Kamby arro

Without a doubt the most popular and most eaten dessert of the caloric and proteic paraguayan popular gastronomy.

It’s a think cream of exquisite flavour that it’s obtained of cooking rice and cow milk, according to a patient and precise process.

Origin of the name

The name is Spanish relates direclty to the two ingredients that make its preparation, milk (leche) and rice (arroz).

The name in Guarani, “kamby arro” results in the same way, from the comjuction of the two vocables that identified the previous mentioned ingredients “kamby” (milk) and “arro” (rice).

Ingredients

There are different ways to elaborate de kamby arró, so the ingredients vary according to each version.

The most traditional one uses cow’s milk, water, rice, sugar, lemon skin and cinnamon.

Preparation

The rice is washed and poured in a pot with milk, sugar, water and lemon skin.

Let the mixture boils slowly until it acquires a thick texture, mixing it occasionally avoiding that the rice sticks.

Obtained a cream, mix of rice and milk, it’s served in little containers. Then is when the cinnamon powder it’s dusted on the cream. The “kamby arró” must be served cold.

Interesting facts

There’s a variant in the preparation of the kamby arró in which vanilla is added to the ingredients mentioned above, obtaining a different flavor.

In the Paraguayan country-side the kamby arró is considered as very nutritive and great “para la cabeza” (special to improve the intelligence) because of the use of the cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum or Cinnamomum verum, a tree of perennial leaves of about 10 or 15 meters tall, originary of Sri Lanka and from which its internal cortex is used as spice, extracted peeling and rubbing its branches. It’s used indistinctly in branches or in powder).

Notes

*According to some scholars of social history of Paraguay, all the Paraguayan popular gastronomy, which establishes itself as a small family industry after the War of Paraguay against The Triple Alliance (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, between 1864 and 1870), is really abundant in caloric content, because of the situation that overcame to the country after the conflict. In the aftermath of the war the food was limited and the groceries were hard to find. So Paraguayan cooking has a high protein content to make up for the scarcity of every day meal.

References

*“Tembi’u Paraguay” de Josefina Velilla de Aquino
*“Karú rekó – Antropología culinaria paraguaya”, de Margarita Miró Ibars
* EVP - Wikipedia
* [http://www.evp.edu.py/index.php?title=Portada Enciclopedia Virtual Paraguaya - Portal]

External links

* [http://www.guarani-raity.com/html/antropologa4_1.html Guarani Raity]