Jambu!! My wife and I are obsessed with this stuff, hah. We went to north Brazil (near Fortaleza) to spend time with her family. Her stepdad kept trying to find cachaça (pronounced "cashasa") infused jambu for me to try. No luck. Even in Brazil jambu is not that well known and is hard to find. It's easier to get in the north (closer to where it grows supposedly). We've been doing a running poll where we ask all her Brazilian friends, family, etc if they've tried jambu and most have never heard of it. Back to our time in north Brazil: eventually we're at a wonderful gourmet restaurant and we ask if they have any jambu and the waiter goes to the kitchen and comes back with the chef. Not only did they have a quality cachaça with jambu for us to try but the chef also prepared a jambu flower with some kind of oil. My whole mouth got numb. Also if you find yourself quite drunk the first time you try cachaça with jambu (like I was) take care to only have a little sip because a big one could make you throw up. Side note Brazilians call the "pins and needles" sensation of having a leg fall asleep "formigando" which comes from their word for ants ("formiga"). In other words instead of "pins and needles" they think of it as ants crawling on your leg. Anywho jambu is definitely an experience and Brazil is a very cool place. Also you can gain brownie points with Brasilians by spelling Brasil with an "s" ;D
I did a road trip from the extreme south to São Paulo (1500km+) last month and found jambu-infused cachaça in the four different states I've been to. Def a recent thing though. I even saw jambu risotto and pastel (stuffed fried crust pie).
So a recent thing indeed. Living in São Paulo I never heard of jambu (I also do not drink alcohol, and apparently it is more interesting to consume with alcohol, so it might explain).
I've had jambu in São Paulo many times, although I admit that I visit the city multiple times a year just to eat. It's easy to find tacacá, pirarucu, chicken/duck with tucupi and so on.
It's a very local thing in the sense that outside Brazil it isn't well known. But nearly everyone in the country will have eaten one, it's quite popular. Hell, I like them so much, my wife gets me birthday pastels instead of birthday cake.
The plant that’s the topic of the story is a flowering herb. The plant you are asking about is called Syzygium samarangense and what you’re describing are the fruits of trees.
Yet another tidbit: your use of "tidbit" here is very appropriate given its etymology and the fact that we're talking about food! https://www.etymonline.com/word/tidbit
Oh hell, cachaça in general is such a strong liquor. I remember when I was in Brasil last I went to a restaurant where they had a bottle sitting in the front with little cups just to pour yourself a shot if you wanted one, almost like where you'd find free mints and toothpicks in many other countries. It took me by surprise that they'd have such a strong liquor sitting in the front of a place to drink for free after lunch like that, but when in Brasil... Would love to try some with jambu in it. Reminds me a little bit of salmiakki koskenkorva out of Finland [1], which is salty licorice vodka, salted with ammonium chloride, not NaCl, which definitely has a bit of a weird effect on your mouth.
Amazing cuisine in that country and the people are incredibly nice and friendly. Would love to return some day again.
> Oh hell, cachaça in general is such a strong liquor
In my experience it runs from ~80 to <120 proof (and most commonly ~80), which is in the same range as rum and bourbon, unless you're in a state/country with some crazy restrictions I guess?
Everclear and Bacardi 151 are waaaay stronger than any cachaca I've ever seen.
It just has a kick to it that other sugarcane liquor doesn't seem to have as much, like it's got some extra flavor to it which I wouldn't describe as sweet like I would rum or guaro for instance. Maybe it's just the stuff I tried though.
I'm from Fortaleza and never heard about Jambu before. I actually thought it was Jambo misspelled.
Everything you said about Brazil seems true to me. And for anyone thinking about visiting us: people from here a very receptive, especially with curious and respectful tourists.
No problems finding it in Belem 6 years ago. +1 on the "a little sip" - but I think that's true for any alcoholic beverage one drinks for yet another effect than the ones induced by alcohol (e.g. Absinthe).
Minor nit: Sichuan pepper is not a chili pepper or closely related to black pepper. It's the husk of the fruit of a tree that grows in the region. It's not particularly spicy on its own - the appeal is the numbing, tingling sensation (called málà, literally numbing spiciness) which serves as a complement to the capsaicin-based spiciness that Sichuanese cuisine is known for.
Even more minor nit: ma2la4 is actually the combination of flavors of both numbness (ma2, 麻) and spiciness (la4, 辣). The latter is commonly used outside the combined descriptor to signify normal capsaicin spice in food.
