The XV Festival of Culture and Gastronomy - Tiradentes, Minas Gerais

Tiradentes

The small hilltown of Tiradentes (pronounced cheer-a-DEN-cheese), located in the mountains of Brazil's Minas Gerais state, is known as one of the prettiest and historically most important of Minas Gerais' baroque jewels. Named after Brazil's revolutionary dentist-hero Tiradentes (meaning "tooth-puller" in English) the town offers visitors and tourists lovely examples of Brazilian baroque architecture, a delightful small-town atmosphere and a great collection of inns, small hotels, and restaurants.

For most of the year Tiradentes is a quiet, slow-moving town, even if the number of daily tourists often outnumbers the town's 6000 residents. However, once every year the town explodes in Brazil's best-known gastronomic festival - the Festival Cultura e Gastronomia Tiradentes. This year's festival, the fifteenth edition, is currently on and lasts nine days from August 24th to September 02nd.

The festival offers lectures, exhibitions and festive dinners, and features well-known chefs from Brazil and around the world. This year's star attraction among the chefs is Catalan chef Jordi Roca, whose restaurant El Cellar de Can Roca was recently named the second best restaurant in the world in this year's World Restaurant awards. In addition to Sr. Roca, chefs from Chile, Venezuela, and Peru will join their Brazilian colleagues in presenting demonstrations and special dinners.

The culinary focus of this year's festival will be the food and cooking of six out of Brazil's twenty-six states - Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, Amazonas, Ceará, and Rio Grande do North. One interesting innovation this year is a series of festive dinners created by pairs of chefs from diverse regions of Brazil, for example combining a chef from Pernambuco and one from Amazonas to create a five-course meal, or another with chefs from Rio de Janeiro and Ceará.

Because of the limited number of hotels, pousadas and restaurants in Tiradentes, the festival always sells out, and many festival-goers have to resort to staying in other nearby towns, returning each day to Tiradentes.

The festival has an excellent website, with full details of festival programs, menus of the festive dinners, and plenty of photos and videos (in Portuguese only.) Click here to visit the site.

We here at Flavors of Brazil have yet to experience the festival, but hope to attend the XVI edition in 2013. If we do, there will be extensive reporting on our adventures here on the blog.

RECIPE - Pork Hocks Minas Gerais Style (Pé de Porco Mineiro)

The new/old philosophy of raising food animals humanely and organically is something that has struck a chord around the world in recent years. The success of worldwide organizations like Slow Food as well as of small community group-created iniatives in support of local organic food producers would seem to indicate that there is growing concern that the meat and dairy products that we eat (at least those of us who are not vegans) come from animals that have had a healthy, non-medicated and relatively happy life and that the animals who have been slaughtered suffer as little fear and pain as possible.

The most recent post in this blog, about a ranch in Brazil that is home to a contented group of pigs, is an example of this philosophy being expressed in action. You can click here to read more about the ranch and its four-legged denizens.

There is another aspect, though, to this new attitude to meat-eating that wasn't discussed in the post about Alfheim ranch. That aspect is the idea that once an animal has been slaughtered for food, for our benefit, it behooves those who eat it not to waste large portions of the animal. The thought is, basically, that if we kill an animal to eat it, it deserves at the very least not to have only small choice bits used and the rest thrown away or converted into food for other farm animals.

Traditional food cultures around the world have always felt that way and have found ways to eat almost the entire slaughtered carcass. There's an old saw about Chinese cuisine that says that when it comes to pigs, it serves up everything but the squeal. Obviously there is an economic rationale for this complete utilization of a slaughtered animal, but it is also a matter of respect.

Brazilian cuisine has traditionally made use of many portions of an animal that might be thrown away in other cultures - limbs, bones, organs, ears, noses, testicles, everything. Some of the most iconic traditional dishes of Brazilian gastronomy, like feijoada and the recently-discussed buchada, make use of what might euphemistically be called "lesser cuts" of meat.

Minas Gerais state, in Brazil's mountainous interior has a well-developed traditional cuisine and one might expect to find recipes using less expensive cuts of meat to be found in cookbooks, on family tables or served in restaurants specializing in regional food. And one does. Recipes like this one for pork hocks (or pigs' feet if you will) which is the house specialty at the Bar Giovanni in the small village of Cristina, 250 miles from Belo Horizonte, the state's capital and biggest city.

At the Bar Giovanni, pork hocks are never off the menu - the owner, Giovanni Concenza, and his wife/chef say that local customers wouldn't allow it. Sr. Concenza says that it's not when a customer leaves the bar singing the praises of the dish that they know the customer loved it, it's when the customer has eaten so much of it that he or she has trouble even walking out the door when the meal is finished.

The recipe is very simple, and at Bar Giovanni, the pork is accompanied by sauteed kale and angu, the Brazilian take on polenta. Pork hocks are generally available from good-quality butcher shops everywhere, though you may have to order them in advance.
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RECIPE - Pork Hocks Minas Gerais Style (Pé de Porco Mineiro)

2 lbs (1 kg) pork hock (usually two pieces)
10 cloves garlic, 7 chopped, 3 whole
1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 14-oz can crushed tomatoes, or tomato puree
salt to taste
chopped cilantro and green onion to taste
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Wash the pork hocks carefully in running water. Using the tip of a sharp knife or a turkey-trussing pin, pierce the skin thoroughly to allow fat to drain.

Put the hocks in a large pan, add 2 quarts cold water, bring to a boil over medium high heat and let boil for five minutes. Remove from the heat, drain the hocks and reserve.

In a clean deep pan, combine the hocks with 1 quart fresh water and three whole cloves of the garlic. Bring to a boil, cover the pan and reduce the heat, and cook at a slow boil for 1 hour to 90 minutes, or until the pork is completely cooked and tender. Drain the pork and reserve.

In another clean pan, heat the olive oil, then add the chopped garlic and fry for a few minutes. Do not let the garlic brown or burn. Add the chopped tomato and the canned tomatoes, mix thoroughly and cook for a few minutes. Add the pork hocks, regulate heat so that the tomato sauce just bubbles, cover the pan and let cook for 30 minutes, adding a small amount of water if necessary to cook moist.

Remove from heat, and serve the hocks immediately, sprinkled with chopped cilantro and green onion. Traditional accompaniments are kale and angu (polenta) but you can substitute other green vegetable and boiled potatoes if desired.

Recipe translated and adapted from Sabores de Minas-Roteiros Gastronomicos website.

RECIPE - Brazilian Eggnog (Licor de Ovos)

Here in the Southern Hemisphere we've just passed the equinox and autumn is upon us. In certain parts of Brazil that doesn't really mean much as the weather is tropical all year round. However, in the more southerly part of the country, especially in high-altitude regions of the interior, during fall and winter temperatures can drop precipitously, and it can be bitterly cold, especially at night.

