Happy Midsummer (Feliz Festa de São João)

On or about the day of the northern hemisphere's summer solstice (June 20/21) pagan cultures in many places celebrated the longest day of the year with a festival or holiday known as Midsummer. During the period of Christianization of Europe this festival became identified with St. John the Baptist in order to "de-paganize" it, and today many cultures around the world celebrate St. John on June 24. In Brazil this festival is known as Festa de São João and it is celebrated all around the country, though most fervently in Brazil's Northeast. The festival is also known as festas juninas which means "the festivals of June."

The Brazilian festas juninas are associated with community bonfires on the eve of June 24, and with a style of folk-dance called quadrilha. Based on a European dance, the quadrille, the quadrilha has evolved in Brazil unto a complex and complicated dance involving up to 30 dancers led by a couple dressed as a bride and groom. Dancers wear colorful costumes, and there are local, regional and national competitions in Brazil among quadrilha dance troups. Here is a video from YouTube showing part of a competition on the Northeast of Brazil.


Of course, food is an important part of the festas juninas too. The traditional foods of this festival, served at the street fairs that are such an important part of the celebrations, are all associated or made from corn (milho). This is probably due to the fact that June is the harvest season for corn in Brazil, but there may be some other connection to the pagan solstice festivals that were the origin of the festas juninas. Whatever the reason, food stalls at the street fairs feature roasted or boiled corn on the cob, pamonha, bolo de fubá, and a kind of sweet cornmeal pudding known as canjica. (Articles and recipes for pamonha and bolo de fubá have been featured on Flavors of Brazil - click the links to find them).

RECIPE - Country-style Chicken with Angu (Frango Caipira com Angu de Fubá)

Angu, Brazil's polenta, is a marvelous addition to a traditional country-style chicken dish from the central Brazilian state of Goiás. This huge, landlocked state is primarily agricultural, with farms ranging in size from small subsistance farms to mega-ranches and plantations.

The traditional cuisine of Goiás comes from the small family farms that dot the land, and very few of those farms don't have a half of a dozen chickens scratching around in the yard. They are valuable for the protein they provide in their eggs, and on special occasions for the protein they provide with their meat. A chicken that has lived its life running around the yard, what we'd call a free-range chicken, is known in Brazil as a frango caipira, which means "country-style chicken."

As this dish combines chicken with angu, the cornmeal polenta of Brazil, it makes a substantial main course, and need be accompanied only by a salad or cooked vegetable.

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RECIPE - Country-style Chicken with Angu
Serves 4

3.5 lb (1.5 kg.) free-range chicken, cut into serving pieces
1 tsp. corn oil, or other neutral vegetable oil
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 japapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 Tbsp. salt
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1 large onion, thinly sliced
3 cups water
1/4 cup chopped green onion, green parts only
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 cup yellow cornmeal (polenta)
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In large heavy-duty pan, heat the oil then fry the chicken pieces until nicely browned on all sides. Fry in batches if necessary to avoid overcrowding. Use additional oil if required to avoid sticking.

Return all the chicken to the pan, the add the salt, garlic and turmeric, mixing well to cover all the chicken with the seasonings. Add the water, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover the pan. Cook for approximately 30 minutes, or until the chicken is tender. Remove the chicken to a large serving platter, cover with half of the cooking liquid, sprinkle with the green onion and cilantro, and keep warm.

Return the remaining half of the cooking liquid to the heat, and when simmering add the cornmeal in a slow, steady stream, stirring continuously to avoid lumps. Cook, stirring constantly, just until the cornmeal begins to thicken enough to retain its shape on a spoon. If the angu becomes to thick, add hot water to thin it out. The consistency should be like oatmeal, or wet polenta.

Place the angu in a bowl, and serve it and the chicken immediately.

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

Angu - The Polenta of Brazil

Recently, Flavors of Brazil featured in a few posts an ingredient called fubá. Fubá is the ground, dried corn that is known in English as cornmeal, and it is used to make delicious cakes and pastries among other things. (Click here for a recipe for Bolo de Fubá, a sweet cornmeal cake.)

Brazilians make much use of fubá in savory dished too, and in that they are like the northern Italians who turn their cornmeal into the famous Italian dish polenta. When fubá is mixed with water, with or without other ingredients, and then cooked it becomes angu - Brazil's polenta. In areas of Brazil which received a large number of Italian immigrants in the past people do use the word polenta, but in the rest of the country, it's called angu, a word that derives from the Fon language of West Africa. In some regions of Brazil angu is prepared not with cornmeal (fubá) but with manioc flour, however, angu de fubá, is the more traditional dish.