Off topic, but the "ma" in mapo tofu also uses same character from ma2la4, but also serves to give a visual description of the dish. That character is also used to refer to a pockmarked person, and the po2 is from one of the various ways to refer to grandmother. You could probably go as far to say it's something of a pun.
Garlic has a different chemical in it (allicin), but it hits the same receptors as capsaicin. If you've ever tasted a chimichurri with a ton of raw garlic before it's had a chance to mellow out in the oil, you'll attest that garlic can indeed be spicy.
Here are the main chemicals that are usually described as spicy - they all use the same mechanism to create a "heat" sensation, with the exception of the Sichuan peppercorns:
It's the same in German. Hot mustard is "scharf" meaning sharp, but in the USA you would buy "spicy" brown mustard.
Horseradish is sharp. Habaneros are hot/spicy.
I agree that a raw garlic clove or the right raw onion can be "spicy", but they dont have a heat profile like something loaded with capsaicin.
Sharp seems reasonable, but I've never heard someone use it to describe garlic in isolation. I've only heard people use it when describing garlic flavor as part of a dish eg. "This pasta has a sharp garlic flavor".
Fresh raw garlic really burns, and I think it's quite normal to describe it as hot or spicy in American English.
Thanks for explaining that. I always wondered how sichuan pepper could cause such a different reaction to regular black or chili pepper, and now it makes sense
Sort of, but not exactly. Cloves contain eugenol which can act as a mild anesthetic. Sichuan peppers contain hydroxy-alpha-sanshool another organic alcohol that is pretty different chemically, I think.
cloves are sweet right? cloves have a pleasant taste and they don't taste "spicy" at all. I occasionally chew some cloves as a mouth freshener and I don't feel any overwhelming spicy-ness like black pepper or chilli pepper
Sichuan peppers are also not spicy at all. They have an intense herbal/mineral/fruity flavor that's hard to find comparisons for but it is nothing like the "heat" you get from any other foods considered hot like chili pepper, black pepper, ginger, raw garlic, etc.
I only recently became aware of the Sichuan "pepper" or at least its effects. Maybe I had somehow managed to never get it in large enough quantities to notice (I have certainly eaten Sichuan/Szechuan food many times in my life), but a recent experience with a a Sichuan dish that had a lot of Sichuan oil in it gave me the full mouth-numbing experience. I have to say I have been hooked ever since.
For decades Sichuan pepper was loosely banned then required to be heated to import in to the US (and likely other countries) because of a fear of citrus canker and the heat killed the numbing chemical. That has changed but you still need properly prepared and relatively fresh husks to get the effect. I've eaten Sichuan food my entire life but never had anything numbing until I went to China.
> you still need properly prepared and relatively fresh husks to get the effect
In the UK here. I've found that any old bag of dried, ground, Sichuan pepper, or dried Sichuan pepper corns that you grind yourself, will cause the effect. No need for 'proper preparation' or freshness, just sprinkle Sichuan pepper on the food.
The pepper is greenish in colour. Just add liberally and you'll get the numbness.
I bought a jar from my local high end gourmet market and got nothing from them. Then bought some off Penzeys and not only do I get the numbing effect but the husks have an intense fruity flavor that is not present in the other brand.
There are two different kinds - red and green. The red ones are the ones you usually find in dried format, and imo they aren't very numbing unless you really crush up a lot of them. The green ones tend to have more fruitiness and numbing power, especially if you can get them fresh. Otherwise it's probably easier to just buy the pre-seasoned oil.
> There are two different kinds - red and green. The red ones are the ones you usually find in dried format, and imo they aren't very numbing unless you really crush up a lot of them. The green ones tend to have more fruitiness and numbing power, especially if you can get them fresh. Otherwise it's probably easier to just buy the pre-seasoned oil.
The red ones are the ones that are normally used in Sichuan cooking and they are plenty numbing.
The green ones (from a slightly different species) are more common in Japanese cooking
You don't really want to substitute them for each other.
I don't know enough about Japanese cooking to comment extensively on that, but I do know that there is an ingredient called sanshō that looks similar to green Sichuan peppers. That is not the ingredient I am talking about.
