Gastronomic books from the 2020 menu Brazilian cuisine – 12/28/2020 – Food

An overview of the cookbooks launched and relaunched this year takes the reader to Brazil – this one, which must have been experienced with great force. This is a bonus from the pandemic, oh beloved country.

Back when “Não É Sopa” by Nina Horta was compiling chronicles from the ’80s and’ 90s, more was known about English cuisine than Brazilian cuisine, she said.

If that were true for the anemic sample of books – and today that no longer applies, as this publishing market has swelled – his way of looking at the nation, a funny country, in which the fruits natives are exotic to the people themselves, persists. .

This work, republished by the Companhia de Mesa, has become a socio-historical product, capable of reflecting on the eating habits of a time. In passing, Nina reveals a Brazil inhabited by ordinary people who go to the fair, cook and learn without a library.

Rita Lobo shares with the columnist a certain disdain for snobbery in the kitchen, and brings typical recipes of the Brazilian table, made with homemade utensils, in “Rita, Help! Teach me to cook ”, his 11th book.

These are recipes that start from the rice and bean pairing and shape our peach, which structures the country’s traditional diet, assumes fresh and minimally processed foods, and reinforces a balanced and more affordable menu.

It serves both authors as the image that Antonio Candido (1918-2017) radiated from the writing on the ground floor and not from the top of a mountain – the language is everyday, close to the reader and leads him to a better understanding of social problems, in this case related to eating habits.

He will learn more about the processes that form the basis and structure of culinary production, the book “400g: Cooking techniques”, a reference in gastronomy which has been revised and enriched by the publisher Nacional.

There are no similar publications in Brazil showing essential tools and concepts that will give consistency to both amateur and professional cooks. The book goes through theoretical and practical information, similar to the dynamics of the classroom and brings together four professionals who have worked in the systematization of cooking education in the country: Betty Kövesi, Carlos Siffert, Carole Crema and Gabriela Martinoli.

We are particularly interested in the collaborative aspect of chef and researcher Mara Salles. In “Cozinha do Brasil” she suggests that we are a people with a unique way of eating, arranged from the mix, from abundance. Like Horta, who says that our cuisine is lost in the bush, for Salles, the guardians of our ingredients, techniques and gestures are hidden in the outskirts, in the forest, in the hinterland.

It contrasts the cuisine of the interior of Bahia, with slightly dry foods, typical of the hinterland, to that of Recôncavo, in which coconut milk, dried shrimp and palm oil are expressive.

In the oil palm, the sacred oil of religious kitchens that arrived with the first African slaves is that the acarajé is fried. It has been identified by journalist and anthropologist Bruno Albertim as the most powerful sanctuary in Salvador.

The record is in the book “Nordeste: Identidade Comestível”, the result of a dense ethnographic research at the Museu do Homem do Nordeste. Launched this year, it reflects the people of this region according to their daily eating habits.

Bahian cuisine, in fact, is a common substrate for recent launches and reissues. This is the case of “Torto Arado” by Itamar Vieira Junior, who this year received the Jabuti for best novel, the most important prize in Brazilian literature.

If food is not its common thread, it serves as a resource to give flesh and depth to the characters and the atmosphere of an arid hinterland, in which the bed itself, without water, receives seeds of plantation, which does not always germinate.

In the story of two black sisters raised on a land farm in the interior, oil palm trees made in backyards and stored in cachaça bottles were taken to the market with the strength of their arms, under the sun. to punish hunger.

More academic and scholarly is “Manuel Querino – Creator of popular Bahian cuisine”, sociologist Carlos Alberto Dória and researcher in African culture, Jeferson Bacelar.

In the work, Querino (1851-1923) is a symbol of the black culture of thought of the nineteenth century. They start from his classic work, “Culinary Art in Bahia”, to retrace the socio-political context which goes beyond the “simple collection of recipes of African origin which incorporate it”.

Just as Bahian cuisine manifests itself in at least three demarcations, as Albertim explains – the cuisine of substance, country and palm oil – the Pantanal is a mosaic showcased in a diverse cuisine.

This immense territory, cut by the waters of nearly 200 rivers and 300 species of fish, awakened “Cozinha Pantaneira: Comitiva de Sabores”.

Chef and connoisseur of Mato Grosso do Sul Paulo Machado and journalist Cristiana Couto break the classic structure of recipes and respect the relationship between Pantanal and food.

These are chapters that reflect eating habits in environments such as the farm, the market, and the city, with traces of indigenous heritage and Paraguayan, Japanese and Lebanese influences.

These books describe the complexity and uniqueness of Brazilian cuisines, which, in this year of confinement, we have had the pleasure of swallowing.

Delicious books

THIS IS NOT SOUP
Price R $ 89.90 (432 pages)
Author Nina Horta; ed. Table company

RITA, HELP! TEACH ME TO COOK
Price R $ 19.95 (88 pages)
Author Rita Lobo; ed. Panelinha and Senac São Paulo

400G: COOKING TECHNIQUES
Price R $ 225 (400 pages)
Authors Betty Kövesi, Carlos Siffert, Carole Crema and Gabriela Martinoli; ed. national

NORTHEAST: EDIBLE IDENTITY
Price: R $ 70 (224 pages, vol. 1; 256 pages, vol. 2); free download from the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation website
Author Bruno Albertim; ed. Massangana

Plow pie
Price R $ 54.90 (264 pages)
Author Itamar Vieira Junior
However, the editor

MANUEL QUERINO – CREATOR OF THE POPULAR BAIANA CUISINE
Price R $ 30 (252 pages)
Authors Carlos Alberto Dória and Jeferson Becelar; ed. P55

CUISINE PANTANEIRA: FLAVORS COMMITTEE
Price R $ 80 (180 pages)
Author Paulo Machado; ed. Bei

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