The interior state of Minas Gerais is one place that has learned well over the years how to lessen the impact of cold weather. In the historic cities of Minas during the cold season people light fires in fireplaces, eat hearty and rich stews and soups and drink hot drinks, all in aid of keeping warm. During the same season, they also drink a home-made spirit called licor de ovos (egg liqueur), the Brazilian version of eggnog.

Eggnog is a cold-weather drink almost everywhere it is known - the combination of milk, eggs, sugar and possibly liquor is just too rich to be enjoyed in hot climes. It becomes cloying and overly-rich when the temperature soars. So this recipe, which comes from the small town of Joaquim Felício, MG, is just starting to be made in these early days of autumn. That will ensure that in a month or two from now, on those chilly mountain evenings, there will be plenty of licor de ovo to warm the cockles of everyone's heart.

The liquor used in Minas Gerais to make licor de ovos is, naturally, Brazil's own cachaça. However, if you can't source cachaça you can substitute rum, although the result will be substantially less Brazilian (and it will also be sweeter).
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RECIPE - Brazilian Eggnog (Licor de Ovos)
Makes about one quart (one liter)

6 fresh egg yolks, preferably free-range
1 lb. (500 gr) granulated white sugar
2 cups (500 ml) whole milk
2 cups (500 ml) cachaça (rum may be substituted)
10 drops pure vanilla essence

In a medium saucepan, bring the milk just to the boil, then remove from heat and cool completely. Reserve.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the egg yolks and the sugar. Beat with a fork or a whisk-type beater until the mixture is consistent and frothy. Pour in the reserved milk, and stir to mix it in completely. Then do the same with the  cachaça. Finally add the vanilla essence and mix once again.

Pour into a sterile bottle or jug. Refrigerate for at least one month prior to serving to let the flavors develop.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH - Brazil's Coscorão and Scandinavian Rosettes

Scandinavian rosettes

For us here at Flavors of Brazil, one of our absolutely favorite Christmastide treats when we were growing up in northernmost Michigan in the USA were something called rosettes. Alongside shortbread and pfeffernuss, they were proudly served on the Christmas cookie platter and even though everyone was stuffed with other Christmas goodies, it was impossible to resist a rosette - especially knowing that they wouldn't appear again for another year. Rosettes are a traditional Scandinavian Christmas cookie, and they are common in areas in the USA and Canada where there are large communities which share Scandinavian ancestry.

Rosettes are something like a sweet, deep-fried waffle. To make rosettes you need a special decoratively-shaped iron, a thin flour batter, powdered sugar, and oil for deep-frying. Once the batter is ready, the iron is dipped into the hot oil to get hot, then into the batter, then back into the oil. When the waffle is nicely browned, you remove it from the iron and you repeat the process until you've used up all the batter. When the rosettes are cool, you sprinkle them with powdered sugar. They're then ready to serve.

We at Flavors of Brazil have recently been doing some research on the traditional foods of Brazil's Minas Gerais state, where one finds some of Brazil's oldest and most traditional food customs. Our searches led us the other day to the small town of Virginópolis, and its traditional holiday waffle, called coscorão. Which turns out to be nothing other than a Scandinavian rosette, though it has been thoroughly Brazilianized by substituting polvilho (a type of manioc flour) for Scandinavia's wheat flour. Other than that the two delicacies are identical - the thin batter, the decorative iron and the deep-frying.

Brazilian coscorões

Scandinavian rosettes are closely linked to the Christmas season, but the holidays which are connected to coscorões in Virginópolis are the mid-winter festivals called Festas Juninas, held at the end of June. During these festivals, street vendors set up stands on streets and in squares to cook and sell coscorões on the spot, and locals stroll by in the evenings, listening to live music, watching folk dances and sampling the wares of all the food and drink vendors - and one place that's an obligatory stop is the coscorão stand. We're sure that the aroma and the taste of a hot coscorão is as evocative of family and holiday times for residents of Virginópolis as rosettes are for the millions of descendents of Swedes, Norwegians, Finns and Danes in central Canada and the American midwest. But now we're curious - where's the missing link from Scandinavia to the isolated interior of Minas Gerais and from rosettes to coscorões?

RECIPE - Brazilian "Refried Beans" (Tutu de Feijão)

One Mexican dish that's become famous outside the borders of that country is somewhat misnamedly called frijoles refritos, which means refried beans. The dish consists of cooked dried beans that have been partially mashed and then reheated in a frying pan, often with the addition of some form of fat, usually lard. Creamy and rich, these beans and an accompanying mound of rice make the traditional sides on a Mexican dinner, lunch or even breakfast plate.

Brazil's variation on this Mexican theme is called tutu de feijão and employs a variety of cured meat products, like sausage or bacon, to add flavor to pre-cooked beans plus manioc flour to thicken and enrich the bean liquid. It's popular all over Brazil, but particularly so in the state of Minas Gerais - so much so that the dish is sometimes called Tutu de Feijão à Mineira, which means "tutu in the style of Minas Gerais".
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RECIPE - Brazilian "Refried Beans" (Tutu de Feijão)
Serves 4

3 cups pre-cooked beans, with their cooking liquid
1 small onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 thick slice bacon, cut into small cubes (optional)
1 small linguica or other garlic sausage, cut into small cubes (optional)
1 cup manioc flour (farinha)
1 cup water
chopped cilantro and green onion for garnish
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In a blender or food processor, blend the beans and their cooking liquid until they are homogenous. Reserve.

Using a large frying pan, fry the bacon and sausage until they have rendered the fat and they are thoroughly browned and crunchy. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon, leaving the fan in the pan. Reheat the fat, then add the onion and garlic and fry over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until they are soft and transparent, but not browned.

Add the reserved beans to the pan, reheat them, then add the water. When the mixture begins to boil, slowly add the manioc flour by sprinkling a few tablespoons at a time and mixing them in before adding additional flour. When all is absorbed continue to cook for a few minutes or until the mixture has thickened.

Put the tutu in a deep serving bowl and sprinkle the cilantro and green onion on top. Serve immediately.

RECIPE - Diamantina Rice Cake (Bolo de Arroz)

Diamantina, in the state of Minas Gerais, is rightly known as a tourist "gem" - not just because of the vast quantity of diamonds and other gems that were extracted from the hills which surround it, but because of its well-preserved historical center and its relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. Part of the town's charm comes as well from its gastronomic riches - Diamantina has preserved its culinary traditions as well as it has its architectural, musical and religious ones.

One of Diamantina's true gems is a woman named Zenília Rosália da Silva Rocha. Her story is told on the Brazilian gastronomic-tourism website Sabores de Minas, and although she isn't a professional cook, doesn't have a restaurant or even work in one, the one dish she is known for - a rice-flour cake - has made her famous, and beloved, in Diamantina and beyond.

