The dish consists of a platter of cooked beans cooked in sauteed onion, garlic, fat, and salt; dried, toasted manioc flour; a pork chop; fried sausage; breaded and fried plantain; eggs, preferably with the soft yolk; kale, cut into strips and braised in fat; rice; and torresmo, a crisply cooked pork rind.
Virado is traditionally served on Mondays. About 500,000 plates of the dish are served per week in the city of Sao Paulo.
Virado arose spontaneously during the early colonial period of Brazil as a dish of the bandeirantes. The bandeirantes traveled to the interior of Brazil first to capture and enslave native Brazilians, and later to find gold, silver, and diamonds.
They carried beans, pork, and corn flour in their backpacks to the interior of the state. Stored in the backpack, the ingredients turned and mixed, hence the name of the dish, virado.
Virado in the period of the bandeirantes consisted only of beans, usually cooked without salt so as not to harden, maize flour, dried meat, and bacon. Cassava flour was substituted for corn flour after the introduction of the crop to the Sao Paulo region in the 18th century.
The bandeirantes and other early settlers ate virado cold or warmed.
The earliest written reference to virado is in 1602, when Nicolau Barreto made an expedition to present-day Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru.
It is also associated with the monçao, who led expeditions by river into remote areas of the Brazilian interior from the early 18th to the early 19th century.
The dish became a staple of homes and farmsteads in the Sao Paulo region. Homes in Sao Paulo in the early colonial period were severe and lacked the elegance of those in Bahia, Pernambuco, or Rio de Janeiro.
Virado was served at all times of the day with little variation; in this period it consisted of beans, bacon, flour, a piece of pork, smoked linguiça, and kale.
Rice was introduced to virado in the 19th century after the wide-scale introduction to the crop in Brazil; it was cooked in the remains of cooked pork or sausage, and additionally flavored with lard, garlic, and salt.
Dessert served with virado consisted of fresh fruit such as oranges; bananas fried with cinnamon and sugar were also common.
There are several variations of virado, either around the basic ensemble of pork, fried banana, beans mashed with cassava flour, rice, kale, and fried egg. The virado can be prepared with black beans and corn flour.
An early variation of the dish emerged when the bandeirantes turned their expeditions to Minas Gerais, where the dish became known as tutu a mineira.
Tutu a mineira differs from Virado in its use of ground beans; the version in Sao Paulo uses whole beans. One variation served in the interior of the state of Santa Catarina substitutes cooked cabbage for kale.
Tourism Observer
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