May-2015
It’s Semptember, it’s the Festival for Cosme and Damião!
Ô Cosme cadê Damião? Hey Cosme, where is Damião?
Ô Cosme cadê Damião? Hey Cosme, where is Damião?
Tá em casa fazendo a oração. He is at home praying.
Cadê ele? Where is he?
Tá em casa fazendo a oração. He is at home praying.
Cadê ele? Where is he?
Em casa fazendo a oração. At home praying.
There are seven children, seven songs and a variety of types of food served on each plate, on a printed tablecloth spread on ground. It’s September, it’s the Festival of Cosme and Damião!
Creuza, a mãe de santo, or priestess, from Salvador who has a house in Itapema (a beach next to Acupe), spent days and days preparing caruru from okra for Cosme and Damião, Saints Cosmas and Damian. Days spent with the family, both immediate and extended, around tables in preparation for such a generous festival. The preparation of food, decoration, and music is where the festive spirit arrives, settles down, and makes room what’s to come.
Caruru, vatapá, white corn, black beans, black eyed peas, chicken stewed in ximxim, white rice, farofa with honey, fried plantains, baked peanuts, dried coconut sliced into strips, yams, pumpkin, sweet potato, popcorn, rapadura, chopped sugarcane, acarajé and abará. Each plate, with a small portion of these foods, establishes a dialog with each orixá, or deity, and with it you ingest protection, respect and knowledge.
As the seven children eat without silverware, just with their hands, the adult organizers sing seven songs for Cosme and Damião.
At the end the children receive sweets, treats and a lot of smiles from the adults that organized this children’s party in such syncretic style.
Once the meal is done, the guests are generously served one by one by the hosts with everything that was served to the children.
With the doors open to the community, the caruru is for everyone, for whoever wants to come in and enjoy the abundance being offered with such effort and devotion by the hosts. Someone that has never participated in this feast may find odd the liberty of walking inside and being greeted with such generosity and gratitude. An experience spiced with hope, where the child is the central theme.
Text and photos: Renata Meirelles
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