Flavors from Minas Gerais

Tião Rocha
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Flavors from
Minas Gerais
Texts from Brazil . Nº 13
Brazilian dried meat production – J.B. Debret (1829). Source: Castro Maya Museums – IPHAN/MinC – MEA 0113
T
o trail the routes and paths crossed by the Mineiros, and arrive at
their current customs and habits, we must begin at the crossways and
sidetracks of Minas Gerais. This takes us, invariably, to the end of the 17th
Century and beginning of the 18th Century.
The Portuguese Crown had never lost hope in finding precious metals
in their lands in America. Such hope was motivated by seductive legends of
the city of Manôa, the Emerald Mountains and Sabarabuçu. The discovery
of gold in the Colony’s interior, even if its small details was due to chance, in
its accomplishment it was, above all, due to historic persistency.
Flavors from Brazil
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This discovery cannot be pinpointed to a
person in particular. It was a result of continuous
efforts and dreams of successive generations. The
effort began in 1532 with the arrival of the first
Portuguese settlers along with Martim Afonso de
Souza. One of the first measures he took was to
send an expedition, with 40 men, from São Vicente in São Paulo to the interior in search of gold
and silver mines … They never came back.
The news of the discovery of gold spread
out quickly through the world. The big rush began. Adventurers of all types arrived, men and
women, young and old, whites, mulattos and
blacks, noblemen and commoners, laymen, clergymen and religious of different orders, determined by the desire of enriching rapidly, without
being careful with the roughness of the trails and
without worrying themselves with the hardship
of the work and the dangers they had to face.
They left everything in their homelands. They
sold their possessions (if they owned any), left
wife and children, broke-off engagements.
The departure to the mines was a drama,
but the journey was another one, very arduous
and maybe even a fatal one. Each adventurer,
with few provisions in their bags, took off confidently hallucinated by the visions of gold. Frequently, the worst of sufferings awaited them:
hunger. And the scarcity of food was such, that
a great famine occurred in 1698, and another
in 1700 and still a third one in 1713. Fields and
mountains had been deprived of game and wild
provisions by people who had consumed everything. Many left to hunt in the forest or returned
to their homeland. Many fell by the wayside.
With whatever they came across, any
type of game, tapirs, deer, capybaras, monkeys,
coatis, jaguars, marsh deer and birds, and many
times, snakes, lizards, ants and even “a very
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white animal that is found in bamboos and rotten wood”. They also ate bee honey, pork, palm
of hearts, fern sprouts, wild yams … and other
varieties which necessity invented. There was
also fish: the small ones cooked in bamboo, and
the big ones, roasted.
Once the cry of gold was out, a migratory
wave flooded the region with very few parallels
in the history of mankind. Human tides sought
the region of the mines, coming from every direction. The news of the discovery of gold echoed in all the corners and provinces of Brazil,
and everywhere the demographic system suffered profound changes due to the rush to the
mines. Thus, the rapid and gigantic settlement of
the region of Minas Gerais was carried out.
However, in a very short period, the rush
towards the mines transformed itself into a public disaster. There were so many ambitious people who ran in search of gold that the Kingdom
was threatened by depopulation. The coastal cities of Brazil also endured the same threat… The
mines which had been received as a blessing from
heaven, after two centuries of anxious searches,
started to be viewed as the cause of disaster and
sources of misdeeds.
Soon the interdictions and restrictions of
settlers leaving to the mines emerged in 1709
and 1711. Besides the restrictions to enter the region, other ones were established, forbidding the
clearance of new paths and trails to Minas Gerais. Nothing, however, hindered the rapid and
disorganized growth of the population of Minas
Gerais, if we consider the distance and difficulties.
The more complicated and costly the processes to extract gold were, the more the min Anonymous letter from 1717, quoted by Afonso de E. Taunay.
Texts from Brazil . Nº 13
ers settled themselves, establishing permanent
camps with solid constructions, made to endure
time. The camps of Minas Gerais grew so quickly
that, in a few years, many ascended to the post
of villages. The historical cities of Minas Gerais,
guardians of the colonial buildings, would become the permanent imprint of the period.
From early on, an active trade flow between the coastal cities and Minas Gerais was
established. The paths became trails that were
frequently walked on and beaten by merchants,
tropeiros, caravans and cattlemen who came and
went through these paths, differing themselves
for this reason from those who, taken by the gold
fever, thought only of going and not of returning.
