Conmebol has played an important role in world football since 1916, when between the 2nd and the 17th of a cold July in Buenos Aires the first ever Copa America was hosted in celebration of 100 years of Argentine independence from Spain. Centennial celebrations have become a major part of international football tournaments with the first ever world cup being hosted in Montevideo in 1930, celebrating, . . yeah, you’ve guessed it, 100 years of Uruguayan independence from Spain. Conmebol was officially formed during that first South American championship and has organized 42 continental tournaments in the following 95 years and this Saturday, the 1st of July 2011, the 43rd edition begins in Buenos Aires.
Unusually, several nations from other continents have participated, including Costa Rica, USA and Mexico most frequently. Surprisingly, Japan has also participated, back in 1999 and even humble Honduras competed in 2001! Amazingly, Honduras’ participation is recorded statistically as far superior to Japan’s while most of us would recognize Japan as a footballing nation of note, while Honduras are purely participative in most respects.
There are many unique aspects to this continent’s tournament but I shall add that it is the longest established continental tournament and it is also the most frequently performed continental championship, occurring evry two years. Perhaps our South American competitive sports fields are part of the reason for such a peaceful continent. As nations we compete on the grass inside stadiums and there is no reason to decide more things beyond purely diplomatically.
Conmebol’s footballing conflicts have worldwide respect and a formidable reputation in addition to being extraordinary spectacles. Part of the wonder of South American football is that there are several minnows, or nations that are usually considered football fodder for the principle pioneers and these encounters can produce goal splurges, good entertainment and a training spectacle for the matches that are more evenly balanced in the final weeks of the tournament.
We can expect second phase dominance from Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay and Uruguay, although all permanent members are improving and there seems to be a spiralling improvement in standards. So, just do it, book your flight to Buenos Aires and make the best of this right now. If you can’t make it down, check these website links and you can make the best from right where you are. Just use your internet connections and follow this most noble of continental sporting events with livestream technologies.
http://www.conmebol.com/secciones/copa_america.html
http://www.stream2watch.com/
http://www.soccertvlive.net/
28 June 2011
11 June 2011
Acarajé
Can you imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago, travelling from Africa or Europe to the Americas in a wooden ship? Or canoeing the Labrador Straits on a long summers’ day or a few? You can pick up an atlas before visiting the Americas or just keep using the net.
I think we should all make intercontinental historical learning part of our personal identities and just reading a little and then imagining sailing across the enormous Atlantic or the vast Pacific, for weeks, or even months on end, in a tiny vessel, a little bigger than a double decker bus! Whether by choice or as was more common, forced to travel and work on the flimsy vessels that carried so little material wealth, to finally, if we survived the horrific transatlantic journey, begin ‘another life’ in a strange land, South America.
Many Europeans were enticed onto the Iberian boats because of economic debt and were told it was work to free them from possible imprisonment or other punishments. Freedom was almost certainly used as encouragement to enter the ocean-going fray, as well as a few silver or gold-looking coins. The Atlantic appeared to be the only frontier between Africa&Europe and North&South America. For many Africans who arrived in the ‘new world’ soon after the Spanish&Portuguese, there were some familiarities on this side of the second largest of the planet’s oceans; a tropical climate, similar vegetation, red soil and many inventive and innovative African migrants also made a home from home; carrying intellectual heritage, continuing with African traditions. Bob Marley & The Wailers’ ‘Buffalo Soldier’ tells this history succinctly, as does the disc, “Survival”. That experience has been expounded for centuries, ever since the mercantile systems enslaved us.
The positivity of those horrors is probably most abundantly apparent in the northeast of Brazil within the continent of South America, where American culture is most ostentatiously represented in so many aspects of life, especially in Bahia, where most of us are proud of a shared African heritage. We can all take pride from so many survival experiences, whether contemporary or through shared historical, human heritage.
In this piece of writing, I’d like to focus our attention on a single icon of Afro-Brazilian life. There are dozens of possible cultural items in Brazil that can be considered exclusively African. We can argue the traditional clothing of a ‘bahiana’ is the closest thing we have to national Brazilian dress, without neglecting indigenous clothing styles, although that oft disproportionately immense robe, ostentatiously resembles traditional European fashions, it is currently almost always worn by African-looking well-built women. I can add that at some point this site will receive a post on the musical genres that have been firmly concentrated in Bahia and the powerful influence of Bahian music, not only on the rest of Brasil but also on neighbouring nations around the globe. I can also make reference with many more Afro-Brazilian iconographic realities.
For this month, my choice of Afro-Brazilian iconography is the humble ‘acarajé’. Although it is nothing huge, it is in fact an incredibly simple example of culinary cunning, with cultural weight, strength and depth. This delicious street snack is widely recognized to have its roots in west Africa and has been passed from generation to generation, thus evolving as a truly Brazilian, tropical, family snack. To prepare acarajé, we use some flour, normally from mandioca; a popular root vegetable, oil, herbs and spices.
If there are similarities in western Africa, I’d love to know more of the cauldron wielding men&women, who fry for a living in or near millennia of marketplaces. While a most usual ingredient as a filling, is ‘vatapá’, which could have its very own post (come to think of it, why not write a book on vatapá) itself, any filling might be added to taste, for any and every ‘acarajé’. When preparing this deep fried aperitif, we also like to have another simple additional item at the ready and many expect to be able to add this pungent condiment in order to fire up our acarajés. Of course, it is pepper, but as is regular, from Cuba to Buenos Aires and probably in more South American locations (we’ll probably just be referring to Latin America in a few hundred years) , there is a certain reputation in the Americas of the Atlantic, for the best and most overpowering of chilli sauces and if you can try it, then you should, with ‘malagueta’, possibly the most intense of all the peppers. As always, worldbound pepper pungencies could be compared!
