text: Samba, Amazon fruits and fish at Brazil's Ver-O-Peso market | Hosted
  BC-LT--Brazil-Amazon Food Market
  BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Exotic Amazonian fruits, medicinal tonics with natural ingredients from the rainforest that claim to cure it all and freshwater fish served fried with a side of thick, deep purple acai juice.
  Bands huddled in a circle that sing, tap on tambourines and bang drums to the rhythm of Samba. And the impromptu dancing fueled by plenty of Brazil's cachaca sugarcane liquor — some in bottles filled with jambú, the Amazonian herb that sparks a tingling, electric shock-like sensation to the tongue.
  It's all here, at the noisy, crowded and always colorful Ver-o-Peso riverside market in the Brazilian port city of Belem. The open-air market is the icon of a city once known for the rubber trade, but that is now best known as the culinary capital of the Amazon.
  It's also at the epicenter for the trade of the oily purple berry of the acai palm tree that is a staple of native Amazon cuisine and a hot item in global foodie world.
  "Everything about the acai is good. It's the best fruit that we have on this Earth," said Walter Pinheiro Ribeiro, who has been selling the fruit for 25 years in the port. Some of the acai's fans say it is as an anti-aging elixir, combats cholesterol and even acts as an aphrodisiac.
  "The secret here is love — that's the best seasoning," said Osvaldina da Silva Ferreira, who has been cooking at her "Dona Osvaldina" fish stand at the market for 48 years. On a recent day, she served a meal of large shrimp with garlic and a fried fillet of piracucu with a side of beans and acai.
  "The Amazon is richness," she said proudly about the river and the rainforest. "Anything you want, you'll find it here."
  "This market is the eighth wonder (of the world)," Roberto Da Silva Souza, who has been selling fish at the market for 50 years, said about the building. "If you observe closely, you'll see that this old structure was done with a lot of wisdom and intelligence. Look at these pillars."
  "This job at Ver-O-Peso is a therapy for me. It's an exercise for my mind," he said. "I feel bad, I get sick when I don't come here. I got used to it. This is my home."