Feijoada

Feijoada is a bean stew cooked with pork or beef across the Portuguese-speaking world. Its Brazilian version is the best known and is regarded as the country's national dish.

History

The name comes from the Portuguese feijão, meaning bean, and refers to a family of stews that combine beans with meat. Older forms exist in Portugal, especially in the north, where white or red beans are cooked with sausages, pig's ears or trotters and, depending on the area, vegetables such as tomato, carrot or kale. Meat and vegetable stews of this kind are often traced back to Roman cooking, and they gave rise to related European dishes such as the French cassoulet and the Madrid cocido.

The Brazilian version took shape during the colonial period, in the eighteenth century, by mixing Portuguese, African and Indigenous culinary traditions. Black beans, of American origin, replaced the European varieties, and enslaved people used leftover and less prized cuts of pork in the pot. This is the most widely repeated account, though its exact origins are not well documented.

In the nineteenth century the dish moved from a working-class supper to a national emblem. Today it is found in other Portuguese-speaking countries such as Angola, Mozambique, East Timor and Macau, and it appears on the menus of Brazilian restaurants around the world, often adapted to local ingredients.

Culture

In Brazil feijoada is associated with conviviality, gatherings of friends and family and informal parties. It is traditionally eaten on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and many restaurants list it on those days. It is an affordable dish enjoyed across social classes, usually served with rice, orange slices and farofa, a toasted cassava flour that in many regions is mixed with egg or sausage. Alongside samba, carnival and caipirinha, it is one of the most recognised images of Brazil abroad.

Regional variations are numerous. In Portugal white beans dominate the northwest and red beans the northeast, and the stew often includes chouriço, blood sausage or farinheira. In Brazil the cuts of meat and accompaniments change from state to state. Feijoada also features at weddings, birthdays and religious festivals, which reinforces its role as a dish for community.