Brazilian cuisine: an experience of adaptation

Brazilian cuisine is an intricate fusion of the culinary traditions of the peoples of the world, who repeatedly conquered and explored these lands. It’s famous for its unusual blending of seemingly ordinary foods. Sometimes you want to cook something “this”. The exotic, the unusual, the surprising – for example, from Brazilian cuisine. No, you don’t need to buy tapioca or a stone mortar Brazilian cuisine includes many dishes which can be prepared with ordinary products, and household appliances can crush, whip or cook them to perfection, such that Dona Flor herself would have praised you.

In 1500 Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvariz Cabral was the first to set out on the Brazilian coast and declared it a Portuguese territory. At that time Portuguese cuisine was considered one of the most exquisite in Europe and influenced colonial cuisines.

Portuguese sailors brought a lot of new products to Brazil. The Portuguese experimented with dishes, sometimes adding Brazilian exotics as well. The cuisine of each state of Brazil is very individual. In the southern regions, the cuisine was influenced by Italians and Germans, especially in the state of São Paulo, which was influenced by Italian immigrants. Here many aromatic spices, cassava, corn and cornmeal, and pork are added to the food.

What the natives ate?

The indigenous people of the Amazon coast loved to cook duck cooked in a thick sauce – pato nu tucupi. The sauce included that originally poisonous cassava juice.

Manioca cassava has long been a staple food of all Brazilians. Manioca, also called cassava or yucca, is a plant in the genus Molocha. Its roots, similar to our potatoes, contain a lot of starch, which is used to make most products – groats for porridge, flour tapioca . The juice of cassava is very poisonous, so to make it edible it was boiled.

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Portuguese conquerors bandeirantes, or “gold hunters,” gradually developed the Brazilian lands. In particular, the inhabitants of the southeastern state of Minas Gerais were pastoralists, constantly migrating from place to place and eating with little effort to cook. Therefore, their diet was quite simple: cauldron meat beef, pork, chicken , wild beans, flour products. Shurrasco, which is meat roasted over charcoal, was my favorite food. In fact, it is no different from our shashliks, only wine vinegar is added to the marinade, and during grilling it is poured with dry red wine. And in the west of Brazil, they still make jacaré, a dish made of crocodile meat!

The fruit of passion is passion fruit

Passion fruit has a sweet and sour taste, and even the seeds are edible. The word itself “passionfruit” or “yellow grenadilla” comes from the Spanish “passionfruit” and means “Passiflora family of plants” or “fruit of passion”. There are over 100 species of the plant and it looks like a liana with a woody stem. Passion fruit is very popular in Brazil. And, perhaps, this is one of the few exotic fruits, which can be bought in our supermarkets.

And the fruit!

The list of Brazil’s tropical fruits is particularly impressive – the names themselves already sound exotic! Tangerine citrus , melancia, peccia, gemipapo, cupuasu – a nut related to cacao, and the oil makes what might be called “white chocolate from the Amazon” tucuma – a tree from which vegetable oil is obtained bakuri – a palm with fruit resembling an orange jumbo, asai, a tall palm with berries rich in antioxidants and similar to blueberries, sometimes called the Amazonian taperiba grape graviola, caju, or cashew, a fruit-nut whose seeds are roasted and eaten arasa, guava, the Urinama pitanga cherry, and many others. Most of them grow on the banks of the Amazon and are used to make desserts – mousses, jellies, juices, syrups, compotes, wine, and even candy.

But we can make a perfectly Brazilian dessert with bananas, oranges and kiwi fruit that we are accustomed to. Brazilians in general are very fond of bananas – they can eat them for breakfast, lunch and can even eat them with coffee.

African Passion

In the late 17th century, the importation of African slaves to Brazil increased, toiling in the plantations, harvesting sugar cane, and later growing cotton and coffee. It was the slaves, taking leftovers from the owners’ tables and mixing them with other products, that defined the peculiarity of Brazilian cuisine: the wild, at first sight, combinations of products that underlie what has now become a treasure trove of world cookery.

Over time, the Brazilian menu has been enriched with African additions: coconut milk, numerous types of peppers, yams – sweet potatoes that are also used to make flour, molasses, starch and preserves. Another African influence is Brazil’s widespread use of palm oil.

The most “Africanized” in the culinary sense of the state is, of course, Bahia. That’s where, by the way, lived the heroine of the novel by J.J.R.R.Amadou Dona Flor, who made her living by teaching at her own cooking school.

In the south of Brazil they love all kinds of casseroles and cook almost anything in the oven: fish, potatoes, beans and even… coconut! Popular are bolos, baked rounds.

Brazilians are very fond of lobsters: What ways to prepare this ten-legged crab have not been invented?! Exquisite culinary masterpieces can be tasted in a restaurant or cooked by yourself. If you don’t have lobster, you can replace it with large shrimps.

For the most part, Brazilian cuisine is the ultimate in exoticism, heartiness, calories and beauty. So if you decide to surprise your guests or spoil your loved ones, be sure to prepare something in the tropical spirit!

Bon appetit!