Sunday, January 6, 2008

Food and Economy

Food in Daily Life.Rice, beans, and manioc form the core of the Brazilian diet and are eaten at least occasionally by all social classes in all parts of the nation. Manioc is a root crop that is typically consumed as farinha, manioc flour sprinkled over rice and beans, or farofa, manioc flour sautéed in a bit of oil with onions, eggs, olives, or other ingredients. To this core, meat, poultry, or fish are added, but the frequency of their consumption is closely tied to financial well-being. While the middle and upper classes may consume them on a daily basis, the poor can afford such protein sources far less often.

Traditionally the most important meal of the day is a multicourse affair eaten after midday. For middle-class and elite families it might consist of a pasta dish or a meat or fish course accompanied by rice, beans, and manioc and a sweet dessert or fruit followed by tiny cups of strong Brazilian coffee called cafezinho. For the poor it would be primarily rice and beans. The evening repast is simpler, often consisting of soup and perhaps leftovers from the midday meal.

As Brazil urbanizes and industrializes, the leisurely family-centered meal at midday is being replaced by lanches (from the English, "lunch"), smaller meals usually consumed in restaurants, including ones featuring buffets that sell food by the kilo and such ubiquitous fast-food eateries as McDonalds. The poor, who cannot afford restaurants, are likely to eat the noon meal at home, to buy snacks sold on the street, or to carry food with them to work in stacked lunch buckets. In rural areas itinerant farm laborers who are paid by the day and who carry such buckets have been dubbed bóias-frias, "cold lunches."

Meals may be accompanied by soft drinks— including guaraná, made from a fruit that grows in the Amazon—beer, or bottled water.

Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions.While the principle foods consumed in Brazil are fairly uniform across the country, there are regional specialties, many of which are eaten on festive occasions. In the northeastern state of Bahia ingredients of African origin—palm oil (dendê), dried shrimp, peanuts, malagueta peppers—are the basis of regional cuisine in such dishes as vatapá (seafood stew) and acarajé (black-eyed pea fritters). A variety of fruit and fish native to the Amazon are featured in dishes of that region, while in southern Brazil, an area of extensive cattle ranches, meals of grilled meat (churrasco) are favored. Another southern specialty are rodizios, restaurants featuring barbecue in which waiters pass from table to table with large skewers of grilled meats and poultry.

Brazil's national dish, feijoada (literally "big bean" stew), is said to have originated during slave times. Traditionally feijoada contained inexpensive and less desirable cuts of meat such as tripe and pigs feet, Brazilian slaves having concocted the dish from the leftovers of the master's table. Today feijoada consists of a variety of meats slowly cooked with black beans and condiments. A feijoada completa or "complete feijoada" is accompanied by rice, fresh orange slices, a side dish of peppery onion sauce, chopped greens, such as collards, and farinha. Caipirinhas—a potent blend of Brazilian sugarcane alcohol (cachaça), crushed limes, and sugar—or batidas (cachaça and fruit juice) are usually served as aperitifs; beer is the drink of choice to accompany the meal. Feijoada is served in restaurants, typically on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and when made at home, it is a favorite dish for guests.

Basic Economy.Today Brazil has the eighth largest economy in the world. It is a major producer of such agricultural products as sugarcane, soybeans, oranges, coffee, cocoa, rice, wheat, and cotton. It is also a major supplier of beef with vast cattle ranches primarily in the southern and western regions of the country. Nevertheless, because of the tremendous growth of industry, agriculture accounts for only 13 percent of the nation' gross domestic product.

Agriculture employs—directly or indirectly— about one-quarter of the Brazilian labor force. Five million agricultural workers are wage laborers concentrated in the plantations of the North (sugarcane, cotton, coffee, cocoa) and the increasingly mechanized agricultural enterprises of the Southeast and South (soybeans, wheat, sugar, oranges). More than 70 percent of these workers lack contracts and social benefits and less than 40 percent are employed year round. There are also 4.8 million landless families who survive as tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and casual laborers.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, increasing mechanization and monopolization of the best farmlands by agribusinesses has accelerated the displacement of small family-owned farms. Nevertheless, there are still some five million family farms ranging in size from 12 to 250 acres (5 to 100 hectares) that occupy about 143 million acres (58 million hectares). In contrast, large commercial agricultural enterprises cover almost three times that area.

During the 1960s and 1970s Brazil experienced economic growth from agricultural modernization and, by the early 1980s, agricultural production had increased to the extent that Brazil had become the fourth largest food exporter in the world. But, at the same time, Brazil was not adequately feeding its own people. It is sixth worldwide in malnutrition, ahead of only Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Land Tenure and Property.Brazil's agrarian structure is dominated by large land holdings. Estates of more than 2,470 acres (1,000 hectares) make up less than 1 percent of the nation's holdings but occupy 44 percent of its agricultural lands, while farms of 25 acres (10 hectares) or less account for 53 percent of holdings and occupy under 3 percent of agricultural land. More than three million farmers work some 500 million acres (20 million hectares) of land, but the twenty largest landowners in the country themselves own a like amount.

Aside from inequalities of scale, there is also insecurity of land tenure in many parts of Brazil, particularly in the Amazon Basin. There, capangas (hired gunmen) are employed by wealthy landowners to ensure that squatters do not settle on their vast, ill-defined tracts of land. Insecurity of tenure, in fact, has led to a number of violent episodes in the region at the end of the twentieth century.

But there are some bright spots in terms of land security. Although encroachment on indigenous reserves—especially in the Amazon by gold miners, cattle ranchers, and others—is still a problem, today a majority of the 270 officially recognized indigenous groups in Brazil live on reserves protected for them by law. Land is now also being granted to the residents of several quilombos, communities in northern Brazil originally founded by runaway slaves.

Major Industries.Brazil has one of the most advanced industrial sectors in Latin America today and is a major producer and exporter of automobiles, textiles, shoes, durable consumer goods, steel, pharmaceuticals, and petrochemicals.

Industrial activity in Brazil is concentrated in the Southeast, with about half of the nation's industrial production in the state of São Paulo alone. Here, too, most of the country's unionized industrial jobs are found. For this reason, after the 1970s, migration from the Northeast to the Southeast and from rural to urban areas has been particularly intense. Later, however, as unemployment in the Southeast has climbed and tax incentives have led to increased industrial investments in the Northeast, the migrant flow has been reversed to some extent.

Division of Labor. One of the most significant distinctions in Brazilian society is between those who do manual labor and those who do not. Today, as in the past, it is only the working class and poor who work with their hands. This division has deep historical roots and is tied to the "gentleman's complex" that emerged during the colonial period when elite males, typically sugar planters, sported a long nail on the index finger as evidence that they never engaged in physical labor.

The Brazilian middle class is sometimes defined as those with colarinho e gravata—collar and tie—because a major marker of middle-class status is a white-collar job. In Brazil people who work with their hands are, by definition, not middle class. This is why middle-class Brazilian families are far more likely than their American counterparts to employ domestic servants; it would be unseemly for a middle-class housewife to get down on her knees to scrub the floor.

No comments: