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Brazil: Feira Food

By Mark Taylor In a lot of neighbourhoods throughout Brazil, particularly in the larger cities, it‘s common for a fruit and veg market to visit once a week. In Brazil this market is called the "feira". The feira usually has cheaper and fresher products than your local supermarket. Normally they are bought in the early morning from a central market dedicated to those involved in the feira, that receives products directly from the farmers. However it is always worth comparing the quality with the supermarket. Prices tend to drop during the day, so those after the best quality go early but pay more. Feiras often sell more than just fruit and veg as well, and can have meat, fish, and household items. There are a couple of foods typically sold at the feira, which most Brazilians will ritually partake of. The first is Pastel. Pastel itself is very simple, it consists of two thin layers of puff pastry with a filling. Like a lot of Brazilian food this is then deep fried for a minute or two. It‘s hard to define a similar tasting food, but the likes of sausage rolls and vol-au-vent aren‘t far off, primarily because of the puff pastry. What makes a huge difference though is the filling that is used, which can vary between savoury and sweet, and within those categories there are almost infinite combinations varying from cheese, meat, poultry, and sweet with banana, chocolate, and doce de leite (cooked condensed milk), as examples. Often the pastel stand is festooned in pieces of paper with the various possibilities and price, aside from being festooned with lots of people munching pastel. The second food, albeit technically a drink, is Caldo de Cana, the juice extracted from sugar cane. Not surprisingly it‘s very sweet, and can be too much for a foreigner not used to it. The stand will normally have a petrol powered juice extractor where the cane is literally crushed to liberate the juice, with a stack of sugar cane on one side, and a stack of crushed on the other. Caldo de Cana is perhaps more of an acquired taste than with pastel. So if you‘ve not been already try and find out when your local Feira is, head out early, and at least try Pastel and Caldo de Cana if you don‘t end up with a mountain of fruit. Previous articles by Mark Taylor: Brazil: Bilhete Unico flexibility increases Brazil: Finding Work Brazil: U2 Ticket Chaos Brazil: Finding Work Brazil: Termites Brazil: Queues, Queues, Queues Brazil: Let's Go Fly a Kite! Brazil... the Film That Is Brazil: The Bus to Nowhere Brazil: Piracy Brazil: Gestures Brazil: Proclamation of the Republic Brazilian Film Review Brazilian Film Review Brazil: Finados (Day of the Dead) Interjections, exclamations and onomatopoeia in Brazilian Portuguese Brazil: Halloween Brazil says "No" to banning firearms Brazil Humour: Phone Etiquette Brazil's Gun Referendum Brazil: Scams Brazil: Moby Review Brazil: Keeping in touch via the Internet - Part 5 Brazil: Keeping in touch via the Internet - Part 4 Brazil: Avril Lavigne at Pacaembu Moby in Brazil Brazil: Keeping in touch via the Internet - Part 3 Brazil: Keeping in touch via the Internet - Part 2 Brazilian Film Review Brazil: Keeping in touch via the Internet - Part 1 Brazil: First season of Lost repeated on AXN

2/7/2006