Italian polenta is often referred to as being either "wet" or "dry" depending on the relative quantity of water and cornmeal. Wet polenta is creamy and won't hold its shape on a spoon. Dry polenta is firm, and after cooking and cooling, can be cut into any shape desired. There is a similar variation in Brazilian angu - one style, which is made simply with fubá, water and salt and which has a firm texture is called angu mineiro, which means "in the style of Minas Gerais." The creamier, moister angu is called angu baiano, "in the style of Bahia." Angu baiano often has other ingredients added to the basic cornmeal and water, things such as meats, shrimp, vegetables and seasonings.

Angu, of whichever style, is generally served as a side dish. As it's a carbohydrate, it is often served in place of rice or pasta, although Brazilians do not restrict themselves to one starch per meal, and often serve both angu and rice on the same plate.

Tico-tico no Fubá - A Musical Interlude

One of the most famous Brazilian melodies of all times features the ingredient that I've been discussing the past few posts - plain, ordinary cornmeal, or fubá as it's known in Brazil. You may not recognize the title of this song, but I would be willing to bet a nice piece of "bolo de fubá" that you know the tune.

When I was first learning Portuguese, I ran across this song title and it made little sense to me, as I didn't know what a Tico-tico or a Fubá was, and my English-Portuguese dictionary gave me no help at all. Of course, eventually I discovered that fubá was the Brazilian word for cornmeal. Which only deepened the mystery - Why would someone write a song about cornmeal?. Then I searched around the internet for the definition of Tico-tico. That turned out to be the name of a small Brazilian songbird, something like a wren or sparrow. There's a picture of a tico-tico on the right.

I finally looked up the lyrics, on the internet as well, and discovered that the song is a lament - the singer is bemoaning the fact that a tico-tico is eating all her cornmeal, and although she's tried everything to prevent the bird from stealing her precious corn, she's been unsuccessful. The tico-tico is gorging itself on the family's supper!

So know that you know what the song's about, watching the video below to see "Tico-tico no fubá" performed at supersonic speed by the great Carmen Miranda, sometime in the 1940s. I'm sure you'll recognize it.  After watching her do the number, all I could think of was, "How can anyone possibly sing that fast?"

RECIPE - Granny Maria's Cornmeal Cake (Bolo de Fubá da Vó Maria)

This super-easy recipe from the Brazilian website Tudo Gostoso (Everything tasty) makes a light and fluffy cake that is perfect as a coffee-cake in the morning, as a tea-cake in the afternoon, or as a little something to tide you over just before bedtime.

Brazilian cakes are not generally frosted (with the exception of birthday and wedding cakes), and this one is no exception.

Who Granny Maria was exactly is unknown. But she's forever immortalized in this eponymous cake.

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RECIPE - Granny Maria's Cornmeal Cake
12 portions

4 large eggs, preferably free-range
2 cups granulated sugar**
1 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal (fubá)
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
4 tsp. baking powder (fermento)
** Brazilians like things very sweet, this quantity can be reduced if desired
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Separate the eggs. With hand or electric beater, beat the egg whites to soft peak stage. Add the sugar and continue to beat. While beating add the egg yolks one at a time, followed by the butter and milk, then the flour and cornmeal, a bit at a time. Finally add the baking powder, then beat for one more minute.

Grease a cake pan with softened butter, then dust with flour. Pour the cake batter into the pan, place in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Turn out the cake onto a wire grid, and let cool completely. Once cooled, you can sprinkle the top of the cake with powdered sugar, if desired.

Cornmeal, Polenta, Fubá - it's all the same

Brazil's staple grain, without question, is rice. An overwhelming majority of the population eats rice in some form daily, usually with some sort of beans. But rice isn't the only grain consumed by Brazilians, who eat wheat in the form of breads and pasta, manioc in a number of forms, and maize or corn, also in many different ways.

The meal made by simply grinding dried corn kernels, which is variously called cornmeal in English, and polenta in Italian, is known in Brazil as fubá. There are a large number of other ground or flaked or rolled products made from corn available in Brazil, but if you want the equivalent of cornmeal or polenta, then it's fubá you want.