Her is her story from the site, translated by Flavors of Brazil:

The ringing of church bells announces another religious festival in Diamantina. At the same hour, Zenília Rosália da Silva Rocha's oven advises her, "the rice cake is done." In Diamantina during the Festival of the Divine and the Festival of Our Lady of the Rosary, in July and October respectively, Dona Zenília has a mission: to make a thousand pieces of rice cake for each celebration. And to accomplish that, her marathon begins early. "I spend from 7 am to 8 pm making these treats", she says. And so, when the bells announce the beginning of the festival, she is ready to distribute her delicious sweets to all the festivals' celebrants. "It's a tradition. I've been doing it for 18 years. My grandparents did the same thing, and passed on the recipe to my mother, who taught me," she explains. The cake is a type of blessing she bestows on those who participate in the religious celebrations. "If there was no rice cake, the festivals just wouldn't be the same," she says. Golden in color due to the presence of squash, the pieces of cake she distributes are fluffy, moist and with a light flavor.  This light goodness is real sustenance for the pilgrims, as during the festival they must climb the steep, narrow streets and staircases of the city. It doesn't do to lose one's breath, and Dona Zenília's cake is a guarantee of strength for the thousands who walk in procession during the festivities. Her cake is a blessing for the pilgrim as well as a treat for their palates.

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RECIPE - Diamantina Rice Cake (Bolo de Arroz)
Makes one tube-pan cake

3 cups raw long-grain white rice
3 cups cooked long-grain white rice, cooled
2 cups granulated white sugar
6 whole eggs
one medium acorn squash, or equivalent amount of any other winter squash, cooked and mashed
1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup neutral vegetable oil
1/2 lb grated pizza-type mozzarella
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups (1/2 liter) milk
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Grease and dust with flour a tube-shaped cake pan. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).

In a small saucepan, heat the butter in the oil. Only heat until the butter melts, then remove from heat, cool and reserve.

In a food processor, process the raw rice until it is finely ground. Reserve.

In the bowl of a KitchenAid-type mixer, beat together the ground rice, the cooked rice, the eggs, the mashed squash. Alternatively use a hand mixer and a large mixing bowl. When you have a homogenous mixture, slowly add the butter and oil mixture. Then slowly add the milk while continuing to beat the mixture until you reach a cake-batter consistency.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, place in the preheated oven and cook for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool completely on a cake rack, then unmold and cut into small single-serving pieces.

Diamantina - Brazil's Other Baroque Gem

Diamantina at twilight

The baroque goldrush town of Ouro Preto, located in the mountains of Minas Gerais state, is one of the most well-known and visited Brazilian cities of tourism. Ouro Preto is an almost obligatory stop for any tourist visiting Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state and one of Brazil's largest metropolitan areas. Ouro Preto is only about an hour or two from BH (as Belo Horizonte is familiarly nicknamed) and so it's easy to make a day trip from the capital or enjoy a quick overnight visit. Ouro Preto's worth as part of the world's cultural patrimony has been recognized by UNESCO which honored it with World Heritage Site status in 1980.

Less well known, but equally worthy of its World Heritage Site status (granted in 1999) is another small town which owes its origins to the 18th century goldrush in Minas Gerais, Diamantina. Less accessible than Ouro Preto at 300 km. from Belo Horizonte, Diamantina doesn't receive the hordes of tourists that can sometimes lessen the pleasure of a visit to Ouro Preto. For some connaisseurs of baroque city planning and architecture Diamantina is more beautiful than Ouro Preto, but the friendly controversy over which city is lovelier will probably never be settled. Its mineral wealth was not limited to gold - the area around Diamantina was mined as well for diamonds (hence the city's name). The gems and metals of the mountains surrounding Diamantina meant that it was extraordinarily wealthy during its 18th century heyday. The artistic riches that remain are proof of that wealth, and testify to the labor of the millions of slaves who were forcibly brought from Africa to work in the mines of Minas Gerais.

Diamantina is also famous among Brazilians for being the hometown of one of Brazil's most-loved presidents, Juscelino Kubitschek, born in Diamantina in 1902 and the man whose vision was responsible for the creation and construction of Brasília, Brazil's new capital city.

Diamantina is a center for religious observances and pilgrimages in Minas Gerais. Some of the annual religious celebrations bring thousands of devotees to the city, as does the city's very traditional but very popular Carnaval. Tourism, whether during a festival season or not, plays a large role in Diamantina's economy, and the city is full of small inns and pousadas, traditional restaurants and bars and food shops selling traditional local snacks, preserves, pastries and sweets.

In our next post, we'll tell you all about Zenília Rosália da Silva Rocha, a local cook, and explain just why she's so famous in Diamantina.

Minas Gerais - Gastronomic Routes

Even though Italian cooking includes such well-known regional styles of cooking as Neapolitan, Sicilian, Venetian, even Sardinian, most gastronomic historians consider the region of Emilia-Romagna to be the true heartland of traditional Italian gastronomy. Containing such gastronomic hot spots as Parma (with its ham and its cheese), Modena (home of balsamic vinegar) and Italy's food capital, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna is at the same time the cradle of traditional cooking and the location of some of the most daring and avant-garde 21st century Italian gastronomy.

In Brazil, which resembles Italy in the number and variation of its regional cuisines, the interior state of Minas Gerais, located in the south-eastern part of Brazil, holds an analogous position in Brazilian gastronomy to that of Emilia-Romagna in Italian. Not as unique as Bahian cooking with its bold mixture of African and European styles and techniques, nor as strictly-European as the cuisines of the south of Brazil, mineiro (meaning from Minas Gerais) gastronomy is to many people the true essence of Brazilian cooking.

The influences that went into the creation of mineiro cooking are those which define all Brazilian cuisine - European, particularly Portuguese, African and native Indian. In the lush highlands of mountainous Minas Gerais these influences were blended, mashed and mixed into something uniquely new and Brazilian - Minas Gerais was the crucible in which Brazilian cooking was forged.

Even today, Minas Gerais is one of the places in Brazil where food and cooking matters most. From the modern capital Belo Horizonte, through exquisitely beautiful baroque cities like Ouro Preto, Tiradentes and Diamantina, and on to the small villages and farms that dot the landscape, people care about what they eat and they honor the foods that have been a part of their diet for years, even centuries. Local cheeses, long-cooked stews, sweets and desserts whose recipes date back to the convents of medieval Portugal - they all play a part in mineiro gastronomy.

