feijoada

ok so here in brasil we get these ridiculous two hour lunches, not productive at all, it messes up your day cause while i have tons of crap to get done the whole town pretty much shuts down between 12-2pm, and its freakin nerve racking when you are in a time crunch to get stuff done.. but if you cant beat’em, join’em.. brasil’s national dish, FEIJOADA (say fay-zho-ada, the z in the zho part i pronounced like dge).. it was traditionally served on sunday.. there are various tale as to how this dish came about, all deal back to the slave days, when the portuguese were colonizing brasil, but the one most commonly told says that during the week, the family would give all their leftovers to the slaves.. this would be meats: mostly pork, linguiça (a portuguese style sausage), carne de sol (sun-dried meat, like beef jerky) etc.. the slaves would then save them till sunday, take a big crock pot, make beans (frijoles, or here, feijão quick note on feijão.. here in the northeast, its more the custom to eat the red beans, and in the south, black, however with feijoãda, its made with black beans..) and throw in all the meats, and cook it.. they serve it on a dish, and TOP it off with rice.. for some reason, the custom, at least when ive been paying attention, is to serve the beans/ meat first, and the rice goes on top.. anyways, that’s my culture lesson for today.. if you find a good brasilian restaurant in your area, give it a try, or come visit and you can try it.. here is one recipe here is another and another..