Nevertheless, the coastal cities were not
prepared to supply the mining cities of Minas
Gerais. A fever of speculation took all that was to
supply their own cities into the mines. The consequence was a price hike and a general shortage
of food and provisions. The situation became so
dramatic for Vila de São Paulo that the municipal chamber, in a session which took place on
January 19, 1705, deliberated on the prohibition
of selling any article of subsistence outside their
land, “including manioc flour, wheat, beans,
corn, bacon and cattle”.
Life in the mines, in the first years following the discovery of gold, would have been practically impossible without the various supplies
from the cities and villages of São Paulo, Rio de
Janeiro and Bahia: cattle, bacon, cachaça, sugar,
flour, beans, corn, cloth, shoes, medication, cotton, hoes and imported goods like salt, olive oil,
vinegar, wheat, iron, gunpowder, glass, wine,
guns, fabrics and slaves, thousands and thousands of African slaves.
From the hunger crisis of the 18th Century,
the need to use well the available food emerged.
Flavors from Brazil
From the hunger crisis of
the 18th Century, the need
to use well the available
food emerged. And from the
need to make better use of
it, the plentiful, simple
and sophisticated cuisine
of Minas Gerais evolved.
And from the need to make better use of it, the
plentiful, simple and sophisticated cuisine of Minas Gerais evolved.
To face the shortage of beef, the Mineiros
accustomed themselves to raising pigs, wherever
there was any space left, even in their backyards
(a custom which still endures). The consumption
of pork meat became a habit among the residents
of the mines and, today, pork loin is maybe the
most typical dish of Minas Gerais, present in the
region’s customs, the Mineiros’ favorite.
The miners and other residents of the Minas Gerais region never had abundance of food.
The food of explorers from São Paulo did not
have much variety. The basic food for the majority of the population was beans, corn and manioc.
The manioc plantations were insufficient and the
canjica was unsalted, for there was not enough
salt for everybody.
Manioc was the main food and daily provision for these people, followed by corn. The
anonymous chronicler of 1717, quoted by Afonso
de Taunay, listed some of the many foods made
with corn: “popcorn, corn meal, pamonhas, flour,
couscous, biscuits, cakes, alcamonias and catimpuera, aluá or beer from green corn, fermented
spirits and corn meal. The polenta, cooked in
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great quantities, in large pans of hot water that
“the rich eat for pleasure and the poor for necessity”.
The style of cooking of Minas Gerais is
unveiled, mainly, in the corn complex. From
green corn, cooked, roasted or made into mush
or into flour (polenta, mush, cake, cobu, etc),
corn is present in all meals, overpowering the
native manioc. The Mineiro never used bread of
“farinha de pau” (manioc flour), the common
bread during the first centuries of colonization,
as the basic food. They always preferred polenta,
solid corn cakes and cobu rolled in a banana leaf.
To mix with beans, he always used corn meal
(corn soaked, grounded in the mortar and then
roasted), polenta and maize flour (toasted). The
poor always used “canjiquinha” (a sub-product
from hulling corn, much used to replace rice).
At night, a widely appreciated supper is milk
with flour (meal or finely ground), while coffee with corn flour and cheese is a strong supper. The delicious corn meal, popcorn and, as
a refreshment, aluá, corn flour with water and
rapadura, which fermented obtains alcoholic
properties, was consumed by the Africans during the caxambus, in between dances. The various uses of corn demonstrate the heterogeneous
character of cuisine from Minas Gerais.
Food shortage during the mining phase
was very serious, not only for slaves (badly
dressed and fed), but also for the free men, in the
mines and, especially, for those who lived in the
cities.
There were several consequences of the
rapid and disorganized growth in the mining region. Some historians noted that it was the main
cause for the Emboabas War (1709), the conflict
for the ownership of the gold mines, in which the
Paulistas did not want to share them with outsiders. However, although the reasons for this war
were the jealousy of the Paulistas against the Portuguese and the Bahian, and the rivalries about
the ownership of the mines, another reason overpowered them in importance: the monopoly of
certain goods indispensable for the life in Minas
Gerais, like contracts for meat in butcher shops,
speculation and smuggling of primary goods,
carried out by the sons of the metropolis, allied
with the Bahians.
We can, therefore, consider that in the origin of the customs of Minas Gerais, which includes its cuisine, we have, among others, the
Emboabas War, studied in school books as the
first manifestation of “nativistic spirit” of the
Brazilian people.
