Cajus Everything Around Me: When keeping it Rio’ goes Raw-ng

I always thought Cashews were a nut. And I’m nuts for ‘em.

Apparently, however, they are actually a seed from a fruit — cashew (or Caju) fruit. The delicacy is as popular here as it is in my heart. At all of Rio’s juice stands you can order Caju fruit juice and buy salted cashews from street vendors.
A strange looking item, the Caju fruit is so tender that it cannot be exported. Before coming to South America I had never encountered the source of my beloved “seed.”

Naturally, I was eventually bound to buy a few Caju fruits myself in order to extract and dine on a cashew or two in their purest form.
Many times Keepin’ It Rio is best achieved by Keepin’ It Raw.

Raw is a term as loaded as an Irishman who lost his flock. But for the purposes of our blog it usually means pure, un-tampered with and honest.

And honestly, it is usually a day-to-day goal of mine while roaming Rio to get raw with the city, at most to all costs. This time the cost was my lips.

I had only consumed a fraction of the nut before learning (via recently bill-paid-up-and-running and saving-my-life Wikipedia) that you must NEVER consume a raw cashew seed.

It’s nestled in a cocoon of the same toxin found in poison ivy. Mid-read my mouth started sizzling and popping like pork in a microwave.

I’m ashamed to admit I freaked-out a little bit. I watered, juiced and soaped my mouth while Aria, one of our three holiday Gringo visitors braved the language barrier storm and created a vitamin C paste for my poison ivy-ed mouth.
Liquids tasted strange for a couple of days but I’ve survived.

In other news, its 2009, so Happy New Year and remember, not everything is best raw.