Feijoada is a common name given to dishes from Portuguese-speaking countries. The Brazilian version of the delicacy is probably an adaptation of the Portuguese stew, which originated in the north of this country. The first known mention of "
feijoada à brasileira" was in
Recife, Pernambuco, in 1827. In Brazil, the first mention of the dish dates back to the beginning of the 19th century in an advertisement published in no. 47 of the
Diário de Pernambuco, in the city of Recife, on March 2, 1827, stating that at the Locanda da Águia d'Ouro, in das Cruzes Street, on Thursdays "excellent Brazilian-style
feijoada would be served, all for a comfortable price." On August 7, 1833, also in Recife, the advertisement for the newly opened Hôtel Théatre, published in the
Diário de Pernambuco, stated that "
Feijoada à brasileira" would be served on Thursdays. On March 3, 1840, still in the
Diário de Pernambuco, Father Carapuceiro published an article in which he said: In 1848, the same Recife newspaper announced the sale of "bacon meat, suitable for
feijoadas, at 80 réis a pound". On January 6, 1849, the
Jornal do Commercio, from
Rio de Janeiro, announced that the newly installed "Novo Café do Commércio" restaurant, next to the "Fama do Café com Leite" bar, would serve "
A Bella Feijoada à Brazilleira" every Tuesday and Thursday, at the request of many customers. On page two of the October 1st, 1860 edition of the
Ceará newspaper
D. Pedro II, in a pamphlet entitled "Amor d'um Escravo", Oscar Comettant describes
feijoada as follows: "This food consists of salted meat, dried in the sun, black beans, small but very good, bacon, and to combine everything, a very coarse flour, which is made from the
cassava root. From the mixture of these ingredients, a kind of dark porridge is formed, which may look unappealing but has a very pleasant taste.
Feijoada (that is what that mixture is called) is the important dish of every modest dinner in Brazil: it is the meat pot [a reference to the French
pot-au-feu] among us, and the
puchero in Spain." Cheap and easy to cultivate, they became a staple among European settlers in Brazil. Both the upper classes and the poor ate black beans, but the upper classes particularly enjoyed them with an assortment of meat and vegetables, similar to feijoada. In contrast, the poor and enslaved usually ate a mixture of black beans and manioc flour. The most widespread popular legend about the origin of
feijoada is that the masters gave their slaves the "leftovers" of the pigs when they were being slaughtered. Cooking these ingredients with beans and water gave rise to the recipe. This version, however, is not supported either by culinary tradition or by the slightest historical research. For example, pig's feet were part of Portuguese eating habits, judging by
Camilo Castelo Branco's novel
A Brasileira de Prazins, published in 1882, where it reads: "[...] he preferred the butter of his country, like veal, and the loin of the pig in Portuguese sausages, and the pig's foot in Portuguese tripe." According to historian Carlos Augusto Ditadi, in an article published in
Gula magazine in May 1998, this myth is born of modern folklore, in a romanticized vision of the social and cultural relations of slavery in Brazil. The
feijoada completa ("complete feijoada"), as it is known, accompanied by rice, sliced oranges, sautéed kale and
farofa, was very popular at the Rio de Janeiro restaurant G. Lobo, which was located at 135 General Câmara Street in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The establishment, founded at the end of the 19th century, but disappeared in 1905 with the widening of Uruguaiana Street. In his books
Baú de Ossos and
Chão de Ferro, Pedro Nava describes G. Lobo's
feijoada, praising the one prepared by Mestre Lobo. The contemporary recipe would have migrated from the kitchen of the G. Lobo's kitchen to the whole country. But Pedro Nava points out that it is (...) "rather the venerable evolution of Latin dishes".(...) It can't be said to have been a spontaneous creation. Rather, it is the venerable evolution of Latin dishes such as the French
cassoulet - a white bean ragù with goose, duck or mutton meat - which requires a stoneware pot -
cassole - to be prepared."The
feijoada, in any case, became popular among all social
strata in Brazil, always in a spirit of festivity and celebration, far from recalling scarcity. Those prepared at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century in Rio de Janeiro by the Bahian woman
Tia Ciata were famous. And earlier, the writer
Joaquim José de França Júnior, in a text from 1867, fictitiously describes a picnic in the Cadeia Velha field, where a
feijoada was served with "(...) loin, pig's head, tripe, mocotós, Rio Grande tongue, ham, dried meat,
paio, bacon, sausages (...)", and, in 1878, he describes a
feijoada in
Paquetá: "The word
feijoada, whose origin is lost in the night of the times of El-Rei Our Lord, does not always designate the same thing. In the common sense,
feijoada is the appetizing and succulent delicacy of our ancestors, the bulwark of the poor man's table, the ephemeral whim of the rich man's banquet, the essentially national dish, like Martins Pena's theater, and the
thrush of
Gonçalves Dias' heartfelt poetry. In the figurative sense, the word refers to a
patuscada, that is, 'a function among friends held in a remote or inconspicuous place." The dish has spread throughout the country as the most representative recipe of Brazilian cuisine. Revised, expanded, and enriched,
feijoada is no longer just a dish. Today, as Câmara Cascudo also noted, it is a complete meal. The culinary historian
Jessica B. Harris has compared Feijoada to
American soul food. She has also linked the use of mixed meats, slow-cooking, and the accompaniment of collard greens to the traditions of enslaved African people. == Preparation ==