Another historic fact that includes the
shortage of food supply in the province written
between its lines, was the uprising of 1720, in
Vila Rica, known as the Rebellion of Felipe dos
Santos, against the installation of smelteries in
the gold region. Along with this intention, also
present in the popular revolt, was the desire to
abolish contracts on fermented alcoholic beverages, tobacco and cigars.
The seriousness of the supply scarcity of
Minas Gerais forms the substratum of the main
political events of the region in the first quarter
of the 18th Century. Consequently, it reflects on
the sociocultural formation of our people, demonstrated in the knowledge and habits of our
population from whom emerged copper pans,
large melted iron pots and aged stone casseroles
“Memória Histórica da Capitania das Minas Gerais”(Historic
memories of the Capitania of Minas Gerais), Revista do Arquivo Público Mineiro, vol. II, p. 425.
João Camilo de Oliveira Torres, “História de Minas Gerais”
(History of Minas Gerais), vol. I, B.Hte, p. 161.
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Texts from Brazil . Nº 13
Frying torresmos. João Rural
fuming with the smells, colors and varied flavors
of our cuisine.
The answers and solutions to basic food
needs given by the Mineiros developed personal
and family uses that, slowly, in double boiler,
were transformed into local habits which, simmered, were generalized into regional customs
until they started to pop like torresmos in hot fat
forming our cultural traditions.
Thus, following these procedures, the Mineiro surpassed the hunger crisis to consolidate a
rich, varied and traditional cuisine, based on the
best use of the elementary ingredients – beans,
corn, manioc, meat – found or available in the
region. The lack of variety in resources during
the colonial period was the condition for the development of a creative and innovative cuisine,
marked by the search for flavors and combinaFlavors from Brazil
tions of tastes, within the few and limited products available.
John Mawe, the first foreign traveler who
was able to enter the mining territory, authorized
by the Regent Prince in 1809, stated: “As long as
there are corn and water, the Mineiros will not
starve”.
Saint-Hilaire observed the Mineiros’ taste
for sweets and marmalades, and their inclination to make them. However, he criticized the
abusive use of sugar that disguises the flavor
of the fruits. This censure is still made today by
“Viagem ao interior do Brasil, particularmente aos distritos
do ouro e do diamante, em 1809/1810”(Travels in the interior
of Brazil, particularly in the gold and diamond districts of that
country, in 1809/1810).
“Viagem pelas Províncias do Rio de Janeiro e Minas Gerais”
(Travels in the provinces of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais).
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Cargo troop. João Rural
foreigners who taste our sweets. Some French
travelers were surprised to see that we ate cheese
with our sweets, a culinary heresy in the opinion
of the masters in this subject. They do not know
what they are missing: guava sweet with Minas’
cheese, yummy!
Meanwhile, families who prepared sweets
would send (and still do) trays with coconut
sweets, cheese rolls, brevidades and pés-demoleque on the streets. Other families would
earn a little money with spicy bean cake, and others would prepare almonds in copper pans for
the Holy Week cornets.
Quitanda, let us not forget, is the home
pastry shop, with cookies, cornbread, twisted
bread, biscuits and cakes displayed on a tray.
Quitandeira is the woman who produces or sells
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these products. The women of Ouro Preto were
famous for being excellent producers of sweets
and delicacies.
The African and mulatto women who
cooked could not, no matter how hard they
worked, produce enough to satisfy the gluttony
of the mine workers. True multitudes of African
and mulatto women, slave or freed, paraded
with their trays through the hills and riverbanks,
provoking the Africans to spend, on delicacies,
the gold that did not belong to them.
One of the first governors of the region was
already on top of the problem:
... It is forbidden: for women to
take trays with pastries, cakes, sweets, honey,
spirits and other beverages to the gold mines
because some people send them to the mines
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and places where gold is extracted in order to
obtain gold making it possible for the gold to be
deviated from their owners and reach the hands
of those who do not pay the tax of one fifth to
His Majesty...
“The richest gold pans that are found in
the mines” continued to belong to the “black
women of the trays”, resulting in a new prohibition, this time dated September 11, 1729. And,
once again, ineffective.
“The hunger of the poor is avenged by the
indigestion of the rich”, goes the popular saying.
