Brazilian food is generous, sweet, salty and served in quantities that assume you are hungry, and children who eat nothing at home eat here.
Pao de queijo is the first thing. Small warm balls of cheese bread made with tapioca flour, chewy inside, at every cafe and bakery, by the bag. It is breakfast, it is the snack at four, it is the thing the kids will ask for at the airport on the way home.
Acai is the purple bowl on the beach. A frozen puree of the Amazon berry, served thick like sorbet with granola and banana, from every kiosk on the sand. The Brazilian version is sweeter and the kids will have one a day.
The churrascaria and the feijoada
A churrascaria is the all you can eat barbecue where waiters walk the room with swords of meat and carve it onto the plate until you turn the card to red. Picanha, the rump cap, is the cut. Chicken hearts are the dare. The salad bar is enormous. Kids under ten are often half price and every one of them turns the card to green again.
Feijoada is the Saturday lunch, a black bean stew with pork, served with rice, collard greens, orange slices and farofa, the toasted cassava flour that goes on everything. It is heavy and it is the national dish and it is the reason Brazil naps on Saturday afternoon.
Coxinha, the teardrop shaped chicken croquette, from the counter at any bakery. Pastel, the fried pastry, at the Sunday market with a sugarcane juice. Brigadeiros, the chocolate fudge balls, at every birthday. Guarana, the soft drink from an Amazon berry, which every Brazilian child drinks. And the juice bars, with fruit the kids have never heard of, cupuacu, graviola, caju, blended to order.
Planning Brazil with kids? Start with the full Brazil family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.
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