From my observations living in China, shopping at wet markets and eating in restaurants, green Sichuan pepper is quite commonly used. Both red and green variants are sold in dry format, but the red ones are the ones you will find more often pre-packaged in supermarkets. They do both work to create a numbing sensation, but in my opinion, the green ones get you more bang for your buck.
It seems like you're right and they're different; there are apparently a whole bunch of different species.
Sansho is Zanthoxylum piperitum and green sichuan pepper apparently may be Zanthoxylum armatum, so red sichuan pepper, green sichuan pepper, and sansho may all be different species.
There is also Zanthoxylum schinifolium which is apparently used in Korean "Sancho".
I recently opened a bag of Sichuan pepper bought from a street vendor in Sichuan fifteen years ago. Still highly potent, more so than the stuff carried by local import stores.
We don't usually eat them raw as it is just like peppercorns. The common treatment is to pour heated oil (a higher smoking one) over it to excite its flavour. Still numbing though if you happen to chew one.
Your use of of the Wade-Giles "Szechuan" is telling; when written as such it refers to subclass of Chinese-American food catered to American tastes. It's great food in its own right, but not what its name suggests.
In Sichuan they put this stuff in everything. Start off with a breakfast of Numbing & Spicy beef noodle soup. Mid morning a snack of cold rice noodles with lajao & haujao paste on it. ChuanChuan for lunch, Hot Pot for dinner and finish it off with a spicy BBQ in the evening.
I once had these in a speakeasy in downtown Louisville, KY with a cocktail called "Acid Cat Spirit Guide." We ordered a round of them and all the guy said was, "eat the flower and drink the drink."
It was a pretty fun experience! The flower itself does not taste good—very grassy with an unpleasant texture—but the numbing effect was really fun, especially experienced as group.
I grow these and you can find them on rareseeds.com known as toothache plant. They are also know a Sichuan Buttons. It’s fun giving them to guests. This year some bugs got to them but I think they will recover. I wanted to make a cocktail with them.
any tips on creating cocktail recipes, or good cocktails to make at a party? I want to learn to make fun cocktails now that the standard starting price of a cocktail in the DC area is $12-15 (way too expensive for my taste) but don't know how to start. Buying liquor is easy because it can be used in different cocktails, but I want to avoid spending a lot for some ingredient that only works in a single recipe
1. Buy a cocktail book. I got one ages ago, so I'm not sure what I'd recommend today.
2. Pick one cocktail that you like and get the ingredients for it. Master it.
3. Slowly branch out to nearby cocktails that only vary by an ingredient or two.
4. Keep exploring that way.
Like other culinary stuff, cocktails tend to be organized into a large web of related drinks. So once you pick a starting point, you can just incrementally explore the graph without having to buy a pile of ingredients.
Eventually you will amass a pile of ingredients. But, fortunately, most last a very long time.
As far as a party goes, it depends a lot on your guests. In particular, their age. Cocktails go through fashion cycles like everything else and younger guests are more dialed in to those so will probably prefer whatever cocktails are big right now. I'm too old to know what that is but I know mules got super popular for a while.
Older guests will generally have a standby or two that they know they like.
If you just want to ensure everyone has a good time, I'd get sufficient beer and wine and then pick a popular cocktail or two. Anyone who doesn't like those particular cocktails can simply default to beer or wine.
If you want to have a "cocktail party" where everyone is encouraged to focus on those, then good coverage would be:
1. Something sweet and fruity for those who don't like a strong liquor taste. Cosmopolitans are good for this. Tropical drinks like mai tais can be good too, though rum might be too strong for some.
2. Something long for people who want a lighter, larger drink. "Long" means mixed with a carbonated beverage. This could be as simple as a Jack and coke or fancier like a Tom Collins. Gin and tonics are great.
3. Something whiskey-based. People who like whiskey really like whiskey. Old fashioneds work well or manhattans if you're a little more adventurous.
Talking to bartenders when you're at a bar is always great way to learn more. Just try not to bug them if they're clearly busy attending to patrons.
> once you pick a starting point, you can just incrementally explore the graph without having to buy a pile of ingredients.
That's exactly what I was picturing so thanks for the tips. Especially your intro steps and the coverage points. I specifically want to be able to make cocktails for friends at regular hangouts or as a fun activity at get-togethers/parties, so having good coverage is an especially important goal for me. I feel motivated to give it a shot now; I think I'll try Death & Co since a past coworker got into that, or just look around and see what's popular these days.