Because so much of what makes mineiro cooking such a marvel comes from small towns and villages throughout the state, we at Flavors of Brazil were thrilled to recently come across a website called Sabores de Minas (Flavors of Minas Gerais) and its 69 different gastronomic routes through the state. Each route concentrates on a particular region or a particular speciality of this enormous state (slightly larger than France). For example, route number 32 concentrates of the baroque cities of the 17th Century mineiro gold rush, number 22 is focused on the relatively-unpopulated north of the state, and number 44 on coffee and sweets. For each route, the website publishes a map and a list of 15-18 suggested stops. A stop might be a farm that produces cheese, it might be a long-established local restaurant, or it might even be the home of a cook whose fame has spread beyond her family to include her whole village. Each stop is described in detail, with personal stories of the cooks and producers involved and each includes a recipe.

The site is a treasure-trove for anyone interested in traditional Brazilian gastronomy, and a powerful inducement to book a flight to Belo Horizonte, grab a rental car and head for the hills in search of the soul of mineiro cooking. And the 700+ recipes are enough to keep any amateur cook happy for months in the kitchen at home.

For most non-Brazilians there is one significant problem with the website - it's in Portuguese only. Although Google will offer to translate the page in most browsers, its translator is not yet sufficiently sophisticated to correctly translate this site. Because of that language difficulty, and because of the importance of mineiro cooking to Brazilian gastronomy, tomorrow  Flavors of Brazil will publish the first of s series of occasional reviews/translations of some of the best of Sabores de Minas. We hope it will open some eyes to the beauty of the state and the quality of its food products and cooking.

Queijo do Serro - Brazil's First Protected Cheese

Yesterday's post on Flavors of Brazil was concerned with the complicated nomenclature of artisanal cheeses coming from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, and detailed the recent inclusion of some cheeses from Minas Gerais in the government's IG (indicação geográfica ) program, which grants protected status and naming rights to locally produced food products. In 2011, the governmental body responsible for administering the IG program granted IG status to Queijo do Serro cheese from the Serro region of Minas Gerais. Queijo do Serro is the first cheese in Brazil, and the 14th food product overall, to receive this status and to have its name protected and prodution restrited to a specific region.

Currently there are 80 small chese producers scattered among 11 municipalities whose cheeses meet the geographical and technical standards required by the IG program. Only the cheeses made by these 80 producers are now entitled to call their cheese Queijo do Serro. (Queijo is the Portuguese word for cheese).

According to the leader of the Seroo region cheese producers' association, the granting of IG status is important for his group because it means that the name is protected nationally and that cheese manufacturers from other states will not be entitled to use the name Queijo do Serro for their products. If a cheese bears that name, it will mean that it was produced in the Serro region and nowhere else.

This is all very good news for cheese producers, but it does mean that for many Brazilians they will not have access to Queijo do Serro at all. Interstate shipping of raw-milk cheeses is currently prohibited in Brazil (a situation we've covered before), and so at the momento Queijo do Serro, the true one, can only be sold in Minas Gerais. Now that these dairy farmers have successfully convinced the government to protect their right to be the sole producers of Queijo do Serro, perhaps now they can persuade the government to let them sell it in other parts of the country!

A Cheese Map of Minas Gerais

Charles de Gaulle once quipped when asked how he enjoyed governing France, "Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays où il existe 246 variétés de fromage?" ("How would you like to govern a country which has 246 types of cheese?") Well, if there are 246 types of French cheese, there are probably an equal number of different types of cheese come from the interior Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Which stands to good reason because that state is just about the same size, only slightly larger, than France.

Just as the sheer number of French cheeses can overwhelm all but the professional turophile (look it up here), the nomenclature of cheeses from Minas Gerais is equally confusing. Some of the best artisanal cheeses are produced only in small quantities and remain virtually unknown outside their area of production. And to complicate matters, many of the cheeses have similar sounding names, or identical names.

In an effort to relieve some of this confusion and to create a systematic naming and cataloguing of the many mineiro (from Minas Gerais) cheeses, the central market of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, has produced a cheese map of the state, indicating the four principal areas of cheese production in Minas Gerais and detailing within those four areas the names of the municipalities that make cheese. The four main areas of production are called Cerrado, Araxá, Canastra and Serro. Each of these areas gives its name to cheeses produced locally, but each is also split into small units which can further define a cheese's origins. The map is below. (Note that the map is high resolution - if you wish to read the detail, simply click on the map).

In order to systematize the geographical names for these cheeses, the Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial of Brazil has begun to grant indicação geográfica status (geographical indication) to mineiro cheeses, starting with artisanal cheese from the Serro region. This IG status, as its known, is similar to European schemes to preserve and protect the geographical integrity of a number of food products, such as cheese, processed meats and wines. France has had a system called AOC in place to safeguard wines for many years, and Italy grants DOC status to many food products. Brazil's IG status is intended to serve the same purpose. Combining protected name status with promotional activities and products like the cheese map will, it is hoped, preserve and protect those artisanal cheeses which are an important part of the gastronomic heritage of Minas Gerais.

A Dish Called Kaol

The counter at Café Palhares

In Belo Horizonte's bustling downtown sits a small diner by the name of Café Palhares. It's a small place, just  twenty seats around a U-shaped counter. Nothing much has changed since the diner was opened in 1938 by brothers Antônio e Nilton Palhares Dini. At lunchtime during the week, the diner's busiest time, a wait for a seat is inevitable, but no one lingers over a meal at Café Palhares, so the wait isn't normally too long. Most of those waiting to eat already know what they're going to order - exactly what most of those who are in the middle of their meal are eating - a dish called Kaol. There's a large sign on the diner's wall that states it quite simply: Ser mineiro é comer um Kaol. Translated into English it means "To be a mineiro (a resident of the state of Minas Gerais) is to eat Kaol.

Kaol doesn't look like a typical Portuguese word. In fact, until a few years ago, the official Portuguese alphabet didn't even have a K. But this dish is definitely Kaol with a K. It was baptized by a noted local bohemian and radical, and frequenter of Café Palhares, named Rômulo Paes. He created an acronym for the ingredients which make up the dish, starting with pre-meal aperitif, cachaça. Because he was a radical bohemian, he substituted K for the initial letter of cachaça, C. Next came A for arroz (rice), O for ovos (eggs) and finally L for lingüiça, a traditional Brazilian sausage. Cachaça, rice, eggs and sausage - Kaol.

Since the dish was first created at Café Palhares and baptized by Rômulo Paes it has become more elaborate, though the name hasn't changed at all. In the 1970s manioc farinha and a side of sauteed kale were added, and in the 1980s the kitchen began to throw on a piece or two of fried pork rind (torresmo). Today, the restaurant allows customers to swap lingüiça for other cuts of meat, such as roast pork, or even fried fish. Traditionalists will have none of that though, and swear by the original dish with its lingüiça.

The shot of cachaça is to be downed in one gulp before the arrival of the plate from the kitchen, but to accompany Kaol, a glass of icy-cold draft beer (chope) is traditional. Most diners don't find room for dessert after a full plate of Kaol, but there are a variety on offer.

