Virado A Paulista Is A Whole-meal Dish From Sao Paulo, Brazil

Virado, also known as virado à Paulista, is a whole-meal dish from the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. It dates to the time of the earliest Portuguese settlers to the region.

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

BRAZIL: About Brazil

These towering granite mountains protect the island´s wondrous beaches like silent sentinels

Capital: Brasilia

Size: 8,547,403 km²

Population: 170m

Currency: Real

Language: Portuguese

Visas: Not required for UK nationals.

Food: The most famous dish is the feijoada completa: several meat ingredients (jerked beef, smoked sausage, smoked tongue, salt pork, along with spices, herbs and vegetables) are cooked with the beans. Manioc flour is sprinkled over it, and it is eaten with kale (couve) and slices of orange, and accompanied by glasses of aguardente. Churrasco is a mixed grill, including excellent steak, served with roasted manioc flour. It is normally served in specialized restaurants, churrascarias or rodízios (or espeito corrido) – make sure you are hungry when you visit!

Drink: Caipirinha – a deceptively gluggable glass full of the local spirit topped up with pounded ice and limes. One is delicious, two even more so, after that – well, over to you! Caipiroska is the same thing made with vodka, consequently a shade less overwhelming. The fruit juices are fantastic as well.

Festivals: Brazilians need little excuse to hold a party and there are plenty of options throughout the year. The most famous festival in Brazil is Carnaval, particularly that of Rio de Janeiro, although Carnival in other cities can be equally interesting. Dates vary between February and early March. Semana Santa, which ends on Easter Sunday, is celebrated with parades in many cities and towns. Bahia has many festivals throughout the year but some of the most interesting are the Lavagem do Bomfim in January, the Presente para Iemanjá in February and the Festa da Boa Morte in August. In the south, the Festa Nacional da Uva, a grape and wine festival, is held in Caxias do Sul during February. Towards the end of the year in October the Oktoberfest is held in Blumenau, whilst the Círio de Nazaré festival takes place in Belém. The festival year ends on 31 December with the hugely popular beach-based Reveillon.

When to go: Brazil as a destination can be visited at any time of the year depending on your priorities and where you are travelling. Most of the country is tropical, but given its sheer size, weather patterns vary.

Described as the sexiest people on earth, Brazilians are seduced by the sounds of their music and the lure of the beach. Along its 7,250km coastline, there is a stretch of sand for every volleyball player, capoeira dancer, surfer, dune-buggy driver, and the national sport could as easily be flirtation as football.

But Brazilians have a spiritual side to match their hedonistic streak. Many exotic religions flourish, most notable Candomblé, based on African traditions, which exist alongside Catholicism. Artistically Brazil also has a rich vein that goes back to the 16th century when, prosperous from gold and diamonds, the Portuguese colonialists invested in what are some of the most beautifully preserved baroque buildings found anywhere.

As the world’s fifth largest nation, Brazil has a wide diversity of attractions and sights. Brazilians say that God created the world in six days, and on the seventh, he created Rio de Janeiro. Few who have been to Rio would argue, given the city’s spectacular mix of mountains, rainforest and beaches, and its eclectic mix of cosmopolitan city and tropical resort. Corcovado, Sugar Loaf, Copacabana, Ipanema and Maracanã are all names and images that make Rio special. As does the spectacular Carnaval.

Brazil is much more than Rio. The north-east is growing in popularity as a destination led by the state of Bahia, often dubbed ‘Africa in exile’. This was the heart of colonial Brazil and the architecture of the period is best found in the state capital of Salvador where over 800 buildings dating from the 17th and 18th centuries can be found in an area considered a world heritage site by UNESCO.

The north-east offers a heady blend of cultures, cuisine, ethnic groups, as well as many natural wonders such as the national park of Chapada Diamantina or the stunning beaches. Other popular destinations in the north-east include the states of Alagoas, Ceará, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe.

Brazil is also home to the Amazon river that flows through northern Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean, feeding along the way the biggest expanse of rainforest in the world. Visitors can explore and experience the astonishing natural variety of the Amazon’s flora and fauna through gateways such as Belém or Manaus, both cities famous for their opera houses.

Offering a more visible display of flora and fauna is the Pantanal, a collection of ecosystems that is the largest wetlands in the Americas and in which can be found an immense diversity of bird and wildlife.

Brazil’s southern states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná are equally full of contrasts and surprises that include outstanding beaches for surfing, dolphin and whale-watching around Florianópolis; towns such as Blumenau with its distinct Bavarian architecture; the Itaimbezinho canyon, the largest in Latin America; and the falls at Iguaçu that stretch almost three kilometres across the mighty Iguaçu river that borders Brazil and Argentina. One of the falls, the Devil’s Throat, is the largest waterfall in the world in terms of volume of water per second.