UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF MANY CULTURES, BRAZIL HAS BECOME A
COUNTRY OF A VARIETY OF RHYTHMS AND DANCES. “You sleep only in
order to dance again,” writes John Krich, author of a 1993 travelogue about Brazil. Brazilian cuisine is famous for its eclectic flare and is influenced and nurtured by its varied regional backgrounds: Indian, African, Portuguese, Italian, German, Syrian, Lebanese, and Asian. The national cuisine is a collection of five unique regional styles within Brazil: northern, northeast, central-west, southeast, and southern.
Staple ingredients in Brazilian recipes are rice, beans, coconut, dried shrimp,
codfish, lemon, and dendi oil (oil from a Brazilian palm tree).