I arrived in São Paulo, Brazil late on Thursday evening, February 13th after a long journey that included a layover in Panama City. The next morning, Friday, I mapped a 17.5 km walking loop and started early to take in the sights before the sun became too intense. I was not prepared to consider the enormousness of the city. Imagine a place as densely developed with high rise buildings as midtown Manhattan, but that stretches outward in every direction as far as you can see. São Paulo’s metro population is estimated to be 22 million, and it’s growing fast. It is the world’s 4th largest city (Tokyo is ichiban) and one of the few that makes the top ten outside of Asia. São Paulo is home to the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan.
Planks of salted cod for sale in the Municipal Market, São Paulo.
One of the first things I noticed upon arriving is that the people of São Paulo are as diverse as planet earth. This is a welcome change from both central Ohio and Puerto Rico. While my whiteness is normative and goes unnamed in Columbus, I am so conspicuous in San Juan that even before I speak, my gringo-ness is pretty obvious. In Brazil, I can be mistaken for Brazilian, and I welcome the option to fly under the radar, at least until I open my mouth. The reason for this diversity is centuries of migration, both voluntary and otherwise, and a history of widespread racial mixing. Slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, and just as in the United States, a full reconciliation with the legacy of white supremacy resulting from humans owning other humans has not yet been undertaken. At the turn of the 20th century, government policies promoted “branqueamento,” literally trying to “whiten” the population by somehow encouraging people to marry lighter-skinned (and more upper-class) partners (1). It helps to know that race is seen differently here. In the Brazilian context, whiteness should be thought of not just in reductive terms like skin color (and hair texture, and dangerous pseudosciences like Eugenics), but also the subtle ways in which people perceive their position in the socio-economic hierarchy. It would be a mistake to assume that Brazilians, because of all this mixing, are living in a post-racial utopia. It’s obviously complicated and different from the North American context. In the introduction to his 1986 book, Perverts in Paradise, João Trevisan observes:
“Even the Brazilian flag illustrates the idea of compensating for something lacking by displaying it. In the center of the flag there is a band on which can be read ‘Order and Progress.’ General de Gaulle showed his disbelief on a visit to Brazil in the 1960s when he said, ‘This is not a serious county.’ Indeed, can a country be serious when it uses the concepts of racial democracy and coloured nation as instruments of official racism? In this ‘racial paradise,’ blacks see themselves relegated to the status of an inferior caste and rarely break out of the economic limits of the favelas -- all under the protection of a supposedly liberal Constitution” (p. 14).
Lunch on my first day in Brazil, Frango ao molho com arroz (chicken in sauce with rice) seemed a lot like food in Puerto Rico. This meal cost 12 R$ ($3 USD).
I could propose a doctoral dissertation on the subject of race in Brazil, but instead of going further down that rabbit hole, I will pivot to how this has influenced the cuisine of the country. Sushi and yakisoba are Brazilian. Sfeeha, kibbe, and lahmajun are Brazilian. Same goes for croissants, pizza, pasta, and stroganoff. All of these foods, as they are served in Brazil, are different from what you might expect, and often contain meat (so much meat) and cheese. Middle Eastern dishes sometimes include pork, so if you want to keep kosher, halal or vegetarian, a bit of vigilance is required. Imagine my surprise when the hummus I ordered was filled with shredded chicken and topped with a hardboiled egg. Feijoada is the one dish officially claimed as really, truly Brazilian. Like samba and capoeira, feijoada made its way to Brazil via the enslaved people the country “imported.” It is a slow cooked pork and beans stew usually served with rice, and the seasoning differs from state to state. So far, I’ve only sampled the Paulista (São Paulo) version.
A small but dense sandwich made from pão de queijo
My Brazilian-Argentine meal included 5 different starches, including farofa.
On Saturday, I walked a slightly less ambitious 10 km circuit through Ibirapuera Park and the adjacent museums. From my hotel, the route to the park took me through the appropriately named neighborhood of Jardins. The trees lining the streets of São Paulo are magnificently old creatures covered in epiphytes that take advantage of the city’s famously rainy weather. The entrance to the park was blocked off for a ticketed concert, one of the many pre-carnival parties that were scheduled (or popped up) with increasing frequency as the weekend wore on. As I passed through one of the side entrances away from the cordoned stage, I saw dozens of vendors selling street foods and other refreshments from their carts. I bought some coco gelado (cold coconut water) which I expected to be served in the whole coconut, but instead was decanted from cooler. (In hindsight, this is likely the source of new flora that my body is now attempting to accommodate). The grilled skewers of meats and cheeses looked good, but to be safe I steered clear and ordered lunch at the Contemporary Art Museum café. The heavy, little sandwich surprised me, but ordering food in a language I don’t speak is always a leap of faith. I’ve been a pesca-ovotarian for a long time, but when I travel I eat whatever I’m served and I do so with gratitude, even when it’s something I’d rather not eat. When I bit into the tiny, crusty bun, I tasted the tang of cheese. The interior texture of the “bread” was something between pudding and elastic. This was pão de queijo which, true to its name, is a kind of cheesy bread. But it’s not really bread, at least not the kind made from wheat. It’s made from tapioca starch, which means it’s naturally gluten free and has a mouth-feel that will take some getting used to. Pão de queijo was originally developed by enslaved people in the state of Minas Gerais during the gold rush, and at the time it was a way to make the most of scraps and dregs. Today there are chains of stores dedicated exclusively to its sale. (2)
After a day of walking under the trees, I relaxed at an Argentine restaurant for dinner near my hotel. My waiter was from Iran and we conversed in Spanish. My very large meal (pictured here) included rice and french fries and mashed yuca and fried tapioca cubes -- it seems like Brazilians really want to ensure we eat enough carbohydrates. One of the other starchy items was a bowl of toasted yuca flour mixed with herbs, spices, and pieces of bacon. When I asked the waiter how to eat it and he told me he wasn’t sure, I scooped it into my mouth. The salty, dry, gritty spoonful put me off, but I swallowed and chased it with most of my beer. The waiter laughed hard, begging me to do it again so his colleagues could watch. I politely declined. He neglected to suggest that farofa is best served as a seasoning for rice or an accompaniment to meat. Like so many of the other quintessentially Brazilian foods, farofa was borne of necessity and hardship, with its origins in African culture.