It is recommended that if you are visiting Salvador, you should top up your energy levels with street stall salespersons, who are often referred to as ‘bahianas’. They are easily identifiable, wearing huge white dresses, colourful headscarves, sometimes incessantly smiling and are to be found at many tourist points. Their culinary expertise is more than admirable and those cumbersome dresses are an internationally recognized cultural emblem, most closely associated with Salvador, Bahia, the northeast, Brazil and South America. How some Bahian women have continued to adorn themselves with such a splendid display of robing is really astounding, considering our tropical climate. They may tell you how and why, if they have the time or the inclination to explain in all their glowing details! I suggest spending a little of your time and money with those wonderful bahiana women, as they will make your holiday so much more pleasurable, not only with their delicious traditional cuisine but moreso, with their charming conversation and irrepressible personalities.
Acarajé (German Edition)
Acarajé, is just a pinnacle of Brazilian culinary deftness! Enjoy!
I think we should all make intercontinental historical learning part of our personal identities and just reading a little and then imagining sailing across the enormous Atlantic or the vast Pacific, for weeks, or even months on end, in a tiny vessel, a little bigger than a double decker bus! Whether by choice or as was more common, forced to travel and work on the flimsy vessels that carried so little material wealth, to finally, if we survived the horrific transatlantic journey, begin ‘another life’ in a strange land, South America.
Many Europeans were enticed onto the Iberian boats because of economic debt and were told it was work to free them from possible imprisonment or other punishments. Freedom was almost certainly used as encouragement to enter the ocean-going fray, as well as a few silver or gold-looking coins. The Atlantic appeared to be the only frontier between Africa&Europe and North&South America. For many Africans who arrived in the ‘new world’ soon after the Spanish&Portuguese, there were some familiarities on this side of the second largest of the planet’s oceans; a tropical climate, similar vegetation, red soil and many inventive and innovative African migrants also made a home from home; carrying intellectual heritage, continuing with African traditions. Bob Marley & The Wailers’ ‘Buffalo Soldier’ tells this history succinctly, as does the disc, “Survival”. That experience has been expounded for centuries, ever since the mercantile systems enslaved us.
The positivity of those horrors is probably most abundantly apparent in the northeast of Brazil within the continent of South America, where American culture is most ostentatiously represented in so many aspects of life, especially in Bahia, where most of us are proud of a shared African heritage. We can all take pride from so many survival experiences, whether contemporary or through shared historical, human heritage.
In this piece of writing, I’d like to focus our attention on a single icon of Afro-Brazilian life. There are dozens of possible cultural items in Brazil that can be considered exclusively African. We can argue the traditional clothing of a ‘bahiana’ is the closest thing we have to national Brazilian dress, without neglecting indigenous clothing styles, although that oft disproportionately immense robe, ostentatiously resembles traditional European fashions, it is currently almost always worn by African-looking well-built women. I can add that at some point this site will receive a post on the musical genres that have been firmly concentrated in Bahia and the powerful influence of Bahian music, not only on the rest of Brasil but also on neighbouring nations around the globe. I can also make reference with many more Afro-Brazilian iconographic realities.
For this month, my choice of Afro-Brazilian iconography is the humble ‘acarajé’. Although it is nothing huge, it is in fact an incredibly simple example of culinary cunning, with cultural weight, strength and depth. This delicious street snack is widely recognized to have its roots in west Africa and has been passed from generation to generation, thus evolving as a truly Brazilian, tropical, family snack. To prepare acarajé, we use some flour, normally from mandioca; a popular root vegetable, oil, herbs and spices.
If there are similarities in western Africa, I’d love to know more of the cauldron wielding men&women, who fry for a living in or near millennia of marketplaces. While a most usual ingredient as a filling, is ‘vatapá’, which could have its very own post (come to think of it, why not write a book on vatapá) itself, any filling might be added to taste, for any and every ‘acarajé’. When preparing this deep fried aperitif, we also like to have another simple additional item at the ready and many expect to be able to add this pungent condiment in order to fire up our acarajés. Of course, it is pepper, but as is regular, from Cuba to Buenos Aires and probably in more South American locations (we’ll probably just be referring to Latin America in a few hundred years) , there is a certain reputation in the Americas of the Atlantic, for the best and most overpowering of chilli sauces and if you can try it, then you should, with ‘malagueta’, possibly the most intense of all the peppers. As always, worldbound pepper pungencies could be compared!
It is recommended that if you are visiting Salvador, you should top up your energy levels with street stall salespersons, who are often referred to as ‘bahianas’. They are easily identifiable, wearing huge white dresses, colourful headscarves, sometimes incessantly smiling and are to be found at many tourist points. Their culinary expertise is more than admirable and those cumbersome dresses are an internationally recognized cultural emblem, most closely associated with Salvador, Bahia, the northeast, Brazil and South America. How some Bahian women have continued to adorn themselves with such a splendid display of robing is really astounding, considering our tropical climate. They may tell you how and why, if they have the time or the inclination to explain in all their glowing details! I suggest spending a little of your time and money with those wonderful bahiana women, as they will make your holiday so much more pleasurable, not only with their delicious traditional cuisine but moreso, with their charming conversation and irrepressible personalities.
Acarajé (German Edition)
Acarajé, is just a pinnacle of Brazilian culinary deftness! Enjoy!
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