One Month in Amazing Brazil

I have been lucky enough to be in Brazil for the past month to spend time my partner Rubem’s family. It was incredible to experience the culture in Brazil and it is most certainly a wonderful place if you love food! All of the food was fresh and delicious.

We flew to Fortaleza, Brazil and then drove to Rubem’s home town Parnaiba which is 6 hours North by car. Parnaiba is located in the very North East of Brazil near the Amazon. It is a quaint little place that is surrounded by amazing beaches and sand dunes. There are wild donkey’s everywhere on the roads and chameleons drop from the coconut trees.

The sunsets in this part of the world are incredible and the area is famous for the wind and the sand dunes, which stretch for miles.

The food in Brazil is amazing! I loved all of it and tried everything that was on offer. All the food there is local, nothing seemed to be imported, they cook with what is from the local area only. Mud crabs are very popular in this part of Brazil, it is an amazing experience to enjoy sucking the meat from these huge crabs or to eat a huge piece of fresh home made crab pie. Fresh crabs can be brought on the side of the road in huge bundles.

All the fruit was from the family farm, including the largest avocado’s that I have ever seen in my life. Avocado’s there are used as a fruit rather than in savoury dishes like we use it. They had never heard of smashed avo on toast before!

In Brazil they have a love affair with mixing sweet and savoury, which I adore too. Cheese is also a big part of what they eat, but it’s not the same as the cheese we have here. I ate mostly home-made cheese which was very much like halloumi.

Every home has a brick BBQ that has a burning fire in it, there didn’t seem to be any gas BBQ’s in Brazil. The fire burns all night cooking the most amazing seafood and meats with a nice smokey flavour. The meat is cut into bite size pieces and dipped into a vinaigrette and farofa which is cassava made into dried crumbs. It is a fun, social way of eating, I really loved it.

My favourite place was a beach town called Jericoacoara. If you ever go to Brazil this place is a must! To get there you have to park in a near by town and get a sand buggy to take you to the town over sand dunes for 40 minutes. The town itself has a very famous sunset that is watch every night from a huge sand dune. Once the sun goes down the town parties all night long with lots of Brazilian dancing in the sandy streets.

I will be dreaming of Brazil, the food, dancing and sunsets for a long time!