About
Brazil and its cuisine are a wild and sometimes baffling stew of influences and cultures – and Rio’s old city and port zone are where many of the country’s disparate elements deliciously converge. These atmospheric neighborhoods are where the Portuguese began building the city, where the slaves who were brought over to Brazil first landed, where samba was born and – most importantly – where this bustling metropolis’s multicultural identity and food culture started taking shape. On this tour we trace that history through its food, meeting the people who are keeping Brazil’s culinary traditions alive and those who are creating exciting new ones. With Rio’s history and modern rise as a backdrop, our walk works its way through the old-school eateries of this district, catching along the way some of the new food businesses helping revitalize the area and some little-known cultural treasures. As we walk through the Rio backstreets, we’ll explore how working-class communities in this part of Rio have preserved traditions, shaped national dishes, and sparked cultural movements. From feijoada and moqueca to street snacks and tropical fruit, the dishes we eat will help us understand Rio’s complex history of colonization, slavery and migration – and how everyday food keeps those stories alive. Along the way we’ll also try Portuguese-style pastries and strong coffee at Rio’s oldest café, taste the freshly-squeezed juice of an Amazonian berry at a family-run lunch spot, and sample the culinary offerings of the city’s largest open-air market, which Jewish, Syrian and now Chinese merchants have all called home. Moving through the historic district, we’ll stop by an old botequim – a typical Rio corner bar – that’s been given new life by a local culinary entrepreneur who serves up funky riffs on Brazil’s iconic pão de queijo (cheese bread), and then visit the restaurant of a young Afro-Brazilian chef who is serving up inventive versions of the classic dishes of his home state, Bahia. By the end of our tour, we will have not only gone through Rio’s old city and port zone, but will have traversed Brazil itself, having gotten a delicious taste of the country’s multicultural richness.
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