One of the reasons we love traveling so much is the opportunity to try the authentic food specialties with mysterious names, such as
acarajé, pastel, moqueca, cocada, caipirinha – they all sound very exotic and delicious, no matter if they are main dishes, snacks or alcoholic drinks :-)
Just like the differences among the local cultures in the various parts of Brazil (from Salvador de Bahia in the north-east to Foz de Iguacu and Rio in the south) we found the Brazilian cuisine very diverse with plenty of delicious tastes to enjoy. Therefore we decided to dedicate an entire blog entry to the Flavors of Brazil and give some advice to our friends who might be traveling there in the near future.
Drinks & Snacks
Let’s start with the most popular (and important) one: Caipirinha, which is of course THE official drink! In Brazil they make it with various fruits; we tried several flavors such as kiwi, passion fruit or mixed fruit, but found the original one with lime the best. The main difference compared to the “light” version sold in Europe is, that Brazilians do not serve it as a glass of ice with a little cachaça, but as a glass of very strong cachaça with couple of cubes of ice... and the very best versions are the cheapest ones, sold to the locals on the streets!
As shown in the picture, it goes extremely well with
pastel (sort of deep fried stuffed pastry), which is very popular in Rio.
Rio is a great place to explore various snack specialities, such as: Pao de queijo (cheese balls), aipim frito (fried manioc), bolinhos (stuffed with meat or prawns) - all very delicious and can be found practically at every corner. The good thing about the snacks in Brazil is, that you can not get it wrong:
no matter what you order, you will always end of with a delicious plate in front of you - even if you have no idea what's on it - like on the picture to the right.
For non alcoholic drinks, there are few really good local specialties, such as the national soft drink – Guaraná or our favorite, the coconut water - Coco, sold mainly at the beach.
Gulliver’s favorite was however the Acai, a famous amazonian fruit/drink (a little too sweet for our taste though).
Bahian Cuisine
Salvador has its own cuisine, dominated by lots of sea food. Within a few days, we have tried such a variety of shrimp specilities (grilled, fried, stewed,...) that we've never seen in our lives.
Another version of seafood is the local speciality called
moqueca, a stew cooked and served in a large bowl, consisting of a combination of seafood (there are many different types of moquecas) stewed in coconut milk and palm oil.
One of our favorites however was the local snack speciality, sold everywhere on the streets: the acarajé.
It is basically a deep-fried "bread" (made of mashed
beans), deep fried in palm oil and served with vatapá (a paste made from shrimp, peanuts, cashews, coconut milk and pal oil), pimenta (hot pepper sauce), camarão (small shrimps) and mixed diced salad.
As the region of Salvador has a lot of cocos and sugar cane, no wonder that these became the basic ingredients of the cocada - sort of a coconut sweet, made in various colors and flavors, all very sweet (in the pictures below 1. served with coconut pudding, 2. the most popular, dried version):
And finally, a practical tip for those looking for an excellent place to try Bahian food in Salvador: we can highly recommend the Senac Restaurant at Largo de Pelourinho (even though located in the historical center, there were many locals and the prices were also not too touristic...)
Churrascaria (Brazilian Steakhouse)
Our favorite in Brazil: a Churrascaria is a restaurant serving authentic Brazilian barbecue in very special way. We tried it first in Foz de Iguacu (Churrascaria Branco, worth trying it!), later in Rio again (in the very famous chain of Porcao). The "serving" style is as follows: first, you start with filling up your plate with side dishes, vegetables, or exquisite salad varieties from a huge and extremely delicious-looking buffet.
Then, the servers move around the restaurant with skewers, slicing meat (mainly beefstake, pork, lamb and chicken, grilled on long skewers) onto your plate.
What makes it really special is, that the barbecue is always served fresh off the grill and you can choose which one would you like to try (you have to be careful though, as there are so many different kinds of meat served that you might only get a second chance for the same type of meat in couple of hours again)
Our favorite combination was the barbecue with grilled pineapple (also moved around by the servers on skewers) and fried banana.
... and imagine this going on and on and on ... until you’re completely saturated (not only your belly, but also your eyes). Then it's time for your piece of bite to complete your dinner: a slice of lime cake! Yammm!
Rodizio versus Porquilo
Both names stand for large buffer resturants, very popular in Brazil. The main difference between the two is, that "Rodizio" buffets are considered all you can eat, while "Porquilo" means that you pay by the weight of your plate.
The best thing about it is, that offers you the opportunity to try out all the local dishes at a very reasonable price. Like for example the
Feijoada, a meat and bean based dish very popular in Rio de Janeiro, also considered as the main national dish (which, by the way, is very similar to the so called Hungarian "Csulkos bableves", in a thicker version).
We have also discovered another similarity to a food we always considered "typical Hungarian": the "vinettasalata" :-))
Another delicious dish we found was a combination of pumpkin and beef stew, in a spicy sauce (on the left). Unfortunately we do not know its name, but already tried at home and turned out very similar to what we had in Brazil (for a very good price, we may even sell the receipe)
All in all, we found the Brazilian food very vibrant and rich, just like the people themselves. And herewith we'd like to thank also to our friends Deborah and Fabio for the great tips, without their local advise we'd have probably missed many of these enjoyable culinary and cultural experiences.
