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The Never-Ending Brazilian Menu

Hello again! Or should I say “Oi novamente!” So now, if you ever travel to Brazil, you’ll know how to greet people, and then greet them again! Now down to business, another major change I had to get accustomed to when I came here almost 4 months ago is the food. So let’s see what all I can say about the delights of Brazilian dining.

Just to clear the air, Brazil isn’t all that big on eating breakfast. They have a little bread maybe, a cup of coffee or tea, or a bowl of fruit. Therefore, you can only imagine how much I crave pancakes, eggs, waffles and bacon. Lunch is the most important meal of the day. School ends right before, stores close, and everyone goes home to eat with their family. Well that’s the case in my city. Bigger cities like Porto Alegre or even Santa Maria don’t shut down completely for lunch, but the amounts of people on the streets is supposedly much smaller. But here in Cachoeira, everything shuts down around noon and opens up again around 1:30. Dinner, at least in my house, is most of the time leftovers from lunch. Sometimes we have a kind of grilled cheese or rice and chicken mixture, depending on how much time and desire my host mom has to cook.

First off, the most fundamental element to any Brazilian lunch or dinner is rice, or arroz in Portuguese, pronounced (ah-hos). And usually accompanying the rice, which is usually white, is a strange mixture of black beans. It has a thick, gravy-like consistency and sometimes my host mom puts pieces of hot dog or sausage inside. One of the most common questions I get from people who are meeting me for the first time is “Have you eaten rice and beans?” or “Do you like the rice and beans?” I usually eat the rice most meals, but I pass on the beans once in a while, mostly because then they pass through me, if you catch on to that.

Another absolutely fundamental food group to all meals is meat. Now this only goes for the southern part of Brazil. Why? I’m not 100% sure, but my state, Rio Grande do Sul, produces the meat for the rest of the country. So also at every lunch and dinner, some kind of meat appears, whether it be pork, chicken, fish, beef, or some other form of cow. My friend’s mother told me, “If I don’t have meat every day, I feel like I haven’t eaten.” The rest of Brazil consumes a large amount of meat as well, hence why most vegetarian exchange students suspend their beliefs for their year.

Other things on the Brazilian menu include a “mayonnaise salad” or basically potato salad, fresh fruit, salad, sometimes potatoes, and vegetables. The fruit here is, in my opinion, better than in the US. Here, the bananas are smaller and don’t have as much flavor, but that’s because they’re naturally grown and aren’t genetically modified. My personal favorites here are mango and papaya. The Brazilian version of a salad is basically just lettuce. They don’t have other vegetables mixed in, sometimes they have shredded carrots or some strange form of cold kraut, but overall, it’s just lettuce. Dressing? Nope. They use salt, something that resembles soy sauce, or olive oil instead.

As far as desserts are concerned, Dairy Lovers, stay where you are. The ice cream here isn’t really made with milk, and although it’s satisfying on hot days, I long for a chocolate concrete shake from Culvers. Oh, that’s one other thing I miss: MILK!! Coming from Wisconsin, I’m used to drinking milk pretty much 3 times a day most days, but I haven’t drunken it once here. The milk here is sold in large cartons and is… duh duh DUHHHH… Condensed milk. They drink integrated milk as well, and I don’t like it one bit. So watch out all you Wisconsin dairy cows, because when I get home in July, you’re one of my first victims. Anyways, they do happen to make a rather delicious dessert here that’s made from condensed milk and chocolate (sounds healthy, I know), rounded into little balls, and sprinkled with chocolate sprinkles. The cake is also different here, again because of the milk situation. To me, it tastes more dense, and personally I like it. Most times the cake has more than just actual cake batter; you’ll usually find fruit or some sort of cream in the middle, which is delicious if I say so myself. But as good as their cake may be, mouths drop open and start drooling when I tell people we have such a thing as ice cream cakes. And while I’m on the topic of sweets, I have one thing to say about the candy in Brazil. The chocolate candy is better, but don’t expect your Snickers or Twix bars to taste the same here, because you’ll be sorely disappointed. Oh, and random note about Halls cough drops: here, people eat them like any other Starburst or Skittle. I have also never seen so many flavors of Mentos in my entire life.

Well that’s the majority of what I’ve discovered about the Brazilian cuisine in my 4 months here. And all I’ve told you is just my region of my state. Obviously there is much more but I don’t want to make your mouth water. So if anyone ever decides to visit Rio Grande do Sul one day, I can guarantee you that you will never go hungry.

Before I go, I would just like to let you all know that I will be MIA for the whole rest of January. I have been given the rare and extremely amazing opportunity to travel through the Northeast region of Brazil until the beginning of February. Me and 105 other Rotary Exchange students will be embarking on this wonderful journey, and I can’t wait! It will be entirely by bus and we will be staying overnight in over 15 cities, visiting (some days) more than one city a day. Crazy and always moving, but it will be awesome. Don’t worry, pictures will accompany my return blog!

Até Feveriero!! (Until February!) Haley

Haley Drozdowicz is a Craig High School student who's been living in Brazil since August 2009. She's studying there as part of the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. Haley is a community blogger and is not a part of Janesville Gazette staff. Her opinion is not necessarily that of the Janesville Gazette staff or management.