no prior framework for its classification, and following the logic of texture and nutrition rather than the logic of an established cuisine. The avocado arrived in Brazil in the late seventeenth century via Portuguese traders working the Atlantic route from the Caribbean, and in the tropical warmth of Bahia it grew prolifically. Brazilian cooks, encountering a fruit of extraordinary creaminess and neutral fat, reached for sugar, as they reach for sugar with everything. The vitamina, from vitamina (vitamin, reflecting the Brazilian conviction that blended fruit drinks are medicinal as much as pleasurable), is a national institution. Fruit vitaminas are sold at açaí bars, juice stands, and padarias (bakeries) throughout Brazil from dawn onwards, drunk for breakfast or mid-afternoon. The vitamina de abacate is the richest of them: avocado blended with whole milk or condensed milk, a squeeze of lime to cut the richness, and crushed ice. In São Paulo, it is sometimes made with coconut milk in place of dairy; in the northeast, a spoonful of honey; in Rio de Janeiro, as a dessert drink after dinner. Brazilians who encounter Mexican guacamole for the first time are frequently startled by the combination of avocado and salt. The idea is as foreign to them as eating an avocado shake would be to someone raised in Mexico City.
The vitamina de abacate is essentially a dessert drink in most of the world outside Brazil, but in Brazil it is standard breakfast fare alongside pão de queijo and strong black coffee: the combination sounds implausible and tastes remarkable. For a fully vegan version, substitute the condensed milk with coconut condensed milk (available in most supermarkets) and use plant-based milk. The lime juice is not optional: without it the drink is cloying rather than balanced.
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