The cooking of Brazil began to differ drastically from all other South American cuisines more than 500 years ago when Portuguese colonists brought the fi rst slaves to Brazil from Africa. Many of the transplanted African women who ran the kitchens of the colonists were experts at cooking over open fi res, baking, and using spices. They invented new recipes by combining familiar elements from their homelands with the wide assortment of local ingredients that native residents used in their everyday dishes. In addition, the Portuguese brought to this vast unknown country the ingredients that most reminded them of home— items such as salt, sugar, spices, eggs, and vinegar. Through the years, Amerindian dishes absorbed the infl uence of African and Portuguese cuisine. In later centuries, as a result of immigration from other parts of Europe, German, Italian, and eastern European infl uences had their impact as well. What resulted was a diverse medley of ingredients and techniques which, like any good recipe, came together in new and exciting ways. Despite this widespread diversity and cultural variety, from a culinary perspective, the nation can be divided into two distinct regions, the north and the south. Each region bursts with its own fl avors and long culinary traditions just waiting to be shared.
The South
The southern states of Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo are home to more than 90 percent of the nation’s population. The southeast is also the most industrialized part of the country. Nearly 7 million people live in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which was the capital of
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Brazil until 1960. Rio, as it is often called, is densely inhabited and a city of opposites, where poverty and luxury live side by side.
Rio has one of the most dazzling settings of any city in the world with the Atlantic on the east and dramatic highlands to the west. It is especially famous for the festival of Carnival, a national holiday, when the city throws a sprawling fi ve-day party before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Huge, eye-popping fl oats tower over the streets rolling past revelers in glittering costumes dancing to the samba and lambada beats. With such a festive atmosphere is it any wonder that Brazilians call their hometown Cidade Maravilhosa, or “marvelous city”?
Rio is also known for one of its Saturday traditions. In years past, the resourceful African slaves began making a dish with leftover cuts of meat that were considered undesirable and didn’t appeal to the colonists they were cooking for. Rather than waste this meat, they cooked it with black beans, onions, garlic, and assorted spices. The fragrance of the simmering dish filled the plantation houses. Once the landowners began to smell and eventually taste this delicious creation, they wanted to share it as well. Thus the national dish, feijoada completa, was born. The meal begins with a delicious black bean soup. Then sautéed collard greens or kale, delicate cheese rolls, Brazilian rice, and platters of fresh sliced oranges are served along with the smoked and fresh pork, beef, sausages, and richly fl avored black beans that make up the feijoada completa. A complete feast! Diners return several times to select from the
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artfully displayed platters of ingredients, choosing their favorites and enjoying them at a leisurely pace.
Despite its massive population, Rio is not Brazil’s largest city. That distinction belongs to São Paulo—a name that lends itself not only to a city, but also to the state that contains it. São Paulo is 120 miles (193 kilometers) south of Rio and is home to over 18 million people. It is South America’s richest state. The cosmopolitan city of São Paulo contains some of the most innovative architecture in the world. There is even a hotel built in the shape of a giant slice of watermelon.
São Paulo was first settled 450 years ago by Jesuit missionaries. Today the city is composed of ultramodern skyscrapers, brick factories, tenements, and gleaming residential apartments. It is the center of Brazilian art and music. The ethnic diversity the city is known for makes it home to every kind of cuisine imaginable. As a result, Paulistos, as the city residents are called, are experts at selecting good food. One local favorite is a salad made with dried cod, a Brazilian specialty with Portuguese origins.
To escape the fast pace and heat of the cities, Cariocas, the residents of Rio, and Paulistos head north to the state of Espírito Santo and the beaches at Vila Velha, fi rst colonized in the sixteenth century. The seafood there is outstanding. A local fi sh stew, moqueca capixaba, made from the day’s catch and simmered with fresh tomatoes, green onions, fish stock, cilantro, and lime juice is reason enough to visit. To the west of Espírito Santo lies the expansive state of Minas Gerais. About the size of France, it was where three-quarters of the world’s gold deposits were discovered around 1675 along the rivers that thread their way out of Brazil’s oldest and tallest mountains, the Serra da Mantiqueira.
This state is also known for another kind of gold—cheese. Minas Gerais is the country’s leading producer of milk, butter, and cheese. Many believe the best cooks in Brazil are found in Minas Gerais, and, judging by the raw materials they have to work with, it just might be true. Fruits such as pineapple, cherries, grapes, fi gs, passion fruit, guava, and papaya grow abundantly. Tomatoes thrive in the mineral-rich soil along with onions, peppers, peas, beets, corn, okra, pumpkins, collard greens, kale, carrots, sugarcane, and of course the ever-present coffee bean. Brazil is the leading grower of coffee in the world.
Farmers in Minas Gerais developed a recipe many years ago that is now enjoyed all over Brazil. A loin of pork is marinated in lime, garlic, peppers, orange juice, and parsley then slow roasted to perfection. Another dish beloved throughout Brazil is a type of chicken soup, the ultimate comfort food. It is a recipe that many believe originated in Minas Gerais. Brazilians call their chicken soup canja, and once you taste it you’ll know why Brazilians love it.
As you travel across the southern tip of the country into the prosperous state of Paraná, you might forget you are in Brazil. The cooking and architecture found there refl ect a distinct European infl uence. Italian and German immigrants settled there in the mid-nineteenth century. The rolling plains, or pampas, that make up Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, spread far beyond the border with Argentina. This is cattle country. Cowboys, called gauchos, have led cattle drives acrossthese grasslands since the early eighteenth century. Large numbers of Italian, German, Swiss, and eastern Europeans settled there in the late nineteenth century, and the local cuisine still refl ects the infl uence.
