Cuisine of Brazil

Brazil's cuisine is as varied as its geography and culture. On the other hand, some may find it an unrefined melange, and everyday fare can be bland and monotonous. While there are some quite unique dishes of regional origin, many dishes were brought by overseas immigrants and have been adapted to local tastes through the generations. In Brazil, Italian and Chinese food can often be as baffling as Amazonian fare.

Brazil's national dish is feijoada, a hearty stew made of black beans and pork cuts (ears, knuckles, chops, sausage and pieces of beef (usually dried). It's served with rice, garnished with collard greens and sliced oranges. It's usually not served in restaurants, but the ones that do typically offer it twice a week (usually on Wednesdays and Saturdays). A typical mistake made by tourists is to eat too much feijoada shortly after arriving. This is a heavy dish, and you need to get used to it before you eat it. Even Brazilians usually eat it parcimoniously. While you are at it, try the caipirinha, Brazil´s signature drink made of wedged limes, sugar and cachaça.

Excellent seafood can be found in coastal towns, especially in the North East.

Brazilian snacks, called lanches, include a wide variety of pastries. Look for coxinha (deep-fried chicken balls), empadinha (a stuffed pastry pie, unrelated to Latin American empanadas: try out the palmito - heart of palm variety), and pastel (fried turnovers). Another common snack is a misto quente, a ham-and-cheese sandwich. Pão-de-queijo, a roll made of manioc flour and cheese, is very popular - pão-de-queijo and a cup of fresh Brazilian coffee is a classical combination.

REGIONAL CUISINES

• Southern - Churrasco is Brazilian barbeque, and is usually served "Rodizio" ou "espeto corrido" (all-you-can-eat). Waiters carry huge cuts of meat on steel spits from table to table, and carve off slices onto your plate (use the tongs to grab the meat slice and don't touch the knife edge with your silverware to avoid dulling the edge). Traditionally, you are given a small wooden block colored green on one side and red on the other. When you're ready to eat, put the green side up. When you're too stuffed to even tell the waiter you've had enough, put the red side up... Most churrasco restaurants (churrascarias) also serve other types of food, so it is safe to go there with a friend that is not really fond of meat.
• Mineiro is the "miner's" cuisine of Minas Gerais, based on pork and beans, with some vegetables. Dishes from Goiás are similar, but use some different ingredients such as pequi and guariroba. Minas Gerais cuisine if not seen as particularly tasty, has a "homely" feel that is much cherished.
• The food of Bahia, on the northeast coast has its roots across the Atlantic in West Africa. Coconut, dende palm oil, and seafood are the prime ingredients. Tip: hot ("quente") means lots of pepper, cold ("frio") means less or no pepper at all. If you don't dare to eat it hot you should try acarajé (prawn-filled roasties) and vatapá (drinkable black beans soup).
• Espírito Santo and Bahia have two different versions of moqueca, a delightful tomato-based seafood stew prepared in a special type of clay pot.
• Amazon cuisine draws from the food of the indigenous inhabitants, including various exotic fish and vegetables. There is also a stupendous variety of tropical fruits.
• Ceará's food in the coastline has a great sort of seafood, is known to have the country's best crab. It's so popular that literally every weekend thousands of people go to Praia do Futuro in Fortaleza to eat fried fish and crabs (usually followed by cold beer).

Brazilian cuisine also has a lot of imports:

• Pizza is quite popular in Brazil. In Sāo Paulo, travellers will find the highest rate of pizza parlours per inhabitant in the country. The variety of flavours is extremely vast, with some restaurants offering more than 50 types of pizza. It is worth noting the difference between the European "mozzarella" and the Brazilian "mussarela". They differ in flavor, appearance and origin but buffalo mozzarella ("mussarela de búfala") is also often available. The Brazilian "mussarela", which tops most pizzas, is yellow in color and has a stronger taste, which could be compared to the Emmental cheese. In some restaurants, particularly in the South, pizza has no tomato sauce. Other dishes of Italian origin, such as macarrão (macaroni), lasanha and others are also very popular.
• Middle-eastern and Arab (actually Lebanese) food is widely available. Most options offer high quality and a big variety. Some types of middle-eastern food, such as quibe and esfiha have been adapted and are available at snack stands and fast food joints nation-wide.
• São Paulo's Japanese restaurants serve up lots of tempura, sushi and sashimi. The variety is good and mostly the prices are very attractive when compared to Europe, USA and Japan. Most Japanese restaurants also offer the rodizio or buffet deal, with the same quality as if you ordered from the menu. Sometimes, however, it can be quite a departure from the real thing. The same can be said of Chinese food, again with some variations from the traditional. Cheese-filled spring rolls, anyone?

