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Brazil's cuisine is the product of tradition and circumstance.
Each region and state has developed its own unique cuisine
based on indigenous culture, location, and farming.
Coffee
No-one does anything in Brazil without a few cups inside them.
Vendors are everywhere selling it strong, sweet and in small,
potent doses. Brazil is the world's biggest coffee producing
nation, and coffee plantations cover huge amounts of land.
A Brazilian coffee is mild and composed of arabica or robusta
seeds. A good cup will be clear, sweet, medium-bodied and
low acid. There is likely to be Brazilian coffee in every
espresso you drink. The best crops are to be found in Minas
Gerais and Sul de Minas.
It was introduced into Brazil in 1727. Now it is beginning
to be a player in the speciality coffee market. It is typically
known for producing largely low quality "mixers"
in the world coffee market.
Bahian Food
Bahian cuisines dates back from the times of slavery when
masters would give their slaves yesterday's left-overs to
eat. They would mix the scraps with fish if they lived near
the sea or rivers and make cooking pot stews. A typical recipe
may be a Bahian fish stew using coconut milk, tomatoes, peppers
and lemon juice. Specialities include:
Acarajé - made from peeled white beans mashed
in salt and onions and then fried in a strong oil. The filling
is called Vatapá and is made with manioc paste, nuts
and smoked shrimps.
Pato no tucupi - a favourite dish of the Amazon, which
is piece of duck in a rich wild green herb sauce - quite literally
stomach churning!
Manioc
Manioc is a root vegetable and Brazil's staple food. Raw,
it's poisonous and it's also used to make laundry starch.
To de-toxify the Manioc, it must be peeled, grated and the
pulp is put in tipitis, cylinders made of plant fibres which
expresses the poisonous juices. The pulp is then washed, roasted
and made into flour. The poisonous liquid is boiled down to
remove the poison and make a sauce known as tucupi. Sweet
manioc is boiled and eaten like potatoes and also deep-fried
and eaten like chips.
Cachaca
Cachaca is a high proof and very cheap sugar cane alcohol
produced throughout the country.
It's made from distilled sugar cane, in such a way to retain
the scent of sugar and a flavour typical of rum.
Brazil has 4,000 brands of cachaca and produces 1 billion
litres of the stuff every year.
Made into Caipirinha with lime, sugar and crushed ice,
it's delicious but dangerous. It can do serious damage to
your stomach and produces a lethal hangover. It is the most
popular drink among Brazil's poorest people and the national
drink, second only to beer. It has been adopted in recent
years as an "in" drink in the USA and Canada where
the brands "cachaca 51" and "pitu" are
popular.
Cachaca is a cousin of the Spanish-Portuguese brandies, closely
related to Italian grappa.
Cachaca means "burning water" and there is nothing
subtle about this drink. You can counteract the toxic taste
by mixing it with pineapple, papaya or other tropical juice
mixers. It is used in numerous drinks and cocktails like
Nightboat to Brazil, lambada and Woody Woodpecker.
Tacaca
Tacaca is an Indian dish sold on every street corner in the
afternoons. It is a yellow soup made mainly from different
forms of manioc, laced with dried shrimp and garlic,
jambu leaves and lots of chilli.
Feijoada
Popular in Rio de Janeiro, this dish typifies Brazilian
cooking. It is a bean dish with beef, smoked sausage and other
parts of the pig, garlic and chilli peppers. Served on top
of white rice and garnished with manioc flour to thicken the
sauce and garnished with collard greens and orange slices.
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