Feijoada

We seem to be on a culinary kick.

The most recent Kubu Newsletter mentions hákarl, fermented shark.

It’s an Icelandic specialty that Yrsa brought to Crimefest for everyone to try. I have heard some pretty cruel descriptions about the way it tasted, and some people have written to tell me I was lucky not to have been there.

Not yet subscribed to the Kubu Newsletter? Click on Stan and Michael’s picture (right here on the page). It will bring you to their web site, where you can access the archive. There are some nice pictures.

And then there was Tim’s cake.

Actually, Lauri’s cake, the one she surprised him with, when he visited her shop, Murder by the Book, in Denver.

If you have yet to read about his visit, you can do that – and admire photos of the cake – simply by scrolling down.

Today, it’s my turn to talk about food.

And I’m going to tell you a little about feijoada,  Brazil’s most famous dish.

Beth Kanell floored my wife and I by cooking two different varieties of feijoada (one was a vegetarian version for her non-meat-eating customers) when we visited her and hubby, Dave, at Kingdom Books. (http://www.kingdombks.blogspot.com/)

Could this be the start of a new trend?

Serving food to authors?

I hope so.

With the book market the way it is, many of us are starving.

But I digress.

Feijão, in Portuguese, means bean. And feijoada is a bean stew.

It’s served, as you can see here, with a number of different accompaniments.

The pork crackling, and the fried manioc (yucca) are optional.

The rice, pieces of orange, sautéed manioc meal (farofa), kale (couve manteiga) and pepper sauce are not.

It’s not an evening meal. It’s too heavy.

In restaurants, it’s traditionally served on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

If you visit São Paulo on those days, you’ll see it on the menu in thousands of places, from the most elegant restaurants to the most simple.

The most common belief about feijoada’s origins is that it was first concocted by slaves who used meat scraps to create a delicacy for the slave quarters. This belief is somewhat strengthened by the fact that the original recipes called for things like pig’s snouts and ears.

Others say feijoada is a Brazilian variant of the Portuguese dish, caldeirada, or possibly the Spanish (French) cassoulet.  Angola and Mozambique also have variations...

...but all share the common base of having beans and salted meats as the basis of the stew.

Eide, my wife, leans toward a “light” version of the dish. No snouts, no ears, no fatty meat.

Want her recipe?

Click on my picture. That will take you to my website.

Next, click on the “contact me” button.

When the form appears, send me an email with the word “recipe” in the subject line.

If you don’t have the software to read a Word .doc file, add the word “embed” and I’ll incorporate the recipe into the body of my return email.

And, if you would like the recipe sent to another address other than the one you’re writing from give that as well.

My recommendation is that you enjoy your feijoada with a caipirinha or two. It's said to "cut the fat".

You’ll find a recipe for it in one of my previous posts.

The post is entitled Cachaça – The Brazilian Tipple, published on the 28^th of March. Look for it in the archives on the lower right, or in the index at the bottom of this page.

Bom Apetite!

Leighton - Monday