🍖 Gastronomic guide to Brazil: top 10 dishes
Gastronomy is an important part of the culture of any country. And it has long been accepted as a rule that in a new place you need to visit the most popular establishments and try local dishes. In Brazil, in turn, it will not be easy to stay hungry, because there is almost a cult of food here. It's simply impossible to resist! What is it that Brazilians themselves cannot do without a single meal? Let's figure it out.
Breakfast
Even though Port Gaelic is spoken in Brazil, the word breakfast is different in Portugal and Brazil. In the country of carnivals it is called café da manhã (cafe da manha). Typically, Brazilians don't skip their first meal to fuel themselves for the day. Breakfast may vary from region to region.
In the southeast, people like to start the day with salty (pão de sal), toasted (pão torrado) or cheese bread (pão de queijo) or some kind of cupcake (bolo).
In the south, they like jam (geleia), cheese (queijo) or cuca (something like a flatbread made from wheat flour, coated with sugar) for breakfast.
But in the north, in the Amazon region, they really love acai berries, bananas, coconuts, and they also make cakes from cassava flour. By the way, all Brazilians simply adore tapioca, a starchy product obtained from the cassava root. Many restaurants serve it in small cubes as an appetizer.
People in the Northeast like to start the day with couscous, to which they may add milk, eggs or butter. But what no Brazilian can do without is coffee. By the way, here you can forget about the usual latte or cappuccino, but Brazilians have never heard of the existence of raf! After all, locals simply love to drink espresso or, at most, espresso with milk. Therefore, ordering a latte at a restaurant is useless. Even if they accept your order, be sure that they will bring you espresso with milk. This is how Brazilians are. Also, for breakfast, residents of the sunny country often eat papaya and drink freshly squeezed juice, because here it is excellent.
Dinner
A typical almoço, as lunch is called in Portuguese, consists of rice (arroz), beans (feijão) and meat (carne). Brazilians have lunch around 12-14 o'clock. Therefore, there are special establishments in the country that are somewhat reminiscent of our canteen. They work strictly on weekdays at lunchtime, and you simply won’t be able to get there in the evening. In such places, a fixed price is often set for weight: how much you gain is what you pay.
A true Brazilian will definitely choose feijoada for lunch at least once a week – this is a symbol of the national cuisine. Traditional feijoada consists of black beans, pork ribs and drumsticks, diced beef, sometimes also served with rice and farofa – cassava flour fried in oil. Lemon and orange juice and cachaça (Brazilian vodka) are added to the sauce.
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As for lunch on the weekend, you don’t even have to guess, because Brazilians will definitely give preference to churrasco. Whether you are celebrating a birthday, a victory of your favorite football club, or decided to meet with friends – it doesn’t matter, the key dish will definitely be shurrasko. In Brazil it is not just a barbecue or a way of cooking meat, here shurrasco is something more. This is an entire event that has neither beginning nor end. The essential ingredients of a Brazilian barbecue are meat (chicken, beef, pork, sausages, chicken hearts), rice, farofa, garlic bread (pão de alho) and vegetables. Of course, shurrasco is accompanied by a huge amount of beer.
Afternoon snack
At the end of the working day, hungry Brazilians like to drink coffee with milk and eat something starchy. They call this meal lanche. Coxinha is suitable as a pastry. It is a small bun made from wheat flour, potatoes and chicken. Every Brazilian loves Cochinha. It can be found in almost any small cafe.
In addition to cochinha, for an afternoon snack you can also try pastel – a pie with a variety of fillings. The filling can be meat, cheese, banana or cinnamon. Despite the fact that pastels are popular in many countries, Brazilians believe that pastel is their traditional dish. And they don’t want to share it with anyone.
Dinner
For dinner (jantar), Brazilians will prefer meat or fish (peixe), and choose rice or vegetables as a side dish. By the way, they dine here quite late, often after 20:00. Dinner is a time for family, so it is at this late time that restaurants often begin to fill up with guests. Brazilians can sit for a long time, talk, share what happened during the day and have dinner. After the main course, they will definitely drink coffee and eat dessert.
By the way, the locals really love tea, but it’s not at all like ours. People here drink mate, a drink made from holly leaves. And although tea has nothing in common with mate, here it is called tea. The main difference in taste is how much mate you brew, how many bags you add, but it will not become strong. Finding tea similar to the one we are used to is almost impossible. But mate is very useful, it restores the body at the cellular level.
Features of work
Restaurants in Brazil do not have specific opening hours. It is common for us that establishments, as a rule, open in the morning and close in the evening. This is not the case here. You should carefully check the opening hours of the place you want to visit in advance.
In the morning, Brazilians like to visit a padaria, a bakery. Here you can drink fresh coffee and eat some baked goods. Then, at lunchtime, establishments open, offering a variety of dishes for the main meal. Some restaurants accept guests for lunch. Then they close for several hours until the end of the working day and open again around 18-19 hours. This can be found everywhere in Brazil. There are also establishments that can be visited exclusively in the evening. But don’t worry, it’s also possible to find a restaurant that is open from morning to evening.
Top Brazilian goodies we didn't know about
- Brigadeiro (brigadeiro) – candies made from cocoa, butter and condensed milk – is a favorite delicacy of Brazilians .
- Guarana is a sweet drink that tastes like the Golden Key. In general, guarana is the name of a vine that grows in South America.
- Shurrus is the famous Spanish churros, a tube with condensed milk, in the Brazilian way. They say it tastes much better here.
- Guava paste (goiabada). It is eaten as jam, made into sweets, and added to cakes and pastries.
- Sweet rice (arroz doce) is served with milk, cinnamon, nuts and coconut.