Welcome to Carnaval! Photo courtesy of Juan J Delos Santos

This week we’ll visit the land of unlimited meat buffets, tiny bikinis, Bossa nova, samba, and Carnaval. Something in that list is sure to entice everyone.

History of Brazil:

Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world in both size and population, comprises nearly half of South America’s total area. Fossil records show that the first peoples arrived at least 8,000 years ago. These tribes - some 2,000 of them - remained nomadic or semi-nomadic until European contact in the 1500s. In contrast to the other countries we’ve explored however, it wasn’t the Spanish that came calling. It was the Portuguese and they, too, brought diseases like measles and smallpox with them that wiped out most of the indigenous population. A few tribes still exist in remote areas of the rainforest, living in traditional ways, but most were either annihilated or absorbed into modern Brazil. The staples of the indigenous diet came from hunting, fishing, gathering, and some agriculture.

The Portuguese established large sugar plantations, bringing in about 5 million African slaves. African cooks handled most of the cooking on the plantations.(1)

It was the African cooks in the colonial kitchens of the sugar cane barons, however, who provided the strongest influence in generating what would be considered a Brazilian cuisine. European immigrants, Germans, Italians and Poles, as well as Japanese and other groups, came in huge numbers much later. These homesteaders, however, had little lasting impact on the Brazilian style of cooking.

Brazil, like Argentina, Chile, and Peru, has a plethora of environments lending themselves to the growing of various fruits and vegetables. Most of the country is tropical, with the rest lying in the temperate zone below the Tropic of Capricorn. Due to the large rainforests, only about seven percent of the land is suitable for farming.(2) One beautiful natural wonder of Brazil is Iguazu Falls (it’s worth the wait to download), over which an astonishing 350,000 to 400,000 gallons of water flow per second.

Similar to Argentina, Brazil is known for its gauchos (cowboys) and for its churrascarias, the aforementioned “meat buffets”. Brazilians were the first to raise cattle in South America, imported from Cape Verde to São Paulo in the 1530s.(3)

Brazilian Cooking:

Most Brazilians live in the coastal regions. Due to this, the “national cuisine” is really more of a collection of regional cuisines. Many foods from the coast of Brazil are virtually unknown in the country’s interior. On the whole however, staple foods are beans, coconuts, Dendi oil (red palm oil), dried and salted codfish, dried shrimp, rice, and manioc (cassava). Rice and beans are staples of the table, being found at nearly every meal, a tradition shared with some Caribbean nations.

The cornucopia of fruits and vegetables available in the country include “açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, guava, orange, passionfruit, pineapple, sweetsop, and hog-plum.”(4) Pine nuts grow in the southern region of Brazil. Other major Brazilian crops include cotton, soy beans, coffee, wheat, rice, corn, cocoa, citrus, and sugarcane.(2)

There are four main regions in Brazil. The North, known as Amazonia, is predominantly Amazon rainforest with rivers flowing to the Amazon River. The indigenous tribes and people of mixed Indian-Portuguese ancestry in this region subsist predominantly on fish, manioc, yams, and peanuts, with some palm and tropical fruit added in for good measure. Alligator and turtle meats are also on the menu.

The Northeast is the population center. It features a fertile coastal plain and a large semi-arid region called the Sertao, separated by a narrow transitional zone known as the Agreste. Sugarcane, cacao, and tropical fruits abound near the coast. The state of Bahia is the home of Bahian cuisine, an improvisation of traditional African, indigenous, and Portuguese dishes made with local ingredients. This cuisine is often considered the best in the country. The most important ingredients in Bahian cuisine are coconut milk, palm oil, and malagueta chili peppers. Outside of Bahia, the African influence lessens, with seafood, shellfish, coconut, and tropical fruit serving as staples. The interior of the region is arid, used mostly for the rearing of cattle. Meat dried in the sun, rice, beans, goat, manioc, and corn meal feature heavily here.

The Southern region shows a heavier influence from European and Middle Eastern immigrants, particularly from Lebanon and Syria. In Sao Paulo and other large cities, Italians, Germans, Japanese, and Spanish have also made contributions. Throughout the region, maize, pork, beans, and chicken, along with local cheeses are the staples. The national dish, feijoada serves as a popular lunch, though usually only on Wednesdays and Saturdays for some reason. This dish is a stew of beans, pork, beef, sausages, and other beef and pork products like tongue. It comes accompanied with the ever-present rice. This area also features a version of the Portuguese sausage chourico, a cousin of the spicier chorizo.

Finally, there is the Southeast region, home of the gaucho, the cowboys of the pampas. Around here, they like meat. Most famous is the churrasco, “a showy orgy featuring grilled meats of all kinds.”(5) Each gaucho has his own churrasco knife which is used to slice meat from the rotisserie. Other methods of eating meat in this region are sun-dried, salt-dried, and boiled, as in the barreado, where meat is cooked in ceramic pots by the sun.