RESTAURANTS

Eating out is a great bargain and a pleasure in Brazil. Service varies in quality but is usually inexpensive. Even in expensive Rio and in touristy areas where prices are marked-up, you can have an excellent meal at a good restaurant with drinks for US$10.

• Note that the locals tip 10% of the bil. This value is usually included in the bill. Use this as an opportunity to make somebody's day for extra special gratuity. If you are going to stay for some time, choose a good reastaurant for everyday eating, make friends with a waiter (usually by giving him an extra tip) and you will enjoy excellent service.
• Most of the self-service restaurants offer two kinds of deals: an all-you-can-eat buffets (called "rodízio"), or a price per kilo ("por quilo"), very common during lunchtime throughout Brazil.

Many inexpensive restaurants are weighted self-service buffets, or por quilo. You pile up your plate with whatever you want, then place it on a scale at the counter, and pay by weight. These restaurants, being inexpensive, are those where many Brazilians prefer to eat daily. Service may be hard to get if you can't speak Portuguese, but this is the place to go if you want to eat good and cheap.

Even in the smallest towns it is easy to find self-service restaurants with good food. Brazilian restaurants can have varying degrees of cleanliness. Customers are allowed by law to visit the kitchen and see how the food is being handled.

• Some Brazilian restaurants serve only meals for two, and sometimes the portion is too large for a single person. The size of the portions are usually not indicated on the menu, so you may have to ask the waiter.
• Fast food is also very popular, and the local takes on hamburgers and hot-dogs ("cachorro-quente", translated literally) are well worth trying. Brazilian sandwiches tend to come in many varieties, including various combinations of ingredients like mayonnaise, bacon, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, corn, peas, raisins, french fries, ketchup, eggs, pickles, etc. The fast food chain Bob's is found nationwide and has been around in the country for almost as long as McDonald's.

Brazilians handle sandwiches with napkins and may use utensils to eat french fries.

Drink

LIQUOR AND BEER

• Brazil's most famous alcoholic drink is cachaça (cah-shah-sah), an extremely potent sugar-cane liquor known to knock the unwary out quite quickly. It can be tried in virtually every bar in the country. Famous producing regions include Minas Gerais, where there are tours of distillers, much in the same way as you'd tour vineyards in the Sonoma Valley or in France, and the city of Paraty. Pirassununga is home to Caninha 51, Brazil's best-selling brand. In a city near Fortaleza there is a cachaça museum (Museu da Cachaça) where you can learn about the history of the Ypioca brand.

The strong flavor of cachaça - also known as aguardente ("burning water"), pinga, and many other regional variants - can be tempered (hidden?) in cocktails like the famous caipirinha, a combination of cachaça with sugar and lime juice. The same mix using vodka instead of cachaça is nicknamed caipiroska or caipivodka; with white rum, it's a caipiríssima.

Another interesting concoction is called capeta ("devil"), made with cachaça, condensed milk, cinnamon, guarana powder (a mild stimulant), and other ingredients, varying by region.

Drinking cachaça straight, or stirring in only a dollop of honey or a bit of lime juice, is a common habit on the Northeast region of the country.

If you enjoy fine brandy or grappa, try an aged cachaça. Deep and complex, this golden-coloured spirit is nothing like the ubiquitous clear liquor more commonly seen.

