The phrase “melting pot” is extremely relevant to Brazilian cuisine. The same food that everyday Brazilians eat can be traced back to generations, to different places, to cultures that you’ve never even heard of. To the Portuguese, to the West Africans, to the Tupi who live deep in the rainforest, they all became a mix as if it were in a blender of cultures. I keep that in mind every time I savor a coxinha, every time I devour a brigadeiro, every time I inhale a suco de maracuja which you can never get the same outside of Brazil. Eu sinto saudade da minha terra. When God said “let there be light,” he clearly was talking about Rio, because we got all of it and I mean ALL of it. So much in fact that when I first visited during the summer, I couldn’t tell whether I had a fever or whether this place was genuinely above the pits of hell. God, if I didn’t believe in global warming before, now I do because each year I go, the oven gets 10 degrees hotter. When the sun is not baking the entire country, there’s rain. There’s so much rain that the phrase “raining cats and dogs” looks down in the corner in shame. When tropical storms flooded our neighborhood in a foot and a half of water, my mom looked at me as if I had personally offended her (I probably did). She’d grown up seeing cars submerged under feet of murky water that would probably kill you if you step in it. Then she looked me in the eyes and with no words were needed. “When did I raise such a gringo” echoed through both of our heads. Eu sinto saudade da minha terra. More than anything I miss my people or “minha gente,” as one would say in my native tongue. Words cannot describe the whirlpool of emotion I feel just thinking of them. The same family who’d always accepted me, the same family who didn’t judge me, the same family who have shown me more love then I will ever feel. Eu sinto saudade da minha terra, I miss my homeland. 44
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