Mainland Brazil · Volume 39, The Fritter and the Fire

Abará

Name: Abará
Total time: 30 min
Yield: Makes about 15 to 20 parcels
Cuisine: Bahia and the Dendê Coast
Ingredients: 1 batch, from 500g dried peas, as for acarajé black-eyed pea paste, as for acarajé; a thumb, grated ginger, worked through the paste; a generous handful dried shrimp, worked through the paste; as needed, cut into squares banana leaf, cut into squares

Salvador, Bahia

Abará, acarajé's steamed sibling wrapped in banana leaf: a soft pale beige orange steamed parcel, unwrapped and resting half open on a square of dark green banana leaf, the surface smooth and slightly moist rather than crisp.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time: 30 minutes

Researched: No outside sources linked
Reviewed: Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked: Not yet cooked and reported

by Salvador, Bahia

That recognition sits alongside, not instead of, an ongoing and serious conflict. As evangelical, and especially neo-Pentecostal, conversion has grown sharply across north-eastern Brazil, cited growth from roughly 3 per cent to 16 per cent of the population between 1970 and 2010, some baianas themselves converted, and a version of the fritter began appearing rebranded "bolinho de Jesus," deliberately stripped of every visible link to Candomblé: no turban, no reference to Iansã, sometimes a refusal to use the word "acarajé" at all. Some evangelical pastors have preached against Candomblé-linked acarajé from the pulpit as spiritually dangerous. This is not settled history. Brazil's federal human rights hotline recorded 3,853 religious-intolerance complaints in 2024 against 2,128 the year before, an increase of more than 80 per cent in a single year, with Candomblé and Umbanda the two most targeted religions. A named, documented case reaches directly into this chapter's subject: on 15 November 2021, Eliane de Jesus, a baiana and a suspended ekede, a ritual functionary, at a Salvador terreiro, was verbally attacked in the Pelourinho, the city's historic centre, by tourists who called her "preguiçosa," lazy, and "macumbeira," a slur for practitioners of African-descended religion. She filed a formal police complaint the next day. Rita Santos, coordinator of the national vendors' association, put the stakes in the clearest single line this chapter found anywhere in its research: "The host is to the Catholic church what acarajé and abará are to African-matrix religions. All have equal importance." That is the frame this chapter holds throughout: not a curiosity to admire from outside, but a living sacrament for a religious minority currently under real pressure.

Read the history

As tradition built it

Abará

Makes about 15 to 20 parcels. About 30 minutes, plus the base paste as for acarajé.

Ingredients

1 batch, from 500g dried peas, as for acarajé black-eyed pea paste, as for acarajé
a thumb, grated ginger, worked through the paste
a generous handful dried shrimp, worked through the paste
as needed, cut into squares banana leaf, cut into squares

Method

Prepare the same base paste as for acarajé, working ginger and dried shrimp through it.
Pass squares of banana leaf briefly over an open flame to soften and make them pliable.
Spoon the beaten paste into the softened banana leaf squares, folded and tied into neat parcels.
Steam for fifteen to thirty minutes until firm.
Offer specifically to Xangô, to Obá, and to the Ibeji twins.

Notes

Offered specifically to Xangô, to Obá, and to the Ibeji twins.

What a modern chef changes

The same aeration discipline, worked into a steamed parcel

Rung 1, Rung 2

Method

Achieve the aeration with a blender-then-stand-mixer sequence rather than by hand, Rung 1.
Work a small measure of dendê's solid bambá fraction directly into the paste before parcelling rather than only using the liquid fraction, Rung 2, for a richer, more consistent crumb once steamed than the liquid fraction alone gives.
Steam over water lightly perfumed with a bruised stick of lemongrass, a modest, honestly stated addition rather than anything claimed as traditional, since abará's own steaming liquid is not otherwise seasoned.

Open in the atlas: cook mode, scaling and tick off lists