Foie gras－marinated inacai, mango and passion fruit chutney.(Photo/China Daily)
Nobody does barbecues quite like Brazilians and now one of the country's top chefs is in China showing how it's done.
When I was in middle school, my classmates and I used to like to have dinner at a barbecue restaurant near our campus. Hilarious waiters would carry huge skewers of meat and swagger and dance around the room while we chose our cuts of meat.
It was not until many years later that I learned that the ritual we so enjoyed was called rodizio, a popular type of restaurant service in barbecue restaurants in Brazil.
Restaurants that do Brazilian barbecues have been in China for a while now. Indeed, when most Chinese people think of Brazilian food it is likely the first thing that springs to their mind is barbecue.
The rodizio style is probably relatively easy to mimic, but reproducing the authenticity of the Brazilian flavor is another thing altogether. As for the Brazilian fare that is served in Beijing, a Brazilian friend tells me: "The cuts are not right for a barbecue, and the meat is not even authentic, not like back home".
So if it is genuine Brazilian style you are after, you should not miss the Brazilian food festival that began in Beijing on June 25 and will last until July 5. The star of the show is chef Elia Schramm, who has flown in from Rio de Janeiro just for the occasion.
The festival is hosted by Renaissance Beijing Capital Hotel in conjunction with the Brazilian embassy and the Latin American airline LAN and TAM, Latam Airlines Group.
Barbecue is a dish shared with many other countries and cultures, so what makes the Brazilian version so special?
"One big difference is the way we cut the meat," Schramm says. "We do barbecue very differently from the Argentines and the Americans."
A cut of beef called picanha is the most sought-after in Brazil, he says.
But picanha - the word is Portuguese - defies easy translation into English. In the US and China it is rarely found in markets. Some think it is top rump or top sirloin cap, but my Brazilian friend says none of the English translations hits the nail on the head.
