In that immense country that is Brazil exists a rich regional kitchen, in a territory marked by enormous differences. A customary gaucho to churrasco can not have heard never speak of the duck ao tucupi of the Amazonia.
The food of a region sounds exotic in another region within the same country. In many occasions, the native fruits are not known for own the Brazilians. An urban baby can every day take juice from kiwi without proving in his life one papilla of tapioca with açai, without seeing araçá, cambucá, sapoti, jenipapo.
The contact of the Portuguese with the Indian causes that two cooking vertices are joined. The yuccas, the fruits, the peppers, the hunting and the fishing are mixed themselves amusingly to the olive oil, to the dry codfish, stews, the confectioner's.
The Settler begins to take African slaves to Salvador, capital of Bay, to the sugar cane plantations. One immediately gets up the oil of dendê, the Coco, the dry prawns and many things more, forming the trio: native, African Portuguese and, who would end up characterizing the Brazilian kitchen.
Each region has its festive food, but “feijoada”, of from Rio de Janeiro origin (of Rio de Janeiro) is considered by many like the more typical Brazilian plate and even source of inspiration for poetries like “Feijoada to minha fashion”, of Vinícius de Morais.
It is offered frequently to visitors who are enchanted with the pot of black kidney beans with thick broth, spanish stew with a great variety and abundance of salty meats, smoked and fresh. The separated kidney beans use generally, in a container, and the meats in another one.
The support is: very fine perforated cabbage, to which one has occurred to only return and return in the frying pan with a little garlic and oil, flour of cassava or “farofa” (flour fried in butter), and very fresh slices of orange. Each makes its plate as it wants, but nobody stops preceding it with famous “caipirinha”, the national drink, done of cachaça (cane brandy), lemon and sugar.
The lunch and dinner are similar. They reflect products of the station bought in markets or supermarkets. A special characteristic is that the plates are put at the same time to the table, except the soup, that uses before the food, and the dessert, that the complete one.
The menu is white rice almost always, red or black kidney beans with thick broth, meat, bird or fish, a green salad, cooked vegetables and fried croquettes or pie. Alongside, a source with cassava flour, or “farofa” and a bottle with pepper in conserve or sauce of pepper.
To dinner a soup can be served, and the most appreciated they are the soup of kidney beans and the one of hen with rice; this one, sagrada panacea ready to solve all the problems.
The dessert can be a candy with cheese (that is also a Brazilian singularity) or fruits, or everything simultaneously.
The food and dinner it follows “cafezinho to them”, served in a small small glass and normally like courtesy in many places.
The towns are great consumers of papillas. Papilla has a very Brazilian aspect, an aspect of mixed black element with the Brazilian. Papillas light, lukewarm, of cup, candies, but not much, with a pinch of salt to balance. The one of maize, with a little butter and small pieces of cheese of Mines. The one of oats, with more body, only a little oats and milk. The one of cornstarch, smooth and sweet, only milk, cornstarch and sugar, served in a cup, dusted with cinnamon.
To the Brazilians a food class enchants to them that can take to the mouth with the hands and that finishes in one or two mouthfuls. They are the “salgadinhos”. They precede to a dinner or lunch, like appetizer, but they can constitute the complete menu of a wedding, a baptism or a celebration of birthday. They frequently follow the “docinhos”, candies to him called thus, affectionately, with the diminutive.
The “food gives rúa” (of the street), the one that lives outdoors, to the door of the churches, in the places, sidewalks, kiosks throughout beaches, also it has been and very it is appreciated by the Brazilians of all the social classes. It is possible to eat well in all Brazil consuming what it is sold in the street, in the carts, the trays. “Acarajé Ballano”, the cooked maize, the candy of the Coco, “tacacá”, the pie of fair, churrasco.
First of all, to great distance, empanadillas. Of loose meat, with olives - little meat so that, when shaking them, a characteristic noise is heard. Of cheese, an enormous rectangle - with the cheese, desire object, that to the last bite already begins to become hardened.
There are them also of palm heart, humid, all fried in the pot of thousand frituras. And accompanying them, “garapa”, cane broth ground at the moment, it fries and candy, very sweet.
In the baruchos always something tempting exists, even if it is only an egg painted of red. In the bakeries, very great, crisp torreznos, surrounded in brown paper to take. Lonchas of back with enough sauce, within a roll. Croquettes of hen with bone, much more flavorful that the other. They can be of prawns, when the flame “Jesus is being called”. Bread with mortadella with drops of lemon. Fresh sausages fried, sardinitas very toasts.
In all the bars of street, the juices of fruits, calls “vitamins” and that can vary until the infinite, with mixtures of handles and haws, pineapples, bananas and milk, oranges and guavas and, like spirit, brasileñísimo milkshake, that is cachaça mixed with pricked ice, fruit and sugar. A delight!
In Sao Paulo meals worldwide and of good quality can be tasted. It is possible to be traveled gastronomically by the globe without leaving the districts of Sao Paulo.
The Italian food naturally is appreciated and even say that the Brazilian pizza is better, fully, than the Neapolitan… The Chinese were first that presented/displayed an exotic food and, accepted in a moment, today they have chains of fast-food and eaten to take. The Japanese restaurants, strangers during long time, were put fashionable some years ago and arrived to remain.
The new generation no longer would know to live without sushi. The French have made of Sao Paulo their redoubt, many married with Brazilian and defend the national product with nails and teeth.
To eat well, in good restaurants in Sao Paulo, is not cheap, but very easy. The city walks to lengthened paces to be one of the great gastronomical centers of the world.