Pirão

What is Brazilian food like?

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I saw a comment on Facebook the other day that got me thinking. Someone had posted something about the food not being great in a certain part of Brazil and then someone else had responded “Well, no one goes to Brazil for the food”. My initial reaction was “Harumph! That’s rather dismissive of Brazilian food!”. But then I thought back to my first few months in Brazil.

Back then I was not impressed with the food at all. There was my first taste of farofa which reminded me of a mouth full of dry sawdust. Then there was some weird gooey slop with prawns called Bobó. The rice and beans were OK, but if you had asked me about the best food in Latin America, I would have told you about the Ceviche in Peru, almost everything in Mexico and, of course, the sublime beef and red wine of Argentina.

steak-chimichurri

Two fat Argentinian steaks, one bowl of delicious chimichurri and one happy Englishman!

 

So maybe that Facebook comment was fair after all? When people think of a holiday in Brazil they generally think of beaches, samba, carnival and football – not the food. But even if people aren’t obsessing over the food when they arrive in Brazil, what do they think of it when they actually try it?

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Escondidinho-de-camarão

Escondidinho – the little hidden

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I know, I know – not everyone uses carnival as an excuse for a full-on, 5-day fun-binge. Some people actually dislike carnival and do their best to leave town during what is admittedly a bit of an inconvenient time if you want to do anything which doesn’t involve dressing up as a nun/ballerina/pirate and dancing in the street. Happily I fall into the full-on, 5-day fun-binge category and so for me this is a time I look forward to all year.

If you ask people who’ve been to carnival if they have any tips, you’ll probably get all kinds of advice, from best pee strategy (go whenever you get the opportunity, even if you don’t really need to go), to best bloco enjoyment strategy (set your alarm and get up early – a lot of the best stuff starts at 8am).

Today I’m going to give you another tip: Don’t forget to eat! I know that may sound a bit like saying “Don’t forget to breathe”, but it’s surprising how easy it is to get carried away with all the dancing and singing and moving from one bloco to the next. Before you know it it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and you’re absolutely exhausted and ready for bed.

If you like some beers and caipirinhas with your samba, you are going to need something good and heavy to keep you going – a green salad ain’t going to cut it! May I present Escondidinho:

 

Escondindinho

Escondidinho (sounds like eskon-jee-JEEN-yo). This will keep you samba-ing to the end of day.

 

If something is hidden, it is described in Portuguese as escondido (sounds like eskon-JEE-do). Well you remember how much Brazilians like to add their diminuitives? The dish you see above roughly translates as ‘Little hidden’ and when you start eating it you soon see why.

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Brazilian Brands: Bis

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The British take biscuits (not cookies!) pretty seriously. I put this down to our tea drinking habit – tea and biscuits go together like, well, tea and biscuits! 

If you ever find yourself with multiple British people and you feel the need to get the conversation going, just try bringing up the subject of biscuits. For example, you could mention that you heard that the best biscuit in the world is the chocolate digestive (a fine choice). Before long you would have people arguing over the relative merits of Hobnobs, custard creams and ginger nuts. We even had a big court case between the government and the manufacturers of Jaffa Cakes over whether their product was a biscuit or a cake (no seriously).

There are many sub-divisions of biscuit and one close to my heart is the ‘biscuit-bar’. The English biscuit bar of choice would surely be the Penguin. In Scotland they have a chocolate, caramel and wafer affair called simply Tunnock’s. The Australians favour something called the Tim Tam which can be ingeniously employed in something called the Tim Tam Slam (everyone should try this at least once).

penguin-biscuit

The humble Penguin biscuit – two biscuit layers with soft chocolate goodness in the middle, all covered in delicious milk chocolate. Good stuff.

 

Before I get carried away with all this biscuit talk, let’s come back to Brazil shall we? In Portuguese, the word for biscuit is biscoito. Now I thought I was fairly knowledgeable when it comes to biscuits, but it wasn’t until I arrived here in Brazil that I was told about the origins of the word. Apparently it can be broken down to “bi” (2) + “coito” (coitus) – the er, ‘union’ of two biscuit layers! Can this really be true?

OK, let’s look at Brazil’s favourite biscuit bar and today’s Brazilian Brand:

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My favourite Brazilian food

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As my good friend the Bearded Wanderer put it, I was a bit of a tease recently: I mentioned on Facebook that I’d just discovered my new favourite Brazilian dish but then instead of saying what it was, I just signed off with “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow”.

Well, tomorrow was yesterday and I didn’t tell you about it. Sorry about that. Let’s just say that the small matter of cooking Christmas Eve dinner for 10 got in the way. So, without any further ado, let me pick up the story…

We stayed up very late on Saturday, saying goodbye to a friend who had been staying with us for a few days. We got through plenty of cerveja and a few too many caipirinhas, so we had a slow start to Sunday. Around mid-afternoon, we headed to a nearby supermarket to pick up some essentials for the hangover-fuelled, sofa-based movie-marathon we had planned for the rest of the day. Our route to the supermarket just happened to take us through Praça São Salvador, a rather nice square situated between the neighbourhoods of Laranjeiras and Flamengo.

 

Praça São Salvador

Praça São Salvador is well known for great live music. When we wandered past on Sunday, Carlos Evanney, a well known artist who covers the great Roberto Carlos, was playing. It was one almighty sing-along!

 

As the hangover kicked in, we decided to postpone the the trip to the supermarket and stopped at a little market stall where a woman was selling soup and a variety of stews. We shared a delicious pumpkin soup and I downed a can of guaraná. I instantly felt better. Then we saw it…

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Brazilian Brands: Paçoquita

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Regular readers may be aware that I’m not a big fan of super-sweet things. I do like chocolate (I’m not completely crazy), but the really sweet things like Brigadeiro are a little too much for me.

With that in mind, it may come as a surprise to hear that I rather like today’s Brazilian brand.

 

Paçoquita

Paçoquita

Name: Paçoquita (‘passo-KEE-ta’)

Product: Paçoca (‘pa-SOCK-a’).

Description:  First let me explain that Paçoca is the generic name for a super-sweet, crumbly sweet made from ground peanuts, sugar and salt (and sometimes that Brazilian favourite, sweetened condensed milk). Paçoquita is surely the best known brand of paçoca. The website is slightly vague about when the Paçoquita brand was established, but it looks to have been someone in the 1980s. Today they are commonly found in a small basket or bowl next to the cash register in Kilo restaurants, gas stations and Casas de Sucos (juice bars). The bright yellow, matchbox sized brick has striking red lettering with a chirpy looking peanut man on the side.

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