• Beer in Brazil has a respectable history thanks to German immigrants. Most Brazilian beer brands tend to be less thick and bitter than actual German, Danish or English beer. The most popular domestic brands are Brahma, Antarctica, Bavaria, and Skol. Traditional brands include Bohemia, Caracu and Itaipava. Other international brands available are Carlsberg, Stella Artois, Guinness, Miller, Budweiser and others. There are two ways of drinking beer in bars: draft or bottled beer. Draft lager beer is called chope or chopp ('SHOH-pee'), and is commonly served with one inch of foam, but you can make a complaint to the bartender if the foam is consistently thicker than that. In bars, the waiter will usually collect the empty glasses and bottles on a table and replace them with full ones, until you ask him to stop, in a "tap" charging system. In the case of bottled beer, bottles (600ml) are shared among everyone in the table and poured in small glasses, rather than drank straight from the bottle. Brazilians like their beer nearly ice-cold - hence, to keep the temperature down, bottles of beer are often kept in an insulated polystyrene container on the table.
• While imported alcohol is very expensive, you may find a large assortment of vodka, wine and rum brands in any local supermarket. They come relatively cheap and don't taste that bad. If you really want imported vodka, gin, or Scotch, your best bet is to buy those at the duty-free shop at the airport (Brazil is one of the few countries where you can buy duty-free goods on your way in).
• Rio Grande do Sul is the leading wine production region. There are a number of wine-producing farms that are open to visitors and wine tasting, and wine cellars selling wine and fermented grape juice. One of these farms open to visitors is Salton Winery, located in the city of Bento Gonçalves (Rua Mário Salton, 300, Distrito de Tuiuty, CEP 95700-000. Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul. Tel: +55(54) 2105-1000).

The Sao Francisco Valley, along the border of the states of Pernambuco and Bahia, is the country's newest wine-producing region. Brazilian wines are usually fresher, fruitier and less alcoholic than, for instance, French wines. Popular brands like Sangue de Boi, Canção and Santa Felicidade and others with prices below R$ 6.00 are usually seen as rubbish.

• If you happen to be in Minas Gerais, look for licor de jabuticaba (jabuticaba liquor) or vinho de jabuticaba (jabuticaba wine), an exquisite purple-black beverage with a sweet taste. Jabuticaba is the name of a small grape-like black fruit native to Brazil.

COFFEE AND TEA

Brazil is known world-wide for its high-quality strong coffee. Café is so popular that it can name meals (just like rice does in China, Japan and Korea): breakfast in Brazil is called café da manhã (morning coffee), while café com pão (coffee with bread) or café da tarde (afternoon coffee) means a light afternoon meal. Cafezinho (small coffee) is a small cup of strong, sweetened coffee usually served after meals in restaurants (sometimes for free, just ask politely). Bottled filtered coffee is being replaced by stronger espresso cups in more upscale restaurants.

Chá, or tea in Portuguese, is most commonly found in its Assam version (orange, light coloured). Some more specialised tea shops and cafés will have Earl Gray and green tea available as well.

Mate is an infusion similar to tea that is very high in caffeine content. A toasted version, often served chilled, is consumed all around the country, while Chimarrão, the hot, bitter equivalent of mate, can be found in the south, and is highly appreciated by the gaúchos (Rio Grande do Sul dwellers). Tererê is a cold version of Chimarrão, common in Mato Grosso state.

SOFT DRINKS

If you're on the beach on a hot day, nothing beats coconut water, or água de coco - but be careful how you pronounce the word coco (hint: stress the first o as you would in the word oboe, otherwise it will sound to them like you are ordering poo!).

If you want a Coca-Cola in Brazil, ask for coca, as "cola" means "glue", in Portuguese (but if you say "Coca-cola", everybody will understand).

Guaraná is a carbonated soft drink made from a berry (the guaraná) native to the Amazon area. The major brands are Antarctica, Kuat and Brahma.

FRUIT JUICES

Fruit juices are very popular in Brazil. There are fruit juice bars at nearly every corner. Açai (made of a fruit from the Amazon) is absolutely delicious and very nutritious on top of that. It is normally served cold and has a consistency of soft ice. Don't let the crazy purple color stop you from eating it! Maracuja (passion fruit) Caju (cashew) and Manga (mango) are also great juice experiences. Don't be afraid to try what you see on the menu. Brazilians have great taste when it comes to mixing juices. Be aware that orange juice in Brazil is called suco de laranja, which can confuse Spanish speakers who aren't careful.