Tuesday 26 February 2019

Meal 61. Brazilian feijoada with farofa and pão de queijo

Kneading the pão de queijo mix with eggs
Patricia has been roped into this meal with months of advance. She is doing a MSc in Wild Animal Health in London (like I did 7 years ago) and has invited along some of the other vets on the same course. They had a lucky escape from cooking for the blog as Peruvian, Colombian and Chilean meals had already featured! Somehow Brazil had eluded me till now, though a kind Brazilian colleague did offer to send some pictures after his girlfriend had cooked a traditional meal..."That's not how it works!" I had to tell him.

I always liked that from appearance/colouring, almost anybody could be Brazilian; there is such diversity, displayed by celebrities like footballers Pele, Neymar and models Adriana Lima and Gisele Bündchen. Like the latter, Patricia is of German extraction. She mentions that all her grandparents were born there: her dad's parents fled to Brazil, and her mother's parents fled to Argentina to escape the war.
The pão de queijo balls are ready to go in the oven
After I learn Patricia's mother grew up in Argentina, I ask her who taught her to cook traditional Brazilian food like feijoada. The short answer is that it likely involved the family's long time empregada (housekeeper), nicknamed Mel (Honey) who has taught both Patricia and her mother about traditional dishes. Mel herself has also learned how to make many German dishes (from Patricia's mother mainly). Based on my fascination with the topic (as only very rich households in the West have housekeepers), we get into a bit of a discussion on class and social mobility, favelas and so on. Many years ago, I had asked a (well educated) friend from São Paulo if he had ever been to a favela, the low-income urban areas well known from movies like Black Orpheus and Tropa de Elite. He had answered "Of course, when I visited the home of our housekeeper!" and the situation is somewhat similar for Patricia, though she has also visited favelas through her work as a vet, to treat dogs there. She does mention that all three of Mel's children graduated from high school and her daughter is now training to be a dentist, suggesting that she might be one of those who will manage to bridge the class divide.
Pão de queijo, crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside!
We also touch on what the experience is like of going to the famous carnaval, which is somewhat different in the streets from in the official Sambadrome where the samba schools perform. But both involve music, dancing and drinks! Back to food, as during all this talk, Patricia has managed to produce some delicious pão de queijo from a mix that promises it is 'easy to prepare'! This seems to be true, as it mainly involves kneading the mix (tapioca flour and powdered cheese) with eggs, forming balls and placing them in the oven. I venture that some people might make it from scratch (there are recipes online!) but Patricia says in Brazilian cities, most people will choose for an even easier route, buying frozen ones, or freshly prepared ones from a bakery. They are carb-laden, cheesy hot deliciousness and I would recommend them to anybody who loves cheese. I do my very best to restrain myself, as I need to save some space for the main course. By the time all the invitees have arrived, Patricia has given instructions to produce some amazing cocktails (a caipirinha made with juiced lime, sugar, muddled strawberries and cachaça). Apparently there are many fruity variations of caipirinhas, with limes, passionfruit or raspberries, and sometimes using vodka (called caipiroskas!).


Anything called feijoada involves black beans, onions and lot of meat, mainly pork. Patricia had
The main dish - meaty feijoada with a side of farofa
given me the bag of beans to soak well in advance of the dinner, and lugged a pressure cooker (plus the rest of the ingredients) halfway across London to my place to finish the process. Spare ribs, pork sausage, salted beef and bacon bits all go with the beans to create a truly tasty, truly Brazilian meal that we all snaffle up. It's accompanied by white rice and a side dish called farofa, again made with tapioca flour and eggs plus some fried onions. This is the first time I've had authentic feijoada after more than a decade of hearing about it from friends, and I am happy to report, it does not disappoint!

After eating the food, drinking the cocktails, and hearing all the stories about Brazil, I feel even more convinced that a long visit is in order...


Vet friends ready to tuck into the main dish...they've already made some headway on the caipirinhas!


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