One more follow-up question, after getting some experience with cocktails, have you been able to replicate cocktails you try at bars? That's another skill I'd enjoy having because I really enjoy most craft cocktails at bars, but I draw complete blanks when I try making my own recipes at home (unsurprising since I haven't really gotten into the craft), so I'd love to be able to replicate ones I try
I highly recommend the book Joy of Mixology by Gary Regan. It categorizes cocktails into logical groupings that explain how to methodically substitute an ingredient to adjust the flavor without creating an imbalanced drink. Most unique cocktails you find at bars are twists on existing themes, so once you grok those fundamentals it becomes easier to recognize what was tweaked.
that sounds awesome, thanks for the recommendation. that sounds like exactly how I'd want to start, and the explanations sound like exactly what I'd want, too.
I haven't been as into cocktails as I used to be (having kids and getting older curtailed it), so it's been a long time since I've tried to replicate the cocktail experience I've had at bars.
I don't know if I ever tried to directly replicate cocktails that I've had in bars. I mostly just focused on picking recipes and then iterating on them until I got them dialed in. It's a fun place to just explore.
What I did learn, though, is that almost all of the craft cocktails I see on menus are really just variations on a few basic classic cocktails. They'll give it a fancy name and tweak a few secondary ingredients, but in general, if it's got whiskey, it's often a variation on an old fashioned or Manhattan. (City names are a clue for the latter.) If it has simple syrup and citrus, it's in the ballpark of a sour.
Great point. That helps reduce the perceived solution space in my head for how a cocktail is made. as a noob it sometimes feels like a black box where these crazy recipes and ingredients come together to make something tasty. I'll start looking for core or common ingredients and preparation methods
It hasn't been updated in a while, but www.drinkboy.com is a nice site for learning cocktail recipes. The author also has a series of videos demonstrating how to mix various cocktails on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL87FA3F25BCD5B827
Don’t overcrowd them and watch out for insects. They don’t seem to mind the heat once established. I started them inside and I should’ve used a larger container. They overgrew the seed start containers fast.
I was wondering about what Sichuan Pepper is. It's Huajiao. Yeah. I loved the numbing effect along with other actual hot peppers for hot pot. My Chinese ex, however, loved it so much literally got stomach ulcer and later also had Cholangitis and had to have surgery. It's a lot of pain, so please do not over indulge.
Im sorry for laughing at your comment, it was fun to read and now Im wondering how much does it affect on general population, surely chinese population must have a huge % of people with ulcers at the very least
They do as far as my observation can be a valid evidence. A decade ago when I went to a hospital in China, the line to the ailments of the stomach and intestine was the longest, and this was true in several hospital across different provinces.
There's also a prickly ash native (I think) to the american midwest. It must be pretty closely related to the sichuan one because the husks look very similar and have the same tingly property, though the other flavors are muted in comparison. It's equivalent to mediocre quality imported sichuan pepper.
I used to forage it back when we could only get the really shitty stuff in the states, though I haven't gone looking for it for years now since we can get the high quality easily these days.
Visiting the deep amazon during COVID, I literally ate too much stuff (one of those nice, AYCA amazon lodges). Every date, I mixed all kinds of delicious things in a buffett setting, and constantly loaded with carbs. It was vacation, after all.
I normally do intermittent fasting and stay away from carbs during the work week. I don't do buffet and usually don't have 2 daily meals, let alone 3.
So, after 2-3 days of repeating the feast -3 times a day-, my stomach and intestines finally went on strike. I ended up with a strong reaction with a loose stool. 2 days later, it would still not go away. It was constant. I was chained to the bathroom. The rest of the family didn't overeat + mix everything, so naturally they were totally fine.
Finally on the 3rd day, I gave up on waiting it out and asked for help from our jungle guide.
He told me to have oregano tea, so had 2 cups. The change was instantaneous. Just like the article, all the locals from the amazon knew this was the standard remedy for diarrhea.
I googled this afterwards. None of the top hits for home remedy for diarrhea even mentioned oregano tea once in their articles. A medical dietitian had a 1 word link back to diarrhea in a "oregano health benefits" article [1].
Its crazy how ignorant we are of natural methods, and makes me wonder what other wonderful natural medicines are waiting to be re-discovered in the amazon.
