CULTURE

My Impressions of Brazil (or Oh, How Wrong I Was)

This vast nation cannot be bound by neat and shallow assumptions

I visit Brazil every year and have been doing so for some time now. These are business trips, so I have seen more conference rooms than the sights.

But it has allowed me some deep conversations with several Brazilians, some of whom I consider close friends now. I have also eaten a lot of food there, both good and middling. And I have successfully stayed away from the Rio Carnival.

Along the way, Brazil has upended a lot of my assumptions, thankfully so. Here are three of those which have now been shredded.

(Note — Expect generalities, stereotypes and slathering with broad brushes)

The People

Brazilians are a homogenous mass, easily identified as from Brazil.

Nope. They come in all shapes, sizes and colors. mostly colors.

The ‘Citizens’ immigration line at the entry to a country, or the passengers on a plane going to said country can tell you a lot about the people of that place. Often there is a homogeneity here that is comforting, boring and familiar. The two places that don’t conform to this broad characterization? The USA and Brazil. Now that planeload (or immigration line) of Americans may all be speaking different languages. But the Brazilians will all speak Portuguese, in that delicious lilting accent.

Talking of skin color, I find a smoother continuum in Brazil that I don’t see as much here in the US. I am told it is because Brazil has seen a lot of intermingling which led to a huge mixed-race population. We don’t see it as much here because until not too long ago, this was criminalized, especially in the southern states.

Sure, there are divisions and differences in what seemed to me, an outsider, a relatively equal non-discriminatory society. There are affirmative action policies and an acknowledgment that things are not as smooth as they seem. Yet, the point remains. Brazilians could be European, East Asian, South Asian, African or Middle-Eastern.

The Food

Brazilian food is all about the meat.

Naah. There is so much more to the cuisine here that I have gone through entire trips without a steak.

Blame this one on all those churrascarias and steakhouses with their unlimited offerings and red/green cards. So I land in Sao Paulo expecting to feed on steaks 3 times a day aaaand…nothing. Brazilian food had so much to offer that I got joyously lost in discovering (and deciphering) for days. Without ever thinking of steaks!

It is a great mix of what the land and sea offer up, with ample options for vegetarians (which can be an issue in say, Argentina. Now that’s a country that loves its meat. A story for another day).

And I learned that while there is indeed a colonial influence, the cuisine sits squarely on the foundations of local produce and the traditional foods of all those who have made this land their home. If you want to have Portuguese food, you have to go to a Portuguese restaurant.

I have had a rollicking time discovering the hearty feijoada stew, with the side of the crumbly farofa. As I am not a huge seafood person, I haven’t tried as much bacalao (flaky cod) despite the many opportunities. Brazil is home to the world’s largest Japanese diaspora, so as you can imagine, sushi (plus other representatives of this cuisine) is very easily available. Then there is the African-influenced food of the northeast, with its bright stews cooked with the deeply red dende oil. I learned that the crispy acaraje was a distant relative of the akara, that crunchy and fluffy Nigerian street snack.

Talking of crunchy and fluffy, my favorite Brazilian treat is the pao de queijo. This is a small bite-sized delight, slightly crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. Though the name translates to cheese bread, it is chewy more than cheesy. And on the other end of the sweet-savory axis sits the delectable brigadeiro, ideally had with an espresso. This comes in various types, the one I prefer is what seems to the most common, chocolate, covered with choco sprinkles, though the white ones flecked with coconut are delicious as well.

It seems like the only time I will go to a Brazilian steakhouse now is if I get the hankering for Brazilian food in the US. Because where else will I get a nice feijoada when I want it?

The Culture

Samba. Carnival. Beaches. Copacabana. Football.

That’s all just one city. Okay, football is everywhere, but the rest, well…

You walk into Brazil almost expecting every third person to be doing the samba and everyone congregating at the beach by 4 in the evening. well, I learnt quickly that all those ideas we have of Brazil are true, if that, only in Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo, the commercial capital and the country’s most populous city, has an entirely different culture.

As one would expect from a country the size of Brazil, there isn’t just one Brazilian culture, but many. It is a diverse, heterogeneous country and you absolutely cannot paint it all with one brush or color. Rio is a different world. even the name for its people has a laid-back musicality to it — carioca. Compare that to the all-straight-lines-and-sharp-angles word for people from Sao Paulo — paulista. And I did sense a mild mutual animosity, no different from what we see here between say, a New Yorker and a Chicagoan!

This is a huge country and its people are much more than the few things we think they stand for. Except football. That brings the country together.

Every nation needs a unifying force.