Back from Brazil: Moquecas to Mandioca

I returned from Brazil a week ago. We spent most of our time in the Central West region (Salvador in Bahia and Fortaleza in Ceará ) and the South East Region (Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais). My only sadness is that I didn't have a chance to eat any feijoada while I was there. But, the myriad fresh tropical fruits, the seafood dishes, the cassava dishes, and, let's not forget the caipirinhas, mean I have no reason to complain.

One refreshing aspect of Brazilian cuisine is that everyone eats some form of cassava (mandioca, yuca), where the root is not seen as a food only for poor people. Everywhere in Bahia and Ceará the restaurants served custom-made "tapiocas" as a matter of course (a kind of cassava flour crepe, that can be sweet or savory). Carne del Sol (salted, sun-dried beef) and mandioca frita ("cassava fries" aka aipim frita  or macaxeira frita) where the cassava is first cooked by boiling, and then fried, is popular, and most mornings simple boiled cassava was served as a side dish at breakfast in our restaurants. And of course, in Bahia and Fortaleza along the coast we ate fish (moqueca de peixe) and shrimp (moqueca de camarão) stews every chance we got. The moqueca is Brazil's answer to seafood chowder, and was usually prepared Bahian-style, enriched with coconut milk. Ours were always served in traditional clay bowls. Sigh. . . A dish I think any West African would love: garlic, seafood, tomatoes, onions, coconut milk (or not). . .  with a pot of hot pepper sauce on the side and a variety of side dishes always including white rice, and a form of farofa/farina de mandioca with dendê oil (palm oil),  and/or vatapá, and cooked  chopped okra.  The 2 women above were gracious to allow me to take their photo at Yamanjá restaurant in Salvador (thank you to Luciene Guirra and Josi Roberto). Incidentally, the history of Yemanjá (or Yemajá), an orisha, African goddess of the sea,  originates from Yoruba land and is fascinating.

Of course, we also frequently enjoyed acarajé and seafood balls  (codfish and crab), and on and on. . .

A final word about cassava (mandioca, yuca). In Brazil, we never stayed at a restaurant or stopped an at airport that didn't serve piping hot fresh pão de queijo, an addictive kind of cassava flour popover, or "cheese bread," originally a Minas Gerais specialty that is now popular throughout Brazil. I've been thinking for some time that it should be possible for Africans to make  pão de queijo using cassava flour (kokonte, lafu). Brazilians actually often combine 2 types of cassava flour (one called polvilho azedo, (or "sour," because it is slightly fermented) and one called polvilho doce (or "sweet" because it is unfermented). I was able to find some of the first locally in our town, but have asked my husband (who returns from Brazil tomorrow) to bring me some if he has time, so that I can try several versions. There is a special type of cheese from Minas Gerais that is commonly used, but I'll use a substitute in the ones I try to make. I wonder about cheese in Ghana. . .wagashi? I'll let you know how my experiment works out.

Feijoada and Caipirinha in Brazil

Oi! There's been a little break in postings given my hectic schedule preparing and traveling to Brazil. (Oi, which means "Hi!" in Portuguese also happens to be the name of my cell phone company here in Belo Horizonte.)

I've spent the week savoring the cuisine of Minas Gerais, where we're based. Last Sunday was Brazil's Father's Day, and we were invited to celebrate with the family of Renato and Virginia Ciminelli: parents, brothers, sisters, spouses, and cousins--babies to teenagers. What a joyful, boisterous family (though there was a little tension over 2 opposing soccer teams--people seem to take soccer VERY seriously here). In Belo we've lingered over tiny cups of strong Brazilian coffee or cerveja (beer)--my husband is partial to Skol--while having animated conversations at outdoor tables. They're just coming out of their winter here, but it's shirtsleeve weather and lovely.

Yesterday at lunch I had an excellent caipirinha. A Brazilian specialty, it's a lime, ice, sugar and cachaça cocktail (cachaça is made from sugar cane, but differs from rum). We've been eating at "kilo" restaurants for lunch, where you fill up your plate buffet style and pay by weight. So far I'm partial to farofa and plantains and collard greens or kale, and a wonderful white fish that might be called badeja, along with feijoada and moqueca (muqueca), a kind of wonderful seafood stew from Bahia.

I gather there are lots of family recipes for feijoada, but ours was made from a certain kind of black bean (I'll get the nuances down in the next few months), cooked with pork (ribs, I think), some smoked and dried meat (pork?) and sausage, and I think garlic, but I get the flavoring ingredients for the collard greens, the farofa and the feijoada mixed up: I know there's onion and garlic in some, and oil (probably soy, corn, or canola), and the farofa is much drier and finer texture than West African dishes like gari foto, and had slivers of carrot in it.

At some point I'll write more about the textures of gari (cassava or manioc meal), which ranges from coarse to fine, but I've not seen it as fine as Brazil's farinha de mandioca torrada used to make farofa. I understand Brazilians taught West Africans to make gari: it is said that in Angola the Portuguese forced the Africans on their plantations to cultivate cassava (manioc) and learn to make gari, and further north in Western Africa it was freed slaves returning from Brazil who taught Africans. At least that's what I heard. Feijoada is apparently eaten regularly on different days, depending on the region of Brazil, and is accompanied by white rice, the lightly fried collard greens, the farofa, and orange slices. I'll write more as I learn more! Feijoada definitely has an African feel about it.

Many Brazilians also have a fondness for spicy red pepper condiments, and a little of one of those would be a fine accompaniment, I think.