The other day I walked into what I thought was the pet store. Things seemed a little different so I went straight to the shopkeeper and asked where the kitty litter was. In a Portuguese accent he said he didn’t have any and that it wasn’t a pet store anymore. I finally looked up. It was a Dollar Store. Tchokies, trinkets, all for a buck. I asked ‘For how long’? He answered ‘Two years.’ ‘You should sell cat litter’ I thought to myself.
Then I tried hiding my embarrassment by making small talk about a pot of Kale Soup or Caldo Verde that I was cooking that day. He looked at me again this time sympathetically and rendered from my broken Portuguese ‘Green Soup. Yeah that’s nice for you.’ My face was burning red and I thought I better leave before I made any more faux pas since then I finally connected the dots. He’s Brazilian and not necessarily familiar with Portuguese Kale Soup that’s made with beef shinbone, linguica sausage and beans. That’s part of our heritage by way of the immigrants who came here from the Azores. It’s not part of the Brazilian cuisine of the immigrants who are coming here today.
I might as well have said to him ‘You eat kale soup because you speak Portuguese.’ That’s like if I said to someone from Wisconsin ‘Hey Cheesehead - How are your curds today?’ You get the picture.
Brazilian cookery is a fusion of influences from the indigenous South American Indians, the Portuguese and the African slaves who were brought there to work. The national dish Feijoada is slow cooked beans with meat. Variations abound by region and even by household. It’s made for special occasions with a laundry list of ingredients that could include pumpkin or plantain: and meats like: sausage, jerked beef, ham, bacon, lamb or the tongue, ear, foot or the tail of a pig. It can take anywhere from 4-24 hours to make. It’s ‘No-Night food’ according to a Brazilian acquaintance of mine — she meant there’s no sleeping after eating Feijoada — perfect party food.
When she talked about Moqueca she roughly translated it as ‘fish stuff’ and her eyes got misty with remembering. I wanted some too after the recipes I’ve seen it called fish stew made with coriander seeds, lemon juice, chopped tomatoes, onions and parsley. It’s served with a mash of rice cooked in coconut milk and a citrus pepper sauce.
She went on to describe a soothing frozen dessert to finish off a Brazilian meal. It’s simple and made with a can of sweetened condensed milk, an equal amount of whole milk and a packet of unflavored gelatin. Frustrated with the English word for blender, we both made the
vvvvvvrrrrrrr sound and gyrated our hands up and down imitating the mixing liquid.
Now that I’ve got it straight — the difference between our local Portuguese food and the new influx of Brazilian food — I’m off and cooking and so should you. You’ll find everything you need at the grocery store. The lesson I learned is to look up and look around because new things are going on.
