The Cuisine of the Southeast of Brazil

In the Southeast of Brazil lives the major share of the Brazilian population. It consists of the states that have traditionally dominated the political, cultural and economical developments in Brazil: Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is this region's cuisine that is internationally recognised as 'typically Brazilian'.

Within Brazil, especially the state of Minas Gerais has a tremendous culinary reputation. All over Brazil, restaurants advertise with ‘comida mineira ’ meaning ‘food from Minas Gerais’. Anthropologists have demonstrated that the cultural identity of the Mineiros is based for a large part on their cuisine. The basis of their food consists of rice and beans. In addition, the cuisine of Minas uses a lot of maize and pork. The sausage is called chouriço which is less spiced that the Spanish chorizo. Another speciality of this region is queijo mineiro of queijo de Minas , a fresh cheese. Minas Gerais is situated in the hinterland. The traditional food does not make use of seafood, except for dried codfish. Fish from sweetwater is also eaten. Typical dishes are farofa (a dish consisting of a large number of ingredients in fine, toasted cassava flour), polenta and fried banana.

The cuisine of Rio de Janeiro resembles the cuisine of Minas but makes often use of seafood. Traditionally, black beans (feijão preto ) are prefered in the cuisine of Rio de Janeiro.

In São Paulo, the cuisine is influenced by large amounts of immigrants from Europe - especially from Italy and Portugal - and from Libanon. Except for that, São Paulo has a large community of Japanese who brought their own cuisine.

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