At Lapa Station, you can see a sign announcing: “Acarajé da Cláudia” (Cláudia’s Acarajé). But Cláudia, the owner of the stall, is better known as “the baiana da passarinha” (the “passarinha” Baiana). The queues to buy both delicacies, served separately, are equally long—and large. The queen of her stall for 40 years, she starts the preparations for the “baço do boi” (ox spleen), the famous passarinha, at home, with the help of her husband. She cleans, cooks, seasons (cumin, garlic, salt, lemon), makes the vinaigrette, and prepares her own hot pepper sauce. “You have to have it in your veins, it’s not for everyone. It’s a big process,” she says. At the stall, she fries the snack in palm oil and serves it warm, according to the customer’s taste: “dry, soft, tender.” A popular accompaniment for beer in Bahia, its flavor resembles that of the liver, “but it’s different because of its tenderness,” explains Cláudia, who learned the trade from her mother. According to historian Raul Lody, the tradition of passarinha is a legacy of the visceral trade conducted by “fateiras,” the predecessors of the “baianas.” The origin of the nickname is a mystery, and the recipe, like any tradition, has changed over the years. Cláudia herself adapted her mother’s recipe: “We invent the seasoning, you have to be intelligent about it.”