Jenipapo berries are native to Brazil and responsible for the latest food craze in the country. Chefs around the country use them to color their food blue and the result is actually pretty beautiful.
Jenipapo has been around for centuries. In the past, tribes used this fruit to get body paint and believed it had some magical properties. Science has confirmed that jenipapo berries contain genipin, a substance that helps them release an edible blue pigment under certain conditions that are completely safe to eat.
The process of extracting blue pigment from jenipapo has been described in professor and biologist Valdely Kinupp’s 2014 book Unconventional Food Plants in Brazil, after which many chefs started using it. “The jenipapo gained a fashionable status with the publication of the book,” Atlas Obscura quoted Kinupp. “Before that, hardly anyone talked about the fruit in the dining scene. It has become a trend, with blue bread, blue milk, blue pudding, and a multitude of bluish recipes.”
Today, you can get blue bread, soups, and salads all around Brazil.