Where did you go in the Amazon and how did you get there? I was surprised to learn that not many Brazilians have ever been to the Amazon. But it makes sense once you realize that it's hard to get there and it takes a long time.
Visiting the Amazon is a 2000-3000 km trip from most large cities in the country, fuel prices and plane tickets are awfully expensive right now, and for most history, so it's a trip that would cost multiple times the minimum wage in Brazil. So it's not that surprising most people in the country din't ever visit there, unless they were already born close to it. Also, the most easily reachable parts are already very degraded. Roads spell doom to the forest. Pristine forest is far from the areas with affordable amenities that would please most tourists. In the brief time period air travel became more affordable, in the Lula-Dilma government terms, most people that could travel skipped domestic tourism and went straight into international travel, as from large cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro a plane ticket to Argentina, Chile, or even Europe used to be very often cheaper than a ticket to, say, Manaus.
> Also, the most easily reachable parts are already very degraded. Roads spell doom to the forest. Pristine forest is far from the areas with affordable amenities that would please most tourists.
That's not really correct in my experience. You can find "deep wilderness" in about 30-40 minutes from the city of Manaus (by boat), as in places with no human activity at all. And Manaus is very reachable (actually what people consider "the Amazon").
The city doesn't sprawl too far, and you have deforestation along the roads, but it's quite impressive how the "deep" jungle starts just after the last man-made structure. There are more areas of uninterrupted forest than in any other region probably in the world. And I visited in 2020, not really long ago.
I'm Brazilian and I didn't really expect that, knowing our bad track record of deforestation. I thought the "real" jungle would be much further away. Coming from the Southeast of Brazil I can see the difference, and I'd call forests in this region definitely degraded. But up there it's as close to pristine as it gets with human involvement. The tragedy is that it's not for long.
You can get to the Amazon from Quito with a 5 hour drive that is very pleasant. Then the road ends and you take a boat that can be anything from 30mins to several hours, depending how deep into the jungle you are going.
Once there, there's tons to do. Floating in an amazon tributary river -with no sound other than the occasional bird- and closing my eyes was one of the most incredible zen moments in my life. Could have stayed hours. That week went by too fast.
Regarding your brazil experience - doesn't seem uncommon. I've asked Peruvians, Ecuadoreans, Brazilians etc if they have gone to the Amazon. The answer is no.
Its not dissimilar to the experience you would get in the US if you asked someone if they have been to Mt Rushmore, Florida Keys, Grand Canyon, or even Yellowstone. Its far, and mostly out of reach for most americans (and we are far wealthier than our southern neighbors).
Also, I get a sense that touristic developments deep in South America wilderness tend to cater to foreign tourists. Such prices may be out of reach for most upper class locals. This is different from most US landmarks, which seem to cater primarily to middle class Americans (anecdata).
I came from Amazonas, a Brazilian state which contains most of the Brazilian Amazon. And yes not many Brazilians know the Amazon, most probably live as far from the Amazon as US is (Brazil is really big!).
It's wild how close this is to true, but by my measurement the shortest distance between the US mainland (so not counting Puerto Rico) and the nearest point I can see in the Amazon [white outline in 0, for lack of a better reference] is ~1,650 miles, and there is nowhere in Brazil that is more than 1600 miles.
The northernmost part of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the southernmost part of Brazil. So yes, there are places on the US that are closer to the Amazon than some places in Brazil
> There isn't much to do there if you aren't a fan of raw wilderness and extreme heat
Mostly this. If you want to see exotic animals, you'll be probably more comfortable on a Zoo. Favorite touristic points of Brazil seems to be northeast beach or coldest parts of the south. I was in vacation in Florianopolis, a capital city in the south, in 2019 and every time I said I was from the northeast they asked me: "and why are you wasting your vacation here?"
I'm Brazillian and lived in Rondônia, extreme west of the Amazon. Never heard about oregano tea being good for the intestines, will try it if I ever need again.
Now, don't put so much trust on the "knowledge of the natives". That knowledge is not maintained by centuries because native indians didn't develop writing, so recipes vary a lot even from one city to another; there are different fruits or plants which have the same name in different regions and the same fruit or plant may have different names in different regions. It is also not tested with a large genetic pool since these groups are very small, familiar with little genetic diversity.
Read about Copaiba oil. It's a Brazilian oil from a tree. This thing is amazing. I used to always have earache after a couple of days diving in the ocean until I used one little drop of Copaiba oil in my ears. No more earache. Never again! It has multiple uses. Take a look at it.
