Vegetarian sushi at Junta Local

From Portuguese Junta means ‘to get together’ and Local has the same English connotation. The organisation of this monthly event in the city of Rio de Janeiro aspires to create a community of small scale producers and consumers and reinforce their collaboration. Extracted from their site: Our approach is transparency and trust. In other words, we need to get along. Most products on the board will always be local, made independently by people we know. At the same time we are aware of the fact that some basic ingredients of the kitchen cannot be produced locally and we want you to do not have to make several steps to supply your pantry. Therefore, to ensure the force of each Junta Local and the local food suppliers, some products come from further afield, while maintaining proximity to the information.

For the weekend in October, during Brazilian Spring, I collaborated with a farmer family that hosts their vegetable’s field in the province. After a personal visit to the farm of Manaca , which took at least 3 h of travelling by bus reinforced by 2 extra h of car to get to the final destination, it was astonishing to see how purely they treat their products and love their workers, and how hard is to survive when you are surrounded by farmers that use only agrotoxics and contaminate nature.

Manaca Organicos

In the fullness of time we stand together at the market of Junta Local, where I exclusively used their ingredients to make sushi, promoting vegetarianism and organic nourishment.