Municipal Market of São Paulo
Twenty years ago, when I spent a year living in Japan, my Japanese teacher asked, “If food is culture, what is your culture?” It was a question I had difficulty answering. Like Brazil (indeed, like most of the western hemisphere), our cultures, the languages we speak, and our various cuisines result from the complicated, interwoven legacies of imperialism, slavery, immigration, and the displacement and genocide of the first people. Not to be too much of a downer, but our pattern so far has been to extirpate the plants, people and other animals, and then name places after them: Chestnut Street, Eagle Pass, Manhattan (3). I think it’s safe to say that pizza, burgers, and bagels are all American foods (4). Also like Brazil, some of our most iconic and comforting foods -- grits, cornbread, jambalaya, rice pudding -- have their roots in Africa. Together, the USA and Brazil make up about 50% of the western hemisphere’s population. We are the biggest countries in the Americas. Our two countries are very diverse because we are nations of immigrants. And although those of us descended from people who were enslaved often do not have equal access to privilege and prosperity, we have placed African foods at the heart of American and Brazilian culinary traditions. So, how would I answer my teacher now? The most delicious part of my culture is African.
NOTES
This idea makes me uncomfortable, in part, because it hits close to home. When my mother visited me in Puerto Rico she was routinely approached in Spanish, assumed to be Puerto Rican. My mother’s small stature and olive complexion make her a chameleon, allowing her to pass as Boricua. I might have been a little jealous because that NEVER happens to me, but it also reminds me of my relative privilege. While I look a lot like my mother, my light skin, hair, and eyes, come from my father. My 78 year old mom remembers a time when she and her family were not considered white. Within her lifetime, my mom has witnessed (and benefitted from) our culture’s expansion of the definition of whiteness, and I wonder to what extent a similar conceptual enlargement has happened in Brazil.
Here’s a link to a pão de quiejo recipe from one of Brazil’s most popular TV networks. It’s important to use tapioca flour (polvilho doce) or fermented cassava starch (polvilho azedo) and NOT all-purpose flour made from wheat (não use farinha de trigo).
It’s worth pointing out, of course, that the indigenous peoples of the Americas are not extinct, and many of the remaining first people of Brazil regularly protest to demand better access to healthcare, and to denounce the Bolsonaro administration’s de facto green-lighting of increased deforestation.
I’m loyal to the thin, crisp crusts of NYC pizza, and bagels are really only bagels when they come from New York. Don’t come at me with that bagel-shaped bread!
SOURCES
Arsenault, Natalie. “From the Humble to the Sublime: African Influences on Brazilian Cuisine,” Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/hemispheres/_files/pdf/presentations/Humble_to_Sublime.pdf
Den Hoed, Andrea. “The Forgotten Lessons of the American Eugenics Movement,” The New Yorker, April 27, 2016. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-forgotten-lessons-of-the-american-eugenics-movement
Dodd, Joseph, “Roots of Samba,” Fear and Hope in Brazilian Culture, March 26, 2017, https://sites.jmu.edu/fandtinbrazil/roots-of-samba/
Garcia-Navarro, Lulu. “Photos Reveal Harsh Detail Of Brazil's History With Slavery,” Morning Edition, NPR, November 12, 2013. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/12/244563532/photos-reveal-harsh-detail-of-brazils-history-with-slavery
Geromel, Ricardo. “All You Need To Know About Sao Paulo, Brazil's Largest City,” Forbes Magazine, July 12, 2013, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2013/07/12/all-you-need-to-know-about-sao-paulo-brazils-largest-city/#420f468c21ad
Gilbert, Sarah. “Pão de queijo is the history of Brazil in a moreish cheese snack,” The Guardian, June 25, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/jun/25/pao-de-queijo-is-the-history-of-brazil-in-a-moreish-cheese-snack
Jamie Oliver’s Food Team. “Feijoada: a short history,” Jamie Oliver, September 7, 2015, https://www.jamieoliver.com/features/feijoada-a-short-history/
Talmon-Chvaicer, Maya. “The Hidden History of Capoeira: A Collision of Cultures in the Brazilian Battle Dance,” University of Texas Press, 2010.
Telles, Edward. “Racial Discrimination and Miscegenation: The Experience in Brazil,” UN Chronicle, United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/racial-discrimination-and-miscegenation-experience-brazil
Trevisan, João. “Perverts in Paradise,” translated by Martin Foreman, GMP Publishers, 1986.
“Brazil’s Indigenous Women Protest Against Bolsonaro Policies,” BBC News, August 13, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49329680
“Ibirapuera Park,” Parque Ibirapuera Conservaçao, https://parqueibirapuera.org/ibirapuera-park/
“Demographics of Sao Paulo,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_S%C3%A3o_Paulo
List of countries in the Americas by population,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_the_Americas_by_population
“Racial Whitening,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_whitening
“The 10 Largest Cities In The World,” World Atlas, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-10-largest-cities-in-the-world.html
“Sao Paulo Population 2020,” World Population Review, http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/sao-paulo-population/