The Mineiros have always been gluttons,
friendly to sweets and pastries, as are the majority of Brazilians, known for their “apicultural
sensualism”.
From trays to groceries and small shops,
our sweets became famous: milk sweet (the one
rolled in corn husk is the most authentic from
Minas Gerais); citron, lime and orange sweets,
brevidade; quince, guava and banana sweets; péde-moleque; pamonha wrapped in banana leaf;
queijadinha; mãe-benta, quebra-quebra; cornbread or peanut bread; manioc starch biscuits;
besides others from Portuguese-Brazilian confectionery, whose names reveal the tenderness and
gentleness of the romantic century (18th): suspiro
(meringues), melindres, arrufado, esquecidos, beijode-freira; papos-de-anjo; baba-de-moça; quindim-deiaiá...
In the pantry, there was always a bowl
of molasses, which could be eaten with manioc
flour or pieces of cheese, and in the stores and
Luciano Figueiredo ,“Mulheres nas Minas Gerais”(Women of
Minas Gerais) in “História das Mulheres no Brasil”(History of
the women of Brazil), Contexto Press, São Paulo, p. 151.
Simão Mântua in “Cartas de um Chinês” (Letters from a Chinese).
Flavors from Brazil
“The hunger of the poor is
avenged by the indigestion
of the rich”, goes the
popular saying.
The Mineiros have always
been gluttons, friendly
to sweets and pastries,
as are the majority of
Brazilians, known
for their “apicultural
sensualism”
bars, next to the jug of cachaça, pão-de-queijo,
cream filled cones, popcorn and rapadura could
be found.
Little by little the hunger threat disappeared, but everything was sold for very high
prices. Many of the ambitious, who had rushed
to Minas Gerais to become wealthy with gold,
found out that it was easier to have it in their
hands if mined by others, through trade. Voilà.
The path to trade for the Minas Gerais residents
was open and they became shrewd merchants,
peddlers, caravan escorts, tropeiros, practicing
to become, in the future, excellent bankers and
speculators.
With the supply of goods organized and
systematically kept by the caravans of tropeiros,
the settlers of Minas Gerais lacked nothing else.
In the mid 1800s, there was gold in abundance.
Word was out that the Mineiros paid their suppliers generously. Regular routes of tropeiros were
established. The threat of hunger or shortage dis-
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appeared for good and there was an abundance
of food and supplies.
Vila Rica “was abundant in provisions and
the land produced many vegetables like collard
greens, cabbage and onions. There were also
plenty of fruits, mainly peaches, quinces, oranges, apples and juás. Although the land was not
widely cultivated, its inhabitants had no lack of
food, due to the provisions that came daily by
troops carrying bacon, corn, beans, cheese and
oil, sold at very reasonable prices”
The cuisine from Minas Gerais owes to
the tropeiros this dish – feijão-tropeiro. Its name is
a homage to these courageous explorers of the
interior.
The main commercial center were the
stores. In them one could find (or, most commonly, not find) cachaça, salt, sugar, beans and
dried meat, twisted tobacco, horseshoes, garlic,
firearms and prayer books.
Gold and diamond mining were absorbing. While production was abundant, there was
no room for substantial agricultural or for raising
livestock. Agriculture, in the heat of gold extraction, could not have developed because it could
not compete with the mines for slaves. Miners
paid for a black slave prices a farmer could not.
The barns slowly invaded the province,
spreading out over the fields near the São Francisco River, as a natural extension of the Bahian
livestock raising.
In spite of all the difficulties, Minas Gerais
slowly became self-sufficient. From the Sabará
village came corn, beans, rice and sugarcane;
from Vila Risonha and Bela de Santo Antônio da
Manga de São Romão arrived cattle, fish and na-
José Joaquim da Rocha in “Memória Histórica da Capitania
de Minas Gerais”(Historic memories of the capitania of Minas
Gerais), regarding the year of 1778.
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tive fruits; Vila Nova da Rainha produced “the
delicate fruits from Portugal”, apples, peaches,
grapes, plums; Serro Frio exported corn, beans
and their cheeses; and Vila de São José do Rio das
Mortes (current Tiradentes) was the most plentiful village of the entire province, supplying most
districts with bacon, cattle, cheese, corn, beans
and rice.
The people of Minas Gerais ate beef salted
in layers – dried meat or charque, salted sun-dried
meat, “wind-dried meat” or jabá. Like the pork
meat and bacon, they were preserved by smoking, salting, turning it into a paçoca or conserving
in fat (as it is still done).