Unfortunately, while vegetables and tubers are abundant throughout Brazil, the leafy stuff has never really caught on. Manioc, sweet potatoes, yams, beans, rice - the list of starchy foods is long. Various squashes are used, including chuchu and maxixe. Throughout my reading, I’ve found that peanuts are also commonly categorized as a vegetable…interesting. Other common vegetables include onions, tomatoes, avocados, peppers, and olives. Typical herbs and spices are garlic, cilantro, parsley, jambu, and ginger.

If you’re thirsty, combine cachaca with some lime juice and sugar to get the national drink, caipirinha (pronounced kai-pee-reen-ya). And for a true abomination, look no further than the dessert known as Crema de Abacate. “Brazil is possibly the only cuisine that sweetens avocado and serves it as a dessert, rather than salted as in guacamole or salads.”(6) Ok, so it really doesn’t sound bad; just a bit of a weird use for an avocado.

The Verdict:

Brazil’s cuisine is really a mixed bag. On the one hand, most meals revolve around meat, something that vegetarians should note if going for a visit. In the south, you can eat meat for days. And most of the meat is properly raised:(7)

there’s very little concentrated cattle feeding in Brazil. Less than 20% of its total beef tonnage is fed under any conditions away from the pasture. Of that, only a small portion is actually finished in confinement for harvest.

There is an endless list of fruits and vegetables available in the region and though some of them are quite starchy, there are plenty that aren’t. While every meal comes with rice and beans, there’s no law saying that you have to eat them. And did I mention that they make heavy use of coconut milk? That’s always a tasty, healthful addition.

On the other hand, there is a side of Brazil that isn’t all that well-known. Brazil has a vast poor population in its major cities that subsists largely on rice, beans, and government-provided wheat breads and pastas. These populations show many health problems from this nutrient-deficient diet, with obesity and heart disease creeping in. As of 5 years ago, one-third of the adult population was overweight and 12% were obese.(8) In a “surprise” finding though, the traditional diet of rice and beans was associated with a lower rate of obesity than a Western diet.

For those traveling to Brazil, you can eat well rather cheaply. All-you-can-eat grilled meat for $12-$30 for an unlimited amount. “The connections with the US are the inexpensive prices on most menus allied to vast portions.”(9) If you’ve never been to a churrascaria here, check out Fogo de Chao or Texas de Brazil and eat meat to your heart’s content. Another restaurant option is known as “comida a quilo,” literally “food by the kilo”, where food is paid for by weight. This is a good option for vegetarians.

Eating From Obscurity:

Brazil is chock-full of ingredients most of us have never heard of. Here’s a short list:

• Jambu - An herb that renders your mouth senseless
• Pitanga - A fruit also known as The Brazilian Cherry
• Jabuticaba - The Brazilian Grape Tree
• Jilo - A bitter fruit of the nightshade family
• Maxixe - A prickly fruit similar to a cucumber

A Few Recipes:

Some of these recipes feature palm oil, which there is technically no substitute for in creating the perfect flavor. If you don’t have or don’t use palm oil, substitute as you see fit, though it is changing the Bahian flair of the dish.

Meat and Such

• Ceia de Natal - The Brazilian Christmas Turkey Feast, Recipe
• Bobo de Camarao - Shrimp in yuca cream, Recipe
• Costelinhas de porco com farinha de mandioca - All of those words strung together means “Pork short ribs with manioc meal”, Recipe
• Caruru do Par - Shrimp and Okra, Recipe
• Frigideira - Seafood frittata, Recipe
• Recheio de Carne - Meat empanada filling, Recipe (you’ll have to scroll)
• Bife a Cavalo - Fried beefsteaks with fried eggs, Recipe

Sides, Appetizers, Soups, and Salads

• Moqueca - A traditional Bahian seafood stew, Recipe
• Onion Salad - Possibly the most simple “salad” ever, used as a garnish for churrasco, Recipe
• Molho apimentado - Brazilian hot sauce, Recipe
• Peixe Ensopado - Fish stew with coconut, Recipe
• Vatapa - Another fish stew, Recipe
• Cozido - A stew of pork, steak, sausage, and vegetables, Recipe
• Quibebe - Winter squash stew, Recipe

So that concludes our walk through South and Central America. Next time we’ll take a look at that politically-correct bastion of health around the Mediterranean Sea. We already started with Italy a few months back. Let’s see what the other countries have in store for us.

Citations:

(1) Brazil
(2) Educating the Impoverished: Achieving Food Security in Brazil through Education
(3) Brazilian Barbeque
(4) Cuisine from Brazil
(5) Brazil: What To Eat
(6) Ethnic Cuisine: Brazil
(7) Cattle Feeding Southern Style
(8) Dietary Patterns and Their Associations with Obesity in the Brazilian City of Rio de Janeiro
(9) Brazil’s new/old wave cuisine

Other Sources:

History of Brazil
Cuisine of Brazil - Wikipedia
Brazil, Sizzling Cuisine of South America
Brazil’s Cuisine - Staple Ingredients
Bahian Cuisine
Large-scale interventions and programmes addressing nutrition related chronic diseases and obesity: examples from 14 countries
Cuisine of Ecuador and Brazil

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Tags: Brazil, churrascaria, churrasco, cozido, gaucho, moqueta, peixe, quibebe, traditional diet, vatapa