The clientele at Café Palhares, to this day, is primarily downtown office workers and shoppers, though the fame of Kaol, and the growing number of gastronomic tourists in Brazil, mean that from time to time non-mineiros make their way into the diner. They may be non-mineiros when they arrive, but by the time they've finished their plate of Kaol, they've become mineiros at heart.

FILM - The Mineiro and His Cheese (O mineiro e o queijo)

 From O mineiro e o queijo

A new documentary film by Brazilian filmmaker Helvécio Ratton opened yesterday (Sep. 30) in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, and in São Paulo. The film, entitled O mineiro e o queijo,  takes as his subject the plight of artisanal cheesemakers in the state of Minas Gerais (mineiro means someone from Minas Gerais). A centuries-old tradition of cheesemaking is in danger of extinction not because there's no market for these cheeses (there is), but because producers are forbidden by law to sell their cheese to the majority of their potential customers. Due to draconian and outdated laws dating from the 1950s forbidding the interstate shipment of raw milk cheeses in Brazil, cheesemakers cannot legally ship or sell their cheeses in the largest markets in the country.

Ratton is a mineiro himself, from a region of traditional cheesemaking in Minas Gerais, and for him these raw milk cheeses are not only economically important to an impoverished region, but are also an integral part of Minas Gerais' cultural identity. In an interview with the São Paulo newspaper Folha de S. Paulo during the week of the film's premiere, Ratton recalls childhood visits with his mother to dairy farms near his home. During these visits, sampling and buying cheeses with him mother, he learned to love cheese and to appreciate its infinite varieties. While filming his documentary, he revisited many farms in the same region and in other cheesemaking regions. He interviewed cheesemakers and dairy farmers, and the interviews make up the bulk of his film.

Ratton says that these cheesemakers consider themselves guardians of a way of making cheese that dates back hundreds of years and that many of them are afraid they will be be the last generation to know how to produce cheese the way it's always been done. One of the cheesemakers told him, "For me making cheese is an honor." In their desperation to access forbidden markets outside the state of Minas Gerais, some cheesemakers have gone underground and clandestinely carry their cheese to markets in other states.

When he was asked why he made the film Ratton replied that he wanted his film to inform and to incentivize the public. First, to inform the public what the situation is for these traditional cheesemakers and for their product, and second to ask the public to think whether the current situation is justified, and if it isn't to ask them what they might do to rectify it.

The situation of these cheesemakers in Minas Gerais is not unique to Brazil - the same restrictions on interstate and interprovincial shipment of raw milk cheeses exist in the USA and Canada, and there are restrictions and limitations in the EU as well. There is a legitimate health concern with the use of unpasteurized milk in any product, and therefore there is a legitimate government interest in protecting public health. But when laws are enacted that in truth merely protect the large agri-business dairy companies and their markets, what is lost is a decent livelihood for farmers and cheese producers as well as traditional, safe and delicious cheeses for consumers. This film highlights the problems in a fair and unpolemical way.

RECIPE - Caldo Verde, Take Three (Bambá de Couve)

Ouro Preto

For our final trip round the caldo verde table, we'd like to present a traditional soup from the historic baroque city of Ouro Preto (Black Gold) in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Nestled in a green, mountainous landscape, Ouro Preto was the fabulously wealthy focal point of Brazil's 18th century gold rush, and has been preserved in all its baroque glory, virtually unchanged, up to today. Its steep cobblestone streets that climb and descend the hillsides on which Ouro Preto is built, its over-the-top baroque churches with gilded altars and ceilings and its noble public squares have earned Ouro Preto a place in UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites.

Ouro Preto's own local version of caldo verde, called bambá de couve, is served in many of Ouro Preto's charming small restaurants and inns, and is suitably warming on chilly evenings, frequent in this mountain city which sits at an altitude of almost 1200 meters (4000 ft). The soup has a charmingly poetic name, bambá de couve being best translated as "dance of kale" our "game of kale", and it's got the hearty, filling richness that a meal-in-a-bowl needs.

There are two major differences between bambá de couve and the other versions of caldo verde that we've been publishing recently here on Flavors of Brazil. The first is the presence of fresh eggs, which are poached separately then added to the soup, and the second is fubá, a cornmeal flour that is the Brazilian equivalent of polenta. These two ingredients add a substantiality to bambá de couve that creates a full-meal soup. All you need to add to the table are chunks of rustic, crusty bread and you have a perfect cold-weather meal.
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RECIPE - Caldo Verde, Take Three (Bambá de Couve)
Serves 4

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
6 cups (1.5 liters) light chicken stock
salt to taste
3 Tbsp fubá (packaged polenta meal can be substituted)
1 cup cubed bacon, lightly packed
10 leaves kale, coarsely shredded by hand
4 whole eggs, free-range preferred
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In a large heavy saucepan heat the bacon cubes over medium heat until they begin to render their fat, then add the chopped onion and garlic. Cook until the onion is transparent but not browned and the bacon begins to crisp. Drain off excess bacon fat if desired. Add 3 cups water and bring to the simmering point.

Meanwhile, mix the fubá or polenta in the remaining 3 cups of cold water, and stir to completely moisten the meal. Add to the bacon, onion, garlic mixture in the saucepan, raise temperature slightly, and cook at a slow boil for 5 minutes or until the soup has thickened nicely. Correct for salt - you may not need any depending on the saltiness of the bacon. Add the shredded kale and keep the soup at the simmer point while you poach the eggs.

In a large frying pan or other device poach the four whole eggs according to your preferred method.

Divide the hot soup between four large soup plates. Place a poached egg on the top of each and serve immediately.

Recipe translated and adapted from Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.

The Quest for Brazilian Olive Oil

As detailed in yesterday's post on Flavors of Brazil about the size of the Brazilian market for imported olive oil, Brazil's consumption of olive oil (or azeite as they call it) is stupendously large, and is increasing exponentially from year to year.

Considering the economic value of the oil that is imported into Brazil every year, not to mention the equally large market for imported olives themselves, it's only natural that Brazilian agriculturalists and botanists have turned their thoughts to the possibilities of creating a domestic market in olives and olive oils. It has long been thought that Brazil didn't offer the climatic or soil conditions that the olive tree requires to grow and bear fruit. The area around the Mediterranean Sea, where the tree flourishes, is known for dry, sandy soil, hot and arid summers, and cool and damp winters. Brazil, with its tropical soil, year-round heat and high levels of humidity was thought to be inimical to olive tree cultivation.

It is true that large portions of Brazil, such as the jungles of the Amazon River basin, or the semi-arid northeast, just cannot support olive cultivation. But other regions of Brazil offer interesting possibilities, and research scientists have begun a number of agricultural research studies and tests to try to find the right combination of climatic conditions and olive tree cultivars to build a Brazilian olive oil industry from scratch. The preliminary results are very encouraging.

