A Promise Fulfilled - Buchada

Back in October of 2009, in the very first month of this blog's existance, I wrote a post about a dish called buchada - one of the most well-known traditional dishes of Ceará, the northeastern Brazilian state where Flavors of Brazil originates. (Click here to read the post). At the time that the post was published, I rashly promised that although I'd never eaten buchada, I would do so in due course and report the results to the blog's readers.

A firm believer in the better-late-than-never philosophy of life, I can now report that I have done as I promised there - I have eaten buchada. Not only that, I've lived to tell the tale.

What might make buchada something that one might promise to eat, and then take nearly three years to fulfil the promise? Let's just say it's because the dish is simply offal (sorry, can't resist a bad pun). The dish's name buchada derives from the Portuguese word bucho, meaning meaning animal stomach, and that's exactly what buchada is: an animal's stomach stuffed with the same animal's innards - things like intestines, lungs, spleen, heart etc. - sewn up like a purse and cooked.

You might call buchada Brazil's answer to Scotland's haggis, though the difference is that the innards in buchada are coarsely chopped and there's nothing added to them to create the stuffing, whereas in haggis they're finely chopped and mixed with oatmeal before being stuffed into the stomach.

In any case, for someone who's never been a big fan of offal, buchada was a challenge, or rather, the idea of eating buchada  was a challenge. In the end, at a holiday luncheon today at the house of a friend, the main dish was homemade buchada, and having it served at the table meant that it would be impolite to refuse it. Not only that, in term of the promise made here at Flavors of Brazil three years ago, it would have been cowardly to refuse. So, with a half lamb stomach's worth of buchada staring up at me from my plate, I managed not to disgrace myself among the tableful of buchada-lovers. I cleaned my plate, to the delight of my fellow guests who'd been placing bets on whether the gringo would be able to down a plateful of buchada.

In the end, what was it like? It certainly wasn't awful tasting - in fact it really didn't have that much taste at all; it was quite bland. The stomach itself was quite tender, but some of the bits inside, which I tried not to look at too closely or identify, were chewy, almost rubbery. The seasoning was simple, just some onion, garlic and salt and pepper as far as I could tell, although there was a delicious gravy served alongside. Cultural or other problems in eating animal organs aside, there was really nothing special about the dish. It was neither delicious or revolting, just somewhat characterless and lacking in flavor. My worries about eating buchada were, in the end, much ado about nothing. At the lunch table, though, it was clear my somewhat negative opinion about the culinary merits of buchada was a minority opinion - the rest of the diners all seemed to love it, and heartily praised the cook. I'm thinking perhaps, like many offbeat traditional foods, you must have to have been raised on the stuff to truly appreciate it.

As for me, buchada is now mission accomplished. The promise to eat it for this blog's readers isn't hanging over me any longer - I can now gracefully say, next time a serving of buchada is offered to me, no thanks!

RECIPE - Panelada

Should you decide that you want to make the traditional Brazilian stew called panelada, you're likely to run into two obstacles en route to a culinary home run at the dinner table. First, if you live in North America or metropolitan areas of Europe you're likely to have problems finding sources for some of the ingredients that the dish demands. Things like cow stomach (including but not limited to tripe) and cow intestines. The other problem (at least if you consider honesty a virtue) is convincing family members, dinner guests or amyone else to whom you serve the dish to try panelada with an open mind. (If you don't consider honesty a virtue and try to lie your way into general acceptance of panelada the shape and form of the stomach and intestines will probably give your game away.)

But there are always those culinary pioneers who boldly go where no cook has gone before, and for them we offer this recipe for panelada from the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceará, where panelada is considered an iconic dish.
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RECIPE - Panelada
Serves 4

1/2 lb (250 gr) cow stomach (tripe may be substituted)
1/2 lb (250 gr ) cow intestine
juice of 3 limes
1/2 Tbsp salt
2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
1/2 Tbsp annatto powder (sweet paprika may be substituted)
2 bay leaves
1 red or green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 cup chopped cilantro
fresh-ground black pepper to taste
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno or serrano chili
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Using kitchen scissors, cut the stomach (or tripe) into small squares and the intestine into 1/2 in (1 cm) rings. Wash them very well in several changes of water. Put them in a heavy saucepan, cover with cold water, add the lime juice and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Let boil for one minute, then drain them in a sieve. When cool, wash again in several changes of fresh water.

In a large pan, combine the washed stomach or tripe and intestine, the salt, the chopped tomato and onions, the annatto or paprika and the bay leaves. Heat over medium heat, partially covered. Stir from time to time to mix ingredients and to help the tomato to break down. When liquid comes to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for approximately 40 minutes, adding a small amount of water from time to time if the dish appears to be drying out.

Stir in the bell peppers, the garlic and chilis. Cover the pan and cook over low heat until the meats can be easily pierced with a fork and are tender.

Remove from heat, pour into a deep serving bowl and mix in the chopped cilantro. Serve immediately accompanied by white rice.

Panelada - A Polarizing Dish

Some foods, and some prepared dishes, evoke strongly opposing reactions among those who try or sample them. Call them the "love 'em or hate 'em" items of the food world. In a recent article in Huffington Post, ten foods were listed as being among the most polarizing - no one seems to be neutral about them. The ten were, in no special order, cilantro, blue cheese, Vegamite/Marmite, celery, coconut, liver, mayonnaise, marzipan, green pepper and licorice.

Just like those foods, there are some prepared dishes that get some folks' mouths watering and others trying to stifle a gag reaction. Scottish haggis, Norwegian lutefisk, Dutch raw herring, Chinese Dim Sum chicken feet, even sushi. Those who love these dishes don't just love them, they adore them. And those who don't - well, they can't abide them.

In Brazil, even though it contains such potential troublesome pig parts such as salted ears, salted tail and salted belly fat, almost everybody loves the dish often considered Brazil's national dish - feijoada. Or at least no one will admit they don't like it. But another widely loved traditional stew, called panelada, evokes a strong pro or con reaction even among Brazilians. For some Brazilians, panelada is the ultimate comfort food - something to eat on a cold rainy day, or the best cure for a wicked hangover. For others, even the smell of panelada cooking is enough to send them flying out of the kitchen with their hand over their mouths.

Panelada is just one of the many Brazilian variants of a stew - meat and vegetables cooked in a thick broth, all served together. Writer Roberto Da Matta, in his book "O Que Faz o Brasil, Brasil?" (What makes Brazil Brazil?), talks about the general Brazilian preference for stew-type dishes, from feijoada to peixada, to dobradinha, and of course, to panelada, "It appears we (Brazilians) have a prediliction for food that is neither liquid nor solid but halfway between the two."

panelada

So it's not the fact that it's a stew that makes panelada a "problematic" dish. It's what that stew contains. A proper panelada contains a wide variety of those parts of an animal collectively known as offal. One recipe, for example, calls for 2 lbs (1 kg) each of tripe, intestines, nerves and feet. another calls for hoof instead of foot. Most recipes will call for, at minimum, tripe, intestines and foot. It's these ingredients that make panelada, to coin a phrase, one man's meat and another man's poison.

Although panelada is made, and loved or hated, all around Brazil, it is particularly associated in most Brazilians' minds with the northeastern region of the country. Tomorrow we'll publish a recipe for a northeastern panelada, one from the state of Ceará.