These don't taste great on their own (kinda grassy) but they give a more intense pins & needles feeling.
They're much stronger than any sane amount of Sichuan pepper -- but shorter lasting, and they change food's flavor in a slightly different way. I can't quite describe how, as I've only had them with a specific cocktail at Mcclellans Retreat in DC.
I'd recommend it if you're ever nearby, cool drink and it's also a great neighborhood cocktail bar.
> similar to – but stronger than – the Chinese spice
Most Sichuan peppers sold in the West have been sitting around for years and have barely any numbing effect. There are also two different common varieties: the one almost always seen in the West is Zanthoxylum bungeanum, the red Sichuan pepper
(红花椒), but in China they also use a lot of Zanthoxylum armatum aka green Sichuan peppers (麻椒 or 青花椒). The green ones are much more strongly numbing and can even be eaten fresh (藤椒), with an effect not unlike putting Pop Rocks into your food!
I've also always felt that "numbing" is a wholly inadequate translation for 麻, which in Chinese is also used for anesthesia, the hemp plant, etc. It doesn't just numb your taste buds, but alters them: for me even plain water tastes thick and salty afterwards.
I saw her live a few weeks ago on her latest tour and wow… Her performance is absolutely breathtaking. To any bystander reading this, if you ever have the opportunity it’s a must.
If people are interested in trying something different, they also mention cachaça. Sometimes called "Brazilian rum" which is a bit inaccurate. It's getting easier to find, but it's still best to avoid the cheap versions (such as the 51 brand which is terrible). Look for restaurants serving a cocktail called a caipirinha, which is the national drink of Brazil, as the best intro.
I was a bit obsessed with Sichuan peppercorns a few years back..
If one wants to have a good introduction to them, Huang Fei Hong Spicy Peanuts are on Amazon and many asian grocers.. they consistently have fresh and numbing pods mixed in.
I've never got good numbing Sichuan peppercorns retail in the US, but have gotten some really strong ones off of Amazon.
Try the Mala Market 0]. They have really good Sichuan products that are hard to find in the US. The quality is really good as they are a low volume business and travel to China to pick specific items. They definitely charge for this, but the quality for some things is well worth it.
I use them for things I can't get locally like rapeseed oil (caiziyou) or where the quality is wildly better like Sichuan peppercorns, Facing Heaven chiles, extra aged Pixian Douban Jiang. They used to be the source for Yibin Yacai, but now you can find that on Amazon and finally one of the local Chinatown grocers started carrying that for about 1/4th the cost.
Nice, now I have the urgent need to go to one of the true Chinese restaurants that I know, the sichuan style beef maybe is not the same that you are going to find in china, but it’s really different enough from the rest of Chinese restaurants that I know
Whole Sichuan peppercorns are most prominently used in Sichuan cooking where they can be the star of a dish (e.g. mapo tofu). However, the powder form is a central ingredient in the so-called "Five Spices" mix:
Honestly, I wish it was more of a staple if anything. It's surprisingly hard to find really good Sichuanese food. I've had mapo tofu that ends up tasting more like a poorly done Hunan dish because of an unpleasant sourness and thickened sauce, even in restaurants that claim to be Sichuanese.
By far though, one of the best Sichaunese dishes which is unfortunately (and surprisingly) overlooked is their whitefish. If you know you know.
Dried peppercorns are found in most Chinese kitchens. It's not used in every dish, but it's certainly a staple in any Chinese pantry. The related Sansho peppercorn is used like black pepper in Japanese cooking.
Dried peppercorns are not necessarily Sichuan peppers, which are distinctly used in Sichuan cuisine. So while it may be a staple in Chinese pantry (and mine too) it is certainly tied to specific cuisine.
Looks like we're quickly going into semantics but I maintain that it isn't "a staple" of Chinese cuisine in general. It's very regional and many regions will not notice a shortage of them.
Bread is a staple of French (and European) cuisine, cayenne pepper is found is found in most kitchens but isn't.
Jambu taste/effect is very weird but very pleasurable. I really hope it launches and get popular.. I live in south of Brazil and NONE of my local friends ever tried or heard about it.
Ah! Acmella oleracea — also known as a Szechuan Button. Chandelier Bar at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas famously does an off-menu cocktail with Jambú called The Verbena.
