WHAT IS FEIJOADA?

​Feijoada, a national passion in Brazil.
The recipe is not that complicated, consisting of
black beans cooked with cured pork meat and sides of collard green, white rice and manioc flour. 
But there is something in this combination of savory flavors that
is powerful enough to unify a multi-dimensional country, like Brazil,
 around this gastronomic specialty, the feijoada.
The origin popularly attributed to feijoada links it to the more than
 three centuries of African slavery in Brazil, as it was a creative
 way the slaves found to use the sub-standard pork parts that were
 given to them by their owners.
Anthropologists and historians, including Luís da Camara 
Cascudo, one of the most recognized ones, have a different theory. 
For them, feijoada is the Portuguese version of the millennial
 European tradition of casserole, that includes the French 
cassoulet and the Italian minestrone.
Whether it came from Africa or Europe doesn’t much matter. 
In a country with such an affinity for mixing different ethnicities, 
cultures and religions,as Brazil, it’s easy to understand 
why this aromatic casserole is such a national passion.


                                                                                       Text by: Maria Cecilia Pinheiro-Cadd