In Brazil, there are two things that start conversations: football and food. I already wrote about the football euphoria. After Brazil’s elimination, the passion died down.
Brazil Has to Lose!
One of the few who were happy about national team’s elimination was Friar Giovanni:
‘The better Brazil does in the World Cup, the crazier people get. The problem is that the football becomes so important that people focus only on that. Meanwhile, the government uses this advantage to implement policies that benefit only the government, and not the people. The most crucial political decisions get implemented when the World Cup is underway. Passions are running high, but the focus is only on the ball and the goal.’
How am I not supposed to believe the missionary who has been living in Brazil for eighteen years?
Food – Connects and Unites
Food in Brazil is something that connects and unites people. It contains a strong social component – socializing, celebrating, paying tribute etc. All of this happens at the food-laden table, though it’s hard to afford for many people.
It wasn’t long before the scale made this quite apparent.
After I first stepped on the scale, I told Silva I thought it was broken.
After she stepped on it, too, we had to come to terms with the fact that we gained 7 kilograms each in a single month.
Mi casa es Tu casa
People invite us to visit and have lunch all the time. It’s their way of welcoming us, showing us respect, their pleasure that we share their reality with them, their hospitality and their openness.
‘Mi casa es Tu casa. (My house is your house.)’ is something we often hear when we enter for the first time. Brazilians know how to share!
How to resist all the delicious dishes?
Sure, it’s nice and all… but the question is, how much food can the body take?
It’s widely known that Brazil is one of the world’s leaders when it comes to being overweight.
Meat, fry, bread, pasta and above all, sugar. Sugar is added everywhere, even in already sweet fresh juices. Body accumulates all these foods which drain your energy. At least that’s the case with us.
Friar Lucas showed us his photos from when he first came to Brazil three years ago. He was thin as a rake. After three years of visiting the families and accepting lunch and dinner invitations, he gained over 20 kilograms. Now, he finally decided to make a change.
Eating healthy is a delicate decision for missionaries, priests and visitors, such as us. Not because you get easily tempted by good food, but mostly because people here have a hard time accepting and understanding it.
If you don’t accept an invitation or don’t eat everything they cook for you (and they cook a lot), they can get offended and take it as a sign of disrespect and ungratefulness.
Anyway, the food is excellent!
Italians’ way of showing satisfaction with a testy meal is by rubbing their index finger in their cheek. The gesture is different in Brazil – they grab their ear and pull down on it a few times. I thought you might find it interesting.
Famous Churrasco
It’s hard to find a household without churrascaria in Brazil. Churrascaria is where you make famous churrasco – barbecued meat (usually beef). The meat is generously salted, but no other spices are added.
Churrasco will most likely be the first thing you’ll get invited to if you ever visit Brazil.
Sunday Barbecue
Families usually prepare it on Sunday. As a rule, they never cook only for themselves. Friends and family invite each other and spend the afternoon and evening together grilling meat and drinking beer. Usually, every guest brings something, so there’s an abundance of food.
Tasty Beef
You’ll probably never get the chance to experience Brazilian beef anywhere else in the world. Meat is if extremely high quality, which is mostly attributed to their way of cattle farming.
There’s plenty of uninhabited grassland in Brazil, so keeping cattle indoors is a rare sight. Free range farming and healthy fodder have an important impact on meat quality.
Besides, beef is relatively cheap, so it’s affordable also for those less well-off.
Their Food Prices Are the Same as Ours
Other than that, the food is expensive. Much like other goods, foodstuffs in Brazil are completely comparable to Slovenia and Europe. Such prices put many things out of reach for marginalized people. Minimum wage in Brazil is only around €230!
Stores depend mostly on richer people. It’s well-known that 10% of the richest Brazilians generate almost half of Brazil’s entire income.
Brazilian Bean Minestrone
If you ever go Brazil, you’ll most try feijoada, which is one of Brazil’s most famous dishes.
It’s a black bean minestrone soup with pork or beef, or sometimes with cured meat or pork sausage.
Feijoada used to be a poor man’s meal. They took the beans and added all sorts of animal leftovers rejected by the rich: pig ears, tail, hooves and snouts – whatever was available.
These days it’s a traditional dish and respected by all and eaten throughout the country.
Pão de Queijo
‘Pão de queijo’aka. Brazilian cheese bread is especially popular in Sao Paulo. Unleavened dough and cheese is shaped into balls, which are then fried and served warm. It is eaten for breakfast or snack and is sold in almost every fast food spot. It’s worth a try.
Acaí
I have to mention acaí, a fruit, known all around the world. It originates from Brazil’s Pará province, to be specific.
Its color and shape is reminiscent of blueberry. The taste however, is significantly different. It’s used to make fresh drinks, but is most often sold as ice cream with the addition of chocolate, hazelnuts, cream, condensed milk or other fruit.
There’s Nothing Else like Brazilian Fruit
Not even the most tropical Asian countries were able to offer us such delicious fruit.
There are at least five sorts of bananas. If you ate a banana in Brazil with your eyes closed, it would sometimes be difficult to ascertain what you’re eating – they’re quite different from the bananas available at home. Some are sweeter, some less sweet, but they all taste great.
We also eat a lot of papayas, mangoes, watermelons, melons, and mandarins (tangerines are especially tasty). Silva loves passion fruit. We also ate some other fruits, whose names we don’t even know.
Potatoes, the Healthy Version
Manioca is a noteworthy food, often eaten in place of potatoes. They say it’s the healthy version of potatoes, since it contains no gluten and is not fattening (I’m not so sure about that).
It can be fried, cooked, served as a side dish or dessert. Manioca pancakes are can be sweet (with chocolate, fruit, condensed milk) or salted (with butter, cheese or salami).
Visiting Paulo Moroni
Some time ago, we visited Ourinhos with Friar Lucas for two days. Ourinhos is around four hours’ drive from Hortolandia.
Ourinhos still falls under Sao Paulo region, but is right on the border with Paraná province. We were invited by Paulo Moroni who used to be a priest and a Xaverian monk, but later left the monastic order and priesthood and started a family.
From Urban to Rural Life
After attending a football game, making churrasco and tasting desserts, we ventured out of the city to Paulo’s friend’s estate. It was the first time since we came to Brazil that we were able to enjoy fresh air and experience the nature.
It was interesting to see the vastness of the countryside and lush tropical greenery which is particularly distinct in Brazil.
We familiarized ourselves with less known fruit trees and used an old manual press to squeeze the sugar cane. We filled the entire jug with naturally sweet water – it’s something we last drank only a year ago in Vietnam.
Visiting the unemployed father. It’s hard to afford food.
Hungry Parents, Hungry Children
It’s nice to write about food… if there’s plenty of it or if it’s affordable.
The thing that spoils the enjoyment when you sit at the table full of food, isn’t being worrying about getting overweight, it’s thinking about the families who can’t afford such food.
It’s impossible to see from afar. But when you visit a small apartment with two unemployed parents and three or more children and learn that they struggle to afford a single modest meal per day, the craving for all the tasty, aromatic food is somewhat lost.