The necessity of having to travel long distances on cattle drives led the gauchos to create a method of preserving meats that allowed them to carry beef with them in their saddlebags while they moved cattle from place to place. The beef was salted then dried in the sun to keep the meat from spoiling. Carne do sol is still popular today and is an essential ingredient in such distinctive Brazilian dishes as feijoada. Another dish that used dried beef was mule driver’s rice, a blend of dried beef, rice, tomatoes, green pepper, and the incredibly hot malagueta chile peppers.
The gauchos also used a style of cooking that is familiar in North America. When it was time to feed the large numbers of men traveling on the cattle drives, meats were cooked over open fires. They were rubbed with coarse salt or basted with simple sauces of salted water and peppers to seal in the juices and keep the beef tender. Linguica, a Brazilian sausage, slid onto long skewers, was roasted over the fi re as well. The result was a style of cooking called churrasco, named after the long sword-like skewers. Restaurants called churrascarias are a meat lover’s dream and are popular today throughout Brazil and the world.
Though beef remains the meat of choice in the south, chicken and pork are not overlooked. A favorite dish in Rio Grande do Sul, and evidence of the state’s Italian culinary infl uence, is a chicken-and-rice combination cooked with tomatoes, garlic, and onion, then topped with a golden crust of Parmesan cheese.
For a taste of the south try: Smoked Meat and Black Bean Stew; Cheese Rolls; Sautéed Greens; Creamed Corn; Fresh Shrimp and Black- Eyed Pea Salad; Fish and Shrimp Stew; Roasted Pork Tenderloin; Brazilian Rice; Mule Driver’s Rice; and Colonial Chicken.
The North
In the north lies the Amazon River and Basin, which covers more than 50 percent of the landmass of Brazil. At 1,962 miles (3,157 km), the Amazon is one of the world’s mighty waterways. The diversity of the ecosystem there is unequaled anywhere else on Earth. It is home to approximately 20 percent of all the plants, animals, and birds found on the planet. Rain forest plants that thrive there provide the world with about 25 percent of its medicine.
The rain forests of the Amazon Basin have been called “the earth’s lungs,” as they contribute to the health of the planet. Concerned people and organizations in Brazil and throughout the world work to protect the ecological health of this diverse and irreplaceable region.
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Rivers are not Brazil’s only aquatic resource. The country’s coastal waters provide a wealth of seafood that finds its way into many local delicacies. Freshly caught fish are cooked with tropical fruits and are a specialty of the state of Pará and its capital, Belém. Fresh crabs are boiled and cracked open, and the meat is dipped in a spicy sauce of tomatoes, vinegar, onions, and chile peppers. Luscious local tropical fruits with unfamiliar names, such as guaraná, bacuri, and sapote, are also eaten fresh or enjoyed as refreshing juices.
A tropical marvel that is native to this region is the Brazil nut tree, an evergreen that can reach 150 feet (46 meters) tall and 6 feet (1.8 m) in circumference. Have you ever seen a pinecone? Imagine one that is ten times bigger and instead of seeds on the inside there are nuts. Brazil nuts are packed with protein and are a delicious snack. They are also used in countless dishes in the region, even in cookies that combine white cornmeal, butter, and flour to create a crunchy delight.
It is the state of Bahia, however, that many Brazilians associate with outstanding cooking. The food there is quite different from that of the rest of Brazil. The African culinary infl uence, evident in so much of Brazilian cooking, is most noticeable in Bahia. Nuts, coconut milk, and a dark orange palm oil called dendê are just a few examples. This flavorful oil is used extensively in much of the local cooking, and the color and flavor it lends to dishes is distinctly Bahian. North Americans might find its highly saturated fat content reason to pass it up, but in Bahia it is an essential ingredient. Dendê oil is usually added at the end of cooking in order to ensure that its color and flavor are at their peak.
Palm oil is not the only local ingredient that finds its way into the dishes of Bahia. Manioc, or cassava, grows abundantly in the state and throughout Brazil. Manioc remains as much a part of the cooking of Brazil today as it was when the Amerindians fi rst used it thousands of years ago. Cooked, dried, then ground into fl our or a coarse meal, it is one of the key ingredients, along with beans, fi sh, and rice, used in the cooking of Brazil.
Another unique vegetable featured in the cooking of Bahia is the delicate center, or heart, of young palm trees. Hearts of palm are cooked until tender and combined with fresh oranges, cashews, and mint into a refreshing local salad. Delicate miniature pies, called pastel decarne, filled with a spicy, simmered, ground-meat fi lling, are another favorite.
A hard cheese similar to Parmesan is blended into rolls made from manioc flour. Manioc is also an essential ingredient in farofa, a Brazilian condiment served alongside or on top of savory dishes and similar to our salt or ground pepper. In fact a farofa has its own shaker called a farinheira, and is found on every table in Brazil. Farofas can be simple or elaborate. A popular one in Bahia is made with bananas and onions. For a taste of the north try: Chicken Soup; Hearts of Palm Salad; Miniature Meat Pies; and Brazil Nut Cookies. Now that you know something about the cooking of Brazil, your journey really begins. Put on some samba music, and start to discover what makes Brazilian food so tantalizing. Once your guests sample your dishes they are bound to say, “Muito obrigado. A comida estava delicisa!” (“Thank you very much. The food was delicious!”)
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This Information was published in 'The Cooking Of Brazil (Seconds Edition) by "Matthew Locricchio" - p12 To p20'
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