In the North of Minas Gerais, the common
people’s meal is still beans with corn flour and
jabá, served with a cumari, malagueta pepper and
palm oil sauce - so hot that it can only be relieved
by a good gulp of cachaça with chufa sedge or
fig leaves.
The decline of gold and diamonds, at the
end of the 18th Century, was the main cause of the
activity change of the inhabitants of Minas Gerais, from the extractive industry to cattle breeding, to manufacturing and to cultivation. In the
mining area itself, plantations multiplied. The
agonizing mines started to rely on the expanding
crops that greedily searched for fertile land in the
nearabouts of the mines.
In the beginning of the 19th Century, the
economic scenario of Minas Gerais was very different from what was revealed in the previous
century. The development of agriculture, breeding and manufacturing, supplying the province
with elements for self-sufficiency, permitted the
province to go on without foreign supplies, and
even to become a supplier of regions which had
before supplied them, in a complete reversal of
the economic scene.
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The German naturalist Hermann Burmeister left us with a curious impression about the
places, scenarios, fauna and customs of the people he met on his travels to Minas Gerais in 1851.
He traveled through several regions. In Mariana
and Ouro Preto, he made interesting notes on the
schedule of meals and what they normally ate:
At 10 o’clock, lunch: beans, polenta,
dried meat, flour, bacon, collard greens, rice,
and, sometimes, chicken. They ate as much as
they wanted, mixing everything in one plate
[as is still commonly done nowadays]. Between
3 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the same meal
was repeated with fresh provisions. Water and
a bit of cachaça were drunk with the meal and,
at the end, a cup of coffee. Certain families had
a third meal between 7 and 8 in the evening,
but this was not part of the general custom. At
this time, light dishes were served, like crushed
corn with milk and sugar, orange tea with milk,
in which a biscuit or a lighter cake like sponge
cake or cornbread was soaked. I find the orange
tea very pleasant…
The basic food on the tables of Minas Gerais (of the well-off families, of course) was, and
still is in the majority of cases, traditionally the
same with few variations in the regions of the
state, that go from the South to the borders of
Bahia. Beans; polenta; corn or manioc flour; rice;
pork loin; spicy sausages; beef meat, dried or
fresh; chicken; and, as greenery, collard greens
were, and still are, the main food.
Beans were the father of them all. “Beans
are the support of a house”, goes the popular saying. In first place, were eaten mainly the kidney
bean variety, but other varieties too: chumbinho,
chili beans, red beans and black beans. Closely
after, comes the polenta, followed by torresmo.
Nowadays, rice competes with beans. White rice,
Flavors from Brazil
The basic food on the
tables of Minas Gerais (of
the well-off families, of
course) was, and still is
in the majority of cases,
traditionally the same
with few variations in the
regions of the state, that
go from the South to the
borders of Bahia.
cooked in our own fashion, fluffy, cannot be absent from the tables in Minas Gerais and last but
not least, collard greens.
The daily meal of a simple and common
household is beans with polenta and torresmo,
flour and collard greens – shredded or finely
chopped.
The whole beans cooked, almost with no
broth, and added to fried torresmos and manioc
flour is called “feijão-de-tropeiro”, “feijão-das-onze”
or “feijão-de-preguiça”.
Another incomparable delicacy to the palates of the Mineiros, and the most “Mineiro” dish,
is the tutu de feijão: made with kidney beans. After
it is cooked, it is thickened with manioc or corn
flour and it is served with torresmos, sliced spicy
sausages and sliced hard boiled eggs… yummy!
Just like the simple feijoada, which is sometimes cooked with salted pork or dried meat,
the tutu de feijão is a hearty dish that requires a
“starter” to open your appetite: a small glass of
a good cachaça. At the end of the meal, a cup of
thick coffee is a must.
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90
Pão-de-queijo (cheese bread). Daniel Augusto Jr./Pulsar Imagens
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91
The flavor of polenta can
be enriched if tropicão
(torresmos) or spicy
sausages are added. If you
add the finely chopped
herb, sautéed, yummy! …
you have the traditional
tripod: feijão (beans),
angu (polenta) and couve
(collard greens).
Small cakes made of beans are appreciated
as appetizers before lunch or dinner, to accompany an excellent cachaça made of Cayenne sugarcane.
