Feijoada Saturday

What it is

The beans are simmered for hours with salted and smoked meats: dried beef, sausages, ribs, bacon, and traditionally ears, tails and trotters. The stew is dark, thick and salty. It never comes alone. The full set, called feijoada completa, includes white rice, finely shredded collard greens fried with garlic, toasted cassava flour, crisp pork crackling, slices of orange and a hot pepper sauce. The orange is there to cut the fat. A caipirinha is the usual drink.

Where it comes from

Bean and meat stews are common across Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking world, and the name comes from feijão, the word for beans. A popular story holds that enslaved people created feijoada from scraps of meat left by their masters. Food historians doubt this and point to European stews adapted to Brazilian black beans. What is not in doubt is that the dish became a national symbol in the twentieth century, and that Rio made it a weekly ritual.

How it works

Restaurants and bars put out signs when it is feijoada day. Some serve it as a buffet, with the beans in one clay pot and each kind of meat in its own, so that you can choose only the cuts you like. Others bring a set to the table for two or more. Lunch starts at one and runs through the afternoon. Samba schools and music venues in Rio hold feijoada afternoons where the meal is followed by hours of music.

How to do it

1. Go on a Saturday at about one, with friends and no plans after.
2. Start with a caipirinha or a small cup of the bean broth.
3. Put rice on the plate, ladle beans and meat over, and add greens beside.
4. Sprinkle cassava flour on top and eat a piece of orange between bites.
5. Add pepper sauce carefully.

Good manners

• Take the cuts you want and leave the rest. Nobody expects you to eat the trotter.
• Do not rush. The meal is the afternoon.
• Share the table's dishes. Sets are served for the group.

What is eaten

FarofaToasted cassava flour mixture served as a side in BrazilCaipirinhaBrazil’s classic cocktail of cachaça, lime, sugar and iceLinguiçaPortuguese pork sausage seasoned with garlic, paprika and smoked or cooked fresh

Also part of it, and being written: Pork rind, Carne-seca, Batida.

Sources and further reading

• Feijoada (Brazilian dish) on Wikipedia
• Riotur: Rio de Janeiro city tourism office