FAQ (Questions and Answers)

• What does mulata mean in Brazil?

  Mulattos have been common in Brazil since colonial times due to sexual interaction, especially between Portuguese and African women.
  These mulattos are the result of racial crossings: the banda forra (white with black), the salta-atras (mameluco with black), or terceirão (white with mulatto).
  According to Darcy Ribeiro, mulattos were an essential part of forming Brazilian identity because, being mixed-race, they did not identify with their European and African origins, assuming a Brazilian identity.

• What are amendoim Japonês?

  It was Yoshigei Nakatani, a Japanese immigrant who arrived in Mexico in 1932, who invented the amendoim Japonês.
  After arriving in Mexico, Nakatani was looking for a job and a way to prosper. When he left Japan, he told his mother, “My goal is to succeed and return, otherwise, I will never return.”
  Most immigrants worked for Heijiro Kato, a wealthy businessman who owned one of Mexico’s largest warehouses, and lived in downtown Mexico City, in the neighborhood known as La Merced.
  It was there that Nakatani fell in love with a young Mexican woman, Emma Evila, and they married in 1935.
  Once married, the Nakatani family began to integrate into Mexican society. However, the war that broke out in December 1941 between Japan and the United States brought severe consequences. Those living in the provinces were forcibly moved to Mexico City and Guadalajara, leaving their jobs and cities that hosted large groups of descendants born in Mexico.
  
  Now unemployed, Nakatani faced a difficult situation because he needed to support his wife and five small children.
  In 1943, he had to resort to what he had learned as an apprentice years before in a candy shop in Sumoto, his hometown in Hyogo Prefecture.
  He and his wife Emma began producing traditional Mexican candies known as “muégano” in a small room in their neighborhood.
  They sold so well that the couple started making a longer version of the fried sweet topped with salt called “oranda.”
  It was again a success among the people in his neighborhood.
  Encouraged by this, Yoshigei Nakatani experimented with a snack with peanuts, rice flour, and soy sauce that reminded him of his childhood in Japan.
  However, since it was difficult to find all the ingredients in Mexico, he adapted the recipe with wheat flour.
  Soon, the demand for peanuts increased so much that the couple had to increase production using small homemade machines made by local blacksmiths.
  
  It was the customers themselves who called the snack “amendoim Japonês,” as it is known in Mexico, and they are among the most consumed peanuts in Brazil.