The daily food in the rural area consists
of beans, polenta, cooked rice, some greenery
and, in the best case scenarios, eggs and chicken.
Manioc flour is always part of the meal…
Polenta, a hearty dish, indispensable to the
nourishment of the peasants, was equally found
on the table of the city dwellers. The Mineiro prepares it normally unsalted, a tradition inherited
from the 18th Century, when salt was a rare and
expensive product.
The flavor of polenta can be enriched if
tropicão (torresmos) or spicy sausages are added.
If you add the finely chopped herb, sautéed,
yummy! …you have the traditional tripod: feijão (beans), angu (polenta) and couve (collard
greens).
If there is no farofa, it is a custom to add
manioc flour itself, toasted or not, to the beans in
broth to thicken it. Maize flour is also called far92
inha de munho, farinha de cachorro or toasted corn
meal.
With the corn meal one can make the very
popular mush, serving it simple, with sugar, or
sprinkled with cinnamon. It can also be eaten
with slices of cheese or by adding milk or honey,
in the morning for breakfast or at night as supper … or the fresh corn mush and the angu with
milk.
At the end of the 19th Century, in the farms
of Minas Gerais, the following daily meal was
served: beans with polenta and torresmos, roasted pork loin, spicy sausages, collard greens and
the typical corn flour. On Sundays, invariably
chicken. As dessert, “boxed sweets” and compotes with cheese, or molasses with manioc or
manioc flour. After dinner, on the veranda of the
farm, congonha (fake maté) tea or coffee sugared
with rapadura.
Agriculture slowly expands. The same happens with livestock. The south of Minas Gerais
offers the best conditions for this. Thus, begins
the dairy industry. The Mineiro breeder emerges,
not a big consumer of milk, but creator of one of
our trademarks: the cheese industry, the “Minas
cheese”, round, savory, white cheese which is indispensable in our breakfast, with our sweets…
The western districts produce pork. Pork
meat, mainly bacon, is consumed all over the
region, being an indispensable seasoning in the
cooking of the whole country.
At the end of the 19th Century, the basic
food on more humble tables was still beans, flour
and polenta, accompanied by some greenery or
garden produces: collard greens, okra, chayote,
sow-thistle, yam, pumpkin and taioba. On other
Translator’s note: Sweets made with fruits that, instead of being served in paste, are hardened, packed in boxes and served
in slices, like guava sweet, banana sweet, among others.
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occasions, the basic food was beans with torresmos and rice. There was almost never any meat!
It was not necessary! However, beans were! Instead of bread, many ate beiju, biscuits made
from manioc flour, corn flour or manioc starch.
Bread is almost a stranger to the traditional cooking of Minas Gerais.
Nevertheless, the wealthier classes could
appreciate a larger variety of food, quitandas and
delicacies:
•Breakfast: a plate of simple corn meal mush
sprinkled with cinnamon or with molasses
and cheese; or coffee with milk and quitandas; or coffee with milk and bread and butter (foreign);
•Lunch: Beans, either tutu de feijão with
torresmo, and spicy sausages or pork loin;
or simple beans and, sometimes, collard
greens; or virado; or polenta, simple or
with torresmos and okra; fluffy white rice,
dried meat or pork meat, fresh or salted,
and, more rarely, fresh beef. Fresh or dried
meat, roasted, stewed or diced, with rice or
manioc or collard greens or yam or string
beans; fried with beaten eggs or shredded
(roupa velha); or cooked with vegetables;
chicken preferably stewed with polenta
and okra; greenery, not a large portion,
could be collard greens, lettuce, cabbage,
sow-thistle or taioba. For dessert: quince or
guava sweet; molasses or any other “boxed
sweets” with cheese or fresh requeijão. Bananas, oranges and papayas.
•Snack: plain coffee or with quitandas.
•Dinner: soup, made with vegetables, or
meat and corn flour, or yam or water yams,
manioc, white beans, fubá with greenery;
plain beans or virado with flour; meat and
okra stew or with scarlet eggplant, manioc
or sweet potato; or rice with fried eggs.
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Dessert: sweets with cheese or fresh requeijão.
•Supper: plain corn meal, or with peanuts,
or cheese; or fubá mush.
•Beverage: a small cup of cachaça, as a
“starter”, only for men.
•Spices: onions, chives, garlic, laurel, annatto, malagueta pepper, black pepper, coriander. Oil: pork fat.
