Sex & Food in Cinema Series
"It's a very tricky dish."
The Crabmeat “muqueca” Scene.
Based on Jorge Armado’s 1966 comic novel set in in Bahia, Brazil of the 1940s, the 1976 screen adaptation directed by Bruno Barreto (“Four Days in September” (1997), (Bossa Nova (2000)), was one of Brazil’s highest grossing films (long before 2010s Elite Squad: The Enemy Within).
The story is fantastical: Dona Flor’s irresponsible, randy husband Vadinho (played by José Wilker) keels over dead while dancing at Carnival. This scene takes place on the day of the funeral (before she remarries) when Dona Flor (played by Sonja Braga) is shaken but stricken with the idea that she’ll never be with Vadinho sensually again, as her husband, with all his faults, was also a true maestro of the erotic, and for Dona Flor, a lover extraordinaire that taught her about passion and desire. Basically, he turned her out. She remembers his favorite dish, crabmeat “muqueca” (Portuguese: “stew”). Flor, who runs a cooking school, walks us through the recipe and how to cook it in her imagination.
1. “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands” (1976). Director: Bruno Barreto.
“Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands” (1976)
WOMAN: I brought you some tea.
FLOR: Thanks, I don’t want any.
WOMAN: I didn’t ask, drink up!
(beat)
WOMAN: Cheer up, love!
WOMAN: It’s good for you. You’ll feel better. Have some more.
FLOR: (Imagining) Crabmeat muqueca.” Vadinho’s favorite dish.
(Cooking)
FLOR: Wash crabs thoroughly in lemon water. Long enough to clean them but not so that you wash out the taste of the sea. Put them in a frying pan. Carefully, because it’s a very tricky dish. Add four tomatoes…one green pepper, one onion…sliced into rings to give it a nice appearance. And when all is well cooked…add coconut milk and “dende” oil. Serve it hot, as I always did.
(Continuing)
His teeth bit the soft shell crabs…his lips turned yellow from the “dende” oil. Never again his lips, his tongue…Never again his mouth burning with raw onion.
[Scene]