Neide is one of the most famous tacacazeiras (vendors of tacacá) in Belém, and she also makes the most desired maniçoba in the city. She learned the recipe from her grandmother Leonice, a pioneer who sold her Amazonian dishes on Nazaré Avenue for over half a century. The recipe for “Paraense feijoada” has been kept alive by Neide, who took over her matriarch’s food stall in 1997. The dish is of indigenous heritage, laborious, and requires time to make, starting with the cooking of maniva, a ground and cooked cassava leaf, for seven days to eliminate the poisonous cyanogenic acid. However, Neide buys ready-to-use maniva, as well as all the meats — pork belly, sausage, tripe, jerked beef, pig ears, ribs, calabresa sausage, and bacon — at the Ver-o-Peso market. She then prepares everything at home and takes it to the stall, where she heats and serves it with sautéed jambu, dried shrimp, and manioc flour. “Our Paraense cuisine is recognized worldwide,” says Neide proudly, who now teaches her niece the craft, fearing the loss of family tradition. “My grandma is in heaven, but her cuisine is here,” she says, touched.