This daily menu that composed the table of
the wealthier families in the 19th Century – abundant and inexpensive, varied and healthy, of food
that was easily digested and, most importantly,
tasty - was the menu of the cuisine from Minas
Gerais, maintained by tradition until today with
very few variations.
Cooking secrets were passed from mother
to daughter, as a gold nugget or a family diamond: the “Mineiro” way of “dicing and sautéing”, as our old cooks say, the available ingredients. The housewives of Minas Gerais may
have not been versed in food science, but they
were excellent in the art of cooking, which was
(and is) more valuable.
Minas Gerais... is a small synthesis; a
crossroad. There are several Minas Gerais, so
many, and yet just one. As Guimarães Rosa
would say: There is the forest, on the other side
of the mountain, still humid from the marine
winds, with agriculture and forestry, a densely fertile area; there you find the pacifists and
the quarrelsome. In the South, with its coffee
plantations, planted on the slopes of red soil
or on hills where Europeans organized themselves, maybe one of the most peaceful places
of happiness in the world; there you will find
the shy and the audacious, to the point of incautiousness. In the Triangle region, advanced,
strong, and honest; there you will find those
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Chicken with okra. Peixes Press (Embratur)
Texts from Brazil . Nº 13
who have regular routines and the explorers.
In the West, quiet and coarse mannered, farmers and politicians, rich in abilities; there you
will find the legalists and the revolutionary. In
the North, country people, hot, rustic, Bahian
in some stretches, sometimes Northeastern in
the unmanageability of the bush lands, and in
the incorporation of the polygon of the drought;
there you will find the naïve and the extremely
shrewd. The central core of the Rio das Velhas
valley, calcareous, mild, clear and open to the
joy of new voices; there you will find the stingy
and also the prodigal. The Northwest, of the
plateaus, of the wide fields that are joined with
Goiás and Bahia, and that go forward to the Piauí and undulating Maranhão.
But I believe that the true customs of Minas
Gerais are established through the mixture and
co-existence of some of these faults and qualities,
with the endurance of essential characteristics of
our way of life.
Is there, after all, a cuisine from Minas Gerais?
A very “Mineiro” way of answering – yes
and no!
Yes, because one can recognize a constancy
in the eating preferences of the people who live
in Minas Gerais. No, because these preferences
are not exclusive of our people.
The constancy is defined, of course, by
the daily menu, based, primarily, on the tripod
beans, polenta and collard greens, then on rice,
afterwards on meat (preferably pork) and, finally, and moderately, on vegetables and greenery.
The dishes considered typical of Minas
Gerais are: tutu de feijão with torresmos or spicy
sausages; roasted pork loin and finely chopped
collard greens. We can still add chicken cooked
Flavors from Brazil
in its blood with polenta and okra. Dishes considered genuinely from Minas Gerais, but not being, however, exclusive.
But why did these dishes gain the status of
dishes from Minas Gerais?
The Mineiro way of making them, as a ritual; the Mineiro way of serving them, as a liturgy;
the way of savoring them, as a communion!
There is nothing better in the universal cuisine, Guimarães Rosa stated conceitedly.
“And why not?”, he himself answered,
adding: “the true patriotism is in the gustative
sensualism, of the table and desserts. The petroleum will not be so much ours; ours, well ours,
will be the milk sweets and the shredded dried
meat. Mine – please forgive me – is that dish from
Minas Gerais which is really the most important;
stewed chicken with okra and pumpkin (ad libitum the scarlet eggplant) and polenta, a delicate
dish, sliding thickly as life itself, but dripped
with pepper”.
Basic reference
ZEMELLA, MAFALDA P. O Abastecimento da Capitania
das Minas Gerais no Século XVIII, Report 118, História da
Civilização Brasileira n. 12, University of São Paulo, São
Paulo, 1951.
FRIEIRO, EDUARDO. Feijão, Angu e Couve - Ensaio sobre a comida dos mineiros, Center for the Study on Minas
Gerais, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 1966.
ANDRADE, CARLOS DRUMMOND DE. Brasil, Terra &
Alma - Minas Gerais, Autor Press, Rio de Janeiro, 1967.
ROCHA, TIÃO. (org.) Afinal, o que é ser mineiro? Social
Service of the Minas Gerais Trade, Belo Horizonte,
1995.
Tião Rocha
Anthropologist and folklorist
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