Brazilian cuisine

Brazilian cooking grew out of Portuguese, African and indigenous kitchens meeting: cassava, black beans and palm oil on Portuguese technique.

Cassava does here what the potato does in Europe: it becomes flour, grits, starch and bread. Tapioca starch — the one pão de queijo stands on — is one of its products.

The second pillar is beans, eaten daily rather than on feast days. Feijoada differs from an everyday pot of beans not in its ingredients but in how many kinds of meat go into it.