What is Brazilian food like?
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.
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?
