| BELO HORIZONTE // Brazilians have a reputation for being body-conscious, healthy beachgoers, which is as much as a stereotype as suggesting all residents of the UAE are rich beyond their wildest dreams. The result is visitors are often shocked to discover Brazilians eat an incredible about of fried foods, starch-heavy breads and fatty meats. Pao de queijo, a chewy ball of cheese-bread, is so popular it has entire restaurants serving only that, with optional fillings of cheese, cheese or doce de leite (a creamy, fudge-like toffee). Coxinha is shredded chicken wrapped in mash potato to form the shape of a large pear and then deep-fried. Breakfast often includes meat-filled pastries. Yet travelling around Brazil this past month has shown there is a lot more to Brazilian cuisine than cheese bread. In Manaus, people sell from the back of their cars a gloopy, shrimp-based soup that features the jambu leaf, an exotic plant that numbs the tongue. Called tacaca, it is served not with a spoon, but with possibly the least useful instrument ever used to eat soup: a wooden skewer. On the streets of Salvador, you can buy from traditional Bahian women a dish called acaraje, a hard-shelled fritter made from black-eyed peas and filled with shrimp, tomatoes, peppers and spicy paste. It has the potential to blow your head off, but can just as often leave you craving it later in the evening. |
Yet of all Brazil's states, the cuisine in Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais, is often cited as the country's most typical and diverse. Comida Mineira is cooked in clay pots and features meat prepared with cassava flour, beans and sausage. Ask a mineiro what snack their state is most proud of, however, and they are likely to tell you of their famous cheese bread, called pao de queijo. ISWAS