Culture of Brazil - Cuisine

Cuisine

Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region. This diversity reflects the country's mix of natives and immigrants. This has created a national cooking style, marked by the preservation of regional differences. Since the colonial period, the feijoada, directly linked to the presence of blacks in Brazilian land, has been the country's national dish. Luís da Câmara Cascudo wrote that, having been revised and adapted in each region of the country, it is no longer just a dish, but has become a complete food. Rice and beans, also present in the feijoada, and considered basic at Brazilian tables, is highly regarded as healthy because it contains almost all amino acids, fiber, and starches needed for our body.

Brazil has a variety of candies that are traditionally eaten for birthday parties, like brigadeiros ("brigadiers") and beijinhos ("kissies"). Other foods typically consumed in Brazilian parties are coxinhas, churrasco, sfiha, empanadas, and pine nuts (in Festa Junina). Specially in the state of Minas Gerais, are produced and consumed the famous cheese bun. The typical northern food is pato no tucupi, tacacá, caruru, vatapá, and maniçoba; the Northeast is known for moqueca (having seafood and palm oil), acarajé (the salted muffin made with white beans, onion and fried in oil palm (dendê), which is filled with dried shrimp and red pepper), manioc, diz, hominy, dumpling, and Quibebe. In the Southeast, it is common to eat Minas cheese, pizza, tutu, sushi, stew, polenta, and masses of macaroni, lasagna, and gnocchi. In the South, these foods are also popular, but the churrasco is the typical meal of Rio Grande do Sul. Cachaça is Brazil's native liquor, distilled from sugar cane, and it is the main ingredient in the national drink, the caipirinha. Brazil is the world leader in production of green coffee (café); because the Brazilian fertile soil, the country could produce and expand its market maker and often establish its economy with coffee, since the Brazilian slavery, which created a whole culture around this national drink, which became known as the "fever of coffee" – and satirized in the novelty song "The Coffee Song", sang by Frank Sinatra and with lyrics by Bob Hilliard, interpreted as an analysis of the coffee industry, and of the Brazilian economy and culture.