Maria da Fé, Minas Gerais

The largest project, and the one which is closest to developing a commercially viable domestic olive oil comes from the interior Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where at higher altitudes the climate more closely mimics Mediterranean climate, particularly during wintertime, than does most of Brazil. An agricultural research organization, called Epamig (a Portuguese acronym for "Agricultural Research Institute of Minas Gerais") located promising land for olive tree cultivation in the small city of Maria da Fé , located in the south of Minas Gerais. They planted a research olive grove there more than fifty years ago, and only now are their efforts bearing fruit - figuratively and literally, since olive trees require at least fifty years before they provide a sustainable quantity of olives.

In 2008 the first viable harvest from the groves at Maria da Fé yielded one ton of olives, resulting in 200 liters of oil. In 2009, the harvest yielded 500 liters of oil, and in 2010 about 1000 liters. The scientific analysis of the oil from Maria da Fé is very encouraging. The oil is very low in acidity (0.39%), an important factor in valuing olive oil, as the acidity can be no more than (0.80%) for an oil to be considered extra-virgin.

Although the quantity of oil produced so far by Epamig is miniscule, groves have been planted in a number of locations with climate and soil conditions similar to those at Maria da Fé, and these groves will begin producing shortly. Farmers in the states of Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo, realizing the economic potential of olive cultivation have planted hundreds of thousands of trees, anticipating the future market for domestic olive oil.

Epamig Olive Oil

In September of 2010, Epamig brought their olive oil for the first time to ExpoAzeite, an olive oil trade fair held annually in São Paulo. Tastings were offered and the consensus was that Brazilian olive oil has nothing to be ashamed of and can stand in the market for olive oil on its own merits, not just on the fact that it is Brazilian.

Though the Brazilian olive oil industry is still very much in its infancy, one would be forgiven if one said that its future looks golden - olive-oil golden.

RECIPE - Dobradinha

On Monday, in a post on Flavors of Brazil about the Brazilian tripe-and-beans dish known as dobradinha, I promised that on Wednesday (today) a typical recipe for that dish would be posted. And as far as this blog is concerned, a kept promise is the best kind, so here is the recipe.

Naturally, a dish that has a long and glorious history, like dobradinha, will have countless varieties and variations. Some are regional and some are historical. The one thing about this multitude of recipes is that everyone thinks that their mother has the original (and best) recipe. A good dobradina has to be exactly like Mamãe (Mommy) made it all those years ago.

This recipe comes from the southeastern interior of Brazil, from the state of Minas Gerais. Minas was one of the earliest-settled parts of Brazil and is one of the parts of Brazil in which the influence of Portugal is strongly felt - from the food, to the music, and to the amazing Baroque architecture that graces its churches and relious buildings. Since dobradinha is of Portuguese origin, it makes sense that Mineiro (from Minas Gerais) dobradinha is considered among the best and most traditional.

One thing to note - this recipe calls for the use of a pressure cooker. Almost every Brazilian kitchen has a pressure cooker, and most Brazilian cooks use it daily. A kitchen without a pressure cooker here in Brazil would be like a 21st-century North American kitchen without a microwave - you can cook without one, but most choose not to. The recipe can be made successfully with a pressure cooker. Just allow for approximately double the cooking time for the various parts of the dish - beans, meats - and watch carefully to make sure that the dish doesn't become dried out. Just add a small amount of warm or hot water when that appears to be happening.

This dish is very hearty and substantial. Traditionally it is served with white rice, Mineiro-style kale, and manioc flour (farinha).
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RECIPE - Dobradinha
Serves 8

2 cups dried white beans - Navy beans, cannellini beans or similar
2 lbs (1 kg) tripe
juice of 2 large limes
1/2 cup (125 ml) cachaça
2 unpeeled limes, sliced
white or yellow cornmeal
4 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 medium onion, diced
Italian parsley and green onions (green part only), to taste
1/2 cup lard or neutral vegetable oil
8 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 Tbsp. ground annatto (urucum) - sweet paprika may be substituted
1 clove garlic, peeled and pounded to a paste with 1 tsp. salt
2 bay leaves
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Prepare the beans: Soak the beans overnight in plenty of cold water. Alternatively, put the beans in a large saucepan, cover with plenty of cold water, place on medium high heat on the stove and bring to a boil rapidly. Boil for one minute, then remove from the heat, cover the pan, and let stand for one hour. Once soaked or pre-boiled, put the beans in a heavy pan, cover with fresh water, bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low and let the beans slowly boil (just a few bubbles appearing at any time) for 40 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. Cooking time depends on size and age of beans, so begin checking beans after about 40 minutes. The beans are done when they are fully tender but not falling apart. Once cooked, remove the beans from the heat and reserve.

Prepare the tripe: Cut the tripe into small 2 inch squares. Put the squares in a large saucepan, cover with water, then add the lime juice and cachaca to the pan. Bring to a full boil and boil for five minutes. Remove from heat. Drain the tripe into a colander, rinse with plenty of running water and reserve. Wash the pan, then return the drained tripe to the pan and cover with fresh water. Again bring to a boil, cook for five minutes, then drain and reserve. Repeat the process a third time. After draining a final time, rub the tripe with the lime slices and cornmeal to clean it thoroughly and remove all dirt. Rinse under a thin stream of water, scrubbing the lime and cornmeal into the tripe as you rinse. (This process eliminates the strong odor of unwashed tripe and is essential to a successful dobradinha.)

Make the dobradinha: In a pressure cooker with the top off, melt the lard or add the vegetable oil. Then add these ingredients in order: garlic, onion, annatto or paprika, salt to taste, tomatoes green onion and bay leaf. Stir and cook over medium heat for a few minutes, or until the onion and pepper begins to soften. Add the tripe, mixing it in thoroughly until it begins to color from the annatto. Slowly add water - just enough to cover the ingredients by about one inch. Close the pressure cooker, and cook for approximately 30 to 40 minutes, or until the tripe is tender (If not using a pressure cooker, cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours). When the tripe is tender, add in the beans, and cook, with the pressure cooker uncovered, for about 5 minutes, or until everything is heated through and the beans have been flavored by the tripe. Remove from heat.

Place in a decorative serving bowl, and sprinkly chopped parsley and green onion over the top. Serve immediately.

(Note: some recipes call for additional meats - sausages, pork ribs, or bacon. If adding these, put them in the pressure cooker at the same time as the tripe, and cook as directed above.)

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora.

