This is an installment of Bryant Backyard Border Bouncing (BBBB).  For more information, please see the bottom of the About page.

 

While we started out strong with Korea, the most recent Bryant Backyard Border Bouncing experiences haven’t been quite as in depth.  Either way, we spent parts of a weekend in September learning about and eating our way through Brazil.

Here are some quick facts that we shared with the girls about Brazil:

• Brazil is the largest country in South America.
• It is the 5th largest country in the world by both land area and population.
• The Amazon River flows through Brazil, and is the 2^nd longest in the world, after The Nile.
• Portuguese is the official language spoken in Brazil.

• The climate in the majority of Brazil is tropical.

• Millions of tourists visit Brazil every year.
• There are around 2500 airports in Brazil.
• Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Brazil with the national team consistently among the best in the world, winning the World Cup a record 5 times.

We also watched YouTube videos of Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, which the girls would like to visit someday.  It was also pretty awesome to watch videos from the perspective of hang-gliders soaring down to the beach from the surrounding cliffs.  They also loved seeing videos of Carnival, and REALLY want to go to it when they’re older!

While the only brick-and-mortar Brazilian restaurants I could find in the area are high-priced and all-you-can-eat meat extravaganzas that would be lost on kids, I did find that there’s a Brazilian food truck in town, Gaucho’s Fire.  The weekend we learned about at Brazil, the food truck was serving at an event downtown, so I headed over to pick up some to-go containers of food for the family to try.  I picked up an assortment of dishes, all of which involved meat and potatoes.  I would like to have tried some of the side dishes that they normally serve, but the menu was paired down for this large event. The girls ate a few bites here and there, but overall weren’t huge fans.  That’s OK…more for me!

For our own take on Brazilian food, I found a few recipes that were a bit healthier.  As an appetizer, I made Black-Eyed Pea and Shrimp Fritters (Acaraje).  As often is the case, they looked much better on the recipe blog than they did when executed in my kitchen!  They were decent, but I wasn’t too excited about them.  For the main dish I made roasted vegetable feijoada, a thick stew-like dish normally made with several types of meat.  I thought it turned out well, but would have loved for it to have had more spice to it.  I made it a second time a few weeks later, and added a jalapeno to the homemade salsa that tops it, and I liked it much more.  For dessert, I made Crème de Papaya, which was basically a milkshake of pureed payapa and vanilla ice cream, topped with Crème de Cassis (which I’d never heard of, but easily found at a well-stocked liquor store).  It was all decent, but none overly exciting.

I have a friend who also works in the airline industry who loves Brazil and has visited Rio de Janeiro several times, so I look forward to learning more from him, and taking the girls on a trip down there when they’re older.  Until then, Felicidades!