Brazilian Culinary Art

To understand the culinary art from Brazil, one must know a little bit of its history.

In its domestic roots, the foods that sustained the native Brazilians – cassava, yams, fish and meat – lies the base of Brazilian cuisine.

But it also carries the seal of two other peoples: the Portuguese, who came to conquer and stayed, and the African slaves that they brought with them to exploit the sugar plantations. Brazilian culinary art nowadays is a smooth alloy of the three influences that blend together in a unparalleled and completely Brazilian fashion.

The basics of the Brazilian cuisine are root meat, seafood and vegetables.

Manioc, derived from the cassave root, is the ‘flour’ of the region. It is consumed in one form or another at almost every meal.
In its raw state, this bitter cassava root is toxicant, but when prepared in good order, the cassava root gives farinha and tapioca, which in their turn are fundaments for a lot of dishes of the neighborhood.

The Portuguese influence shows up in the rich, sweet egg breads that are served at about every meal, and in the seafood dishes that combine ‘fruits de mer’ with coconut and additional domestic fruits and veggies.
The national dish, bobo de camarao is among these, a delightful blending of fresh prawn in a puree of dried out shrimp, manioc (cassava) meal, coconut milk and nuts, seasoned with a palm oil called dende.

It’s the African influence that’s most experienced though – as is to be expected of the people who worked in the kitchens.
Pineapple and coconut cream, chopped coconut and palm hearts worked their way into day-to-day dishes, flavoring meat, shrimp, fish, vegetables and bread. Brazilian food, contrary to the cuisines of numerous of the surrounding countries, favors the sweet instead of the hot and to a higher degree than any other South American cuisine, it carries the flavor of tropic island breezes instead of the hot wind of the desert.

The basic ingredients in Brazilian culinary art are cassava, coconut, dende, black beans and rice. Bacalao – salty codfish – features in numerous dishes derived from the Portuguese, but seasoned with typical Brazilian lightheartedness with coconut cream and pistachios it becomes an completely different food.

It is characteristic of the Brazilian attitude toward food – an reflection of a affectionate and open people to whom eating and sharing food is the foundation of hospitality.
Brazilian culinary art is equivalent to its people – all are welcome, all are welcomed and all make their mark – without ever overwhelming the contributions of the other.