Steve Luttman - The American Behind Brazil's Leblon Cachaça

I recently returned to Brazil from a three-week visit to Canada and the USA. I'm always looking for things that might appear on Flavors of Brazil when I travel, and one thing that I noticed is it is becoming increasingly possible to order a caipirinha in bars and restaurants. The caipirinha, of course, is Brazil's most famous cocktail, made with cachaça, a distilled sugar-cane liquor, limes and sugar. Ten or fifteen years ago caipirinhas were nowhere to be seen on the North American bar scene, but now they're popping up all over the place. Casual taverns, bars in airports, contemporary-gastronomy restaurants, even a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver - they all have caipirinhas on their drinks menu.

Steve Luttmann

I also noted that many times the brand of cachaça specified on the menu was Leblon (especially in bars where the vodka is likely to be Grey Goose and the gin Bombay Sapphire). It was not a brand that I was familiar with here in Brazil, and upon my return to Brazil my curiosity got the best of me and I did a bit of research on it. It turns out that Leblon (named after a chic neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro) is a relatively new brand which distills its product in the small city of Patos in the state of Minas Gerais. It also turns out that the CEO of Leblon is an American, Steve Luttmann, who has made it his own personal crusade to spread the good word about cachaça and the caipirinha around the world. Leblon's "Legalize Cachaça" campaign is classic 21st century marketing and seems to be doing what it's meant to do - increase consumer awareness and thereby increase sales.

Steve Luttman was recently interviewed by Brazilian gastronomic magazine Prazeres da Mesa. In the interview he detailed what he is attempting to do, and where he hopes to take the cachaça market outside Brazil. Here is a translation (mine) of that interview:

What is the image that most North Americans have of Brazil?
It's still considered an exotic place. Some still think, for example, that the capital of Brazil is Buenos Aires. But they know that Brazil has the most beautiful women and the best party in the world - carnaval.


And how are they reacting to cachaça?
One good point about Americans is that they like to try new things. Besides, the best-selling cocktail in the USA is the margarita, a [Mexican] classic that combines lime juice, tequila and Cointreau and which is very similar to the caipirinha. That's the key, in my opinion, to market innovation. In order to gain strength in the cocktail market, you've got to have a firm footing in familiarity.

What about Brazilians? Do you think they will accept having their national drink distilled by an American?
The problem is that the true Brazilian has a prejudice against cachaça, because he sees it as a low-quality product. A good cachaça can be as high-quality as a wine - it's the Brazilian "champagne." It's important that the consumer understands this. Our team is working round the clock to change this. We're now found in the most elegant hotels in São Paul and Rio de Janeiro and in restaurants such as those of Alex Atala, Claude Troisgros and Roberta Sudbreck plus the Fasano group.


The master-distiller of Leblon is Gilles Merlet, from France, and also responsible for other products such as Hennessy Cognac. Does he come to Brazil or work at distance?
Gilles spends three or four months in Brazil, at harvest time. Outside this period, we send samples to him almost daily so that he doesn't miss a single step in the production process. It's an honor, for us, to have him on the team. In the world market, Gilles is for distilled products what Michel Rolland is for wines.


In your opinion, what makes Leblon different from other cachaças?
Our product is a blended cachaça, resulting in a product with complex aromas and flavors.


Finally, does the average American know how to make a good caipirinha?
The traditional recipe for a "kuai-pur-een-ya" (as Americans tend to pronounce caipirinha) has been demonstrated [by Leblon] in videos and in our consumer marketing campaign. However, certain adaptations have been put into practice, too. Americans are always in a hurry, so they sometimes mix a caipirinha with boxed or bottled lime juice, or even lime soda! But the good bartenders use the traditional recipe, and are learning to experiment with exotic modifications such as strawberry with basil, or cucumber with jalapenos peppers and dates, for example.

Luttmann can prove his point about the continuing acceptance of Leblon in the international market merely by pointing to his company's sales growth. In their first year of business, 2005, Leblon produced 20,000 9-liter cases of cachaça. Last year that number was 100,000 cases. According to Luttmann, American consumer awareness for the caipirinha is currently about 30% and cachaça itself about 20%. He is intent on increasing those percentages significantly in the years to come.

RECIPE - Minas-style Cattleman's Beans (Feijão-Tropeiro Mineiro)

The Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, and even more so the states to the west, such as São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Goiás, are in many ways the Brazilian equivalent of the American "Wild West". In early colonial times there were considered empty lands notwithstanding their substantial native populations and were seen to be ripe for colonization and for raising cattle on the vast tracts of scrubland, known as cerrado in Portuguese, found there.

Like in the American west, these lands were often "opened up" by troops of cattlemen and cattle rangers (called tropeiros in Portuguese) who traveled great distances in search of suitable territory for raising cattle, often banishing or slaughtering the native people who had the misfortune to inhabit good cattle range country. On their long expeditions the tropeiros couldn't rely on local sources of food, so their carried most of their food with them. Beans, salted or dried meat and manioc flour were the three cornerstones of their diet, and all three were often combined into one dish. This dish eventually became known as cattleman's beans (feijão-tropeiro) and while today no one needs to carry their food with them on horseback, the dish continues to be an important part of local cuisine.

There are unnumerable variations to feijão-tropeiro - the type of bean can vary as can the meat. Often the dish includes bacon, or carne de sol, Brazilian sun-dried meat, or it may contain charque, which is similar but drier and saltier. The animal protein content of the dish in enhanced by adding crunchy fried pork rinds, torresmo, at the last minute. But the three principal ingredients - beans, meat and manioc flour - must all be present in true feijão-tropeiro.

This recipe, for Minas Gerais-style feijão-tropeiro gives a good general idea of what the dish consists of. Everybody makes feijão-tropeiro their own way, or rather their mother's or grandmother's way, and nobody agrees on how it should be done. So take this recipe as a template only and vary it to your heart's content - unless you have a recipe that comes down from your mother or grandmother. Then, vary it at your own risk!
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RECIPE - Minas-style Cattleman's Beans (Feijão-Tropeiro Mineiro)
Serves 10

1 lb (500 gr) dried beans of any type
1/2 lb (250 gr) smoked bacon, cubed
1/4 lb (125 gr) fried pork rind (torresmo), crumbled
5 whole eggs
2 Tbsp lard (neutral vegetable oil can be substituted
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/3 lb (200 gr) manioc flour (farinha de mandioca)
Chopped parsley and green onion to taste
Black pepper to taste
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Soak the dried beans overnight, then cook in plenty of water until just tender. Drain and reserve.

In a large heavy pan, fry the bacon until crispy, then remove it from the pan and reserve. In the same pan, using the bacon grease, fry the eggs over hard. Remove them, break them up and reserve.

Add the lard or vegetable oil to the bacon grease remaining in the pan and if using lard, heat it to melt. When hot, add the garlic and onion and fry until transparent but not browned. Add the drained beans and cook for about five minutes. Add the manioc flour, one handful at a time, stirring constantly.

