Brazilian food series will whet appetites

Brazil is an exotic South American destination for many Chinese travelers due to its awe-inspiring Christ the Redeemer statue, marvelous Iguazu Falls, mysterious Amazon rainforest, deep-rooted soccer culture and delicious cuisine.

However, outbound travel restrictions caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, let alone the 30-hour flying time from China to Brazil even in normal times, mean a visit is now elusive. The good news is that a 10-episode series, Street Food from Brazil, will premiere on major Chinese streaming platforms including Bilibili and Youku on Tuesday.

Two Brazilian-born Chinese hostesses narrate in Mandarin and show the audience the diversity of street food in Sao Paulo, the biggest city in Brazil. Each episode lasts about six minutes, with Chinese subtitles, especially made in accordance with viewing habits of short videos in the country.

The series shows 10 typical street foods in Brazil, from pastel (a deep-fried and stuffed pastry), coxinha (chicken croquettes), rice cooked with beans, to tapioca pancake. The eatery owners do their best to stick to traditional recipes, and launch new flavors to cater to current market demands.

It's the last series of a mini-documentary trilogy about Brazil's streets, to promote its unique city culture among Chinese viewers. The first two are about the country's street soccer and street graffiti, respectively. Launched in March, the trilogy is part of the 2021-22 cultural programs of the Brazilian embassy in China.

"Street food is popular worldwide, including in Brazil and China. We want to show the uniqueness of Brazilian cuisine to the Chinese audience with this web series," says Larissa Maria Lima Costa, head of the public diplomacy section.

"Brazilian cuisine is diverse in terms of flavors and ingredients due to its long history of immigrants from different regions of the world."

According to her, the embassy has been doing various events to promote Brazilian culture in recent years, but the pandemic has made it difficult to bring Brazilian artists to China. So they decided to produce the trilogy, especially targeted toward Chinese audience.

The pandemic has also made it difficult to travel even within Brazil, so they chose to film the latest series in Sao Paulo because the city offers Brazilian dishes from different regions.

"We hope that some Chinese audiences will be willing to visit Brazil someday after watching the trilogy," she says.

Since the release of the first two web series in August and November, they've been receiving positive feedback from Chinese viewers, who are impressed with the Brazilian way of playing soccer everywhere and distinctive graffiti.

In January, a Brazilian chef living in Beijing will give a cooking lesson and tasting event at The Hutong, a culture exchange center in the capital. The Brazilian embassy will partner with restaurants in other Chinese cities as well to organize similar events in the future.