7-Day Brazil
Itinerary

Feijoada

Brazil's national dish and its greatest communal meal — a black bean stew slow-cooked for hours with every conceivable cut of salted pork (trotters, ears, tail, ribs, sausage) until the broth turns ink-dark and unctuous; served on Wednesdays and Saturdays with rice, collard greens, farofa and a slice of orange; a UNESCO candidate for intangible heritage.

Churrasco

The southern Brazilian art of fire and beef — premium cuts (picanha, fraldinha, costela) skewered on long swords and slow-rotated over charcoal embers; the picanha, a rump cap with its fat cap intact, is Brazil's most prized cut; served in rodízio restaurants where sword-carrying gauchos carve directly onto your plate.

Pão de Queijo

Brazil's perfect snack — marble-sized cheese bread rolls made with tapioca flour and aged Minas cheese; gluten-free by nature, with a paper-thin crust that gives to a molten, stretchy, slightly sour interior; found at every airport, petrol station and breakfast table; impossible to eat just one.

Acarajé

Salvador's Afro-Brazilian icon — a deep-fried fritter of black-eyed pea dough split open and filled with dried shrimp, vatapá (a spiced prawn paste), caruru and pimenta sauce; sold by baianas in white dresses at street corners of the Pelourinho; a UNESCO Intangible Heritage of Bahian culture.

Tacacá

Amazonia's strangest and most addictive street food — a hot broth of tucupi (fermented wild manioc juice), dried shrimp, jambu leaves and tapioca pearls served in a gourd; the jambu leaf causes a tingling numbness on the tongue that amplifies all other flavours; sold by tacazeiras at dusk in Belém's markets.

Coxinha

São Paulo's beloved teardrop — shredded chicken and cream cheese moulded into a drumstick shape, coated in a wheat-and-potato dough, breaded and deep-fried to a copper-gold crust; the name means 'little thigh'; sold at every padaria and lanchonete; Brazil's most consumed savoury snack.