When all the manioc flour has been added, remove the pan from the heat. Add the crumbled pork rinds and stir thoroughly to mix completely. Add the eggs, the parsley and green onion and fold in gently. Serve immediately.

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora. 

RECIPE - Pork Rinds (Torresmo)

I'm posting this recipe for make-at-home pork rinds in the interests of completeness and gastronomic history, as torresmo is an important Brazilian dish on its own, and also a component of other traditional dishes, including Brazil's "national" dish feijoada.

I cannot vouch for this recipe, as I've never prepared it myself and am unlikely to do so in the future. I have a feeling that deep-frying pork skin in one's own kitchen would generate an odor that might last just a bit longer than one would want - a week or two perhaps? So, if any of Flavors of Brazil's readers actually does try this recipe, please leave a comment to let me and other readers of blog know how it worked out. I'm very curious - just not curious enough to try it myself.
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RECIPE - Pork Rinds (Torresmo)
10 portions

2 lbs (1 kg) unsalted pork belly, skin attached
salt to taste
pinch of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
1/2 cup neutral vegetable oil
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Cut the pork belly into strips about 1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch (1cm x 3 cm).Wash the pork well, drain and let dry completely. Combine salt to taste and baking soda, then season the pork (traditionally, it should be quite salty).

Heat a deep heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the vegetable oil and the pork and cook, watching carefully for overheating, stirring occasionally, until the fat has rendered and the pork skin is lightly golden. Remove the pork skins with a wire strainger, then drain completely on paper towels. Let cool, reserve.

Meanwhile, let the lard remaining in the saucepan cool slightly - it should remain liquid. Strain it through several layers of cheesecloth in a sieve into a large mixing bowl.

Place the strained liquid lard into a clean heavy saucepan and heat until hot but not smoking. In batches, return the pork skins to the fat, making sure not to overcrowd the pan. Let the pork skins fry for 3 or 4 minutes until they become a rich golden color. Remove them with a wire strainer before they darken, and drain as before on a paper towel.

Once drained, they can be served immediately, while still warm. Alternatively, let them cool completely, then store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days.

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora.

INGREDIENTS - Torresmo

The ice-cold beer and salty-snack bar culture of Brazil is an important part of that nation's food culture - something any tourist returning from Brazil can tell you, and something that faithful readers of this blog have heard before in a number of posts. Whether the bar be a few rustic tables covered by a palm-thatched roof on a deserted beach in Brazil's northeast, or a concept-laden ultra-chic lounge in Leblon or Jardins, there will be plenty of sub-zero lager beer and crunchy snacks with a high levels of sodium and fat. It's inevitable and unavoidable (even if one might want to avoid it). When Brazilians go to a bar most of them want beer to drink, and most of those beer drinkers want to wash their beer down with something crunchy, fatty and salty.

This combination isn't something the Brazilians invented, or something unique to Brazil. As one of my oldest friends philosophized way back in our university days, at the end of a long afternoon sitting at a bar in Burlington, Washington, contemplating the the free popcorn in front of him, "Where there's beer, there's salt." Absolutely true. Popcorn, unshelled peanuts, potato chips, nachos, fries, onion rings - they all fit the bill.

In Brazil, and particularly in the state of Minas Gerais, the most common bar snack is likely to be something called torresmo. Torresmo is the Portuguese word for pork skin that has been fried at high temperature to melt away the fat, then salted and dried. In other words - at least American words - pork rinds. I say American words because in the UK they're generally known as cracklings or scratchings. This snack, in fact, seems to have a huge number of colorful regional names. In Newfoundland they have a lovely onomatopoeic word for them - scrunchions. In Quebec they've been baptized, colloquially, as oreilles de chrisse - Christ's ears. In Mexico and the US Southwest they're called chicharrón. And in case you'd been wondering, the Hungarians known them as either tepertő or töpörtyű . Personally, when in Budapest, I always call them töpörtyű  - wouldn't you?

Torresmo is part of the Portuguese contribution to Brazilian food culture, with a few seasoning touches contributed by African slaves. Originally, pork skin and the fatty subcutaneous layer beneath it were cooked to melt the fat and obtain lard - the only way that this cooking fat could be obtained. Somewhere, sometime a clever devil decided to sample the crunchy bits of pork skin that remained once the fat had been drained off - probably with a salt shaker in his or her hand - and the torresmo, the crackling or the pork rind was born.

In Brazil, torresmo is primarily considered a snack to eat with drinks - most likely a beer or a shot of cachaça. In mineiro cooking (the cooking of the state of Minas Gerais) torresmo is an essential part of the panoply of dishes that all together constitute feijoada and it's also served with the bean and manioc dish feijão-tropeiro.

For those adventurous enough, or crazy enough to want to make their own torresmo at home, the next post here at Flavors of Brazil will provide a typical Brazilian recipe.

FRUITS OF BRAZIL - Jabuticaba

In yesterday's post about summer flavors of ice cream in Brazil, I mentioned a flavor of ice cream called jabuticaba. I'm sure that the word meant nothing to most readers of Flavors of Brazil - all except those who might have run into the jabuticaba in it's home territory, which is Brazil and more particularly the state of Minas Gerais. Although the jabuticaba (from a Tupi word meaning "place where turtles are found") grows in most regions of Brazil, it's association with Minas Gerais is so strong that the jabuticaba tree appears on the coat of arms of the city of Contagem, and another city in Minas Gerais, Sabará, hosts a jabuticaba festival annually.

Jabuticaba grows on a large deciduous tree, which can reach 8-10 meters (25-25 feet) in height. The fruit grows directly from the trunk and branches of the tree, which gives the jabuticaba tree a very unusual appearance when in fruit. The fruit itsel is a small and round, about the size of a table grape. It has a single seed, a thick skin and a dark, deep purple color. During jabuticaba season in Minas Gerais when thousands of street vendors sell fresh jabuticaba in small net bags, the sidewalks and streets are stained the same deep purple by discarded jabuticaba skins.

The bulk of the jabuticaba crop is eaten fresh, but the fruit has many culinary and medicinal uses as well. Culinarily it is turned into jelly, juice, liqueurs and vinegar. The fruit is high in beneficial antioxidants, and has high levels of iron. In traditional indigenous medicine, jabuticaba juice is given to pregnant women, which aids them because of its high iron content. Also a tea made from the dried skins of jabuticaba is used in traditional medicine as a treatment for asthma, diarrhea and is gargled to alleviate sore throats.

Because of these potent medicinal properties, jabuticaba is considered a prime candidate to follow guaraná and açaí to the markets of North America and Europe as the next "super-fruit." At the moment the market for this fruit and for its products in almost entirely domestic, but that situation might change dramatically in the near future.