The Carvalho Brazilian supermarket, located above Lemonnier metro station in downtown Brussels, is a must for lovers of Brazilian gastronomy. It's a multi-faceted cuisine, enriched with multiple influences and a mirror of the economic and social history of this country-continent.
Unlike other Latin American cuisines such as Mexican or Peruvian, Brazilian cuisine is still relatively unknown in Belgium, beyond the popular caipirinhas and the traditional feijoada. Yet this cuisine - or rather, these cuisines - requires precise ingredients that are hard to find. For Brussels' large Brazilian community of more than 40.000 people, Carvalho is the place to go shopping.
When you enter Carvalho, the first thing you notice is its size, which has nothing to envy from traditional supermarkets. The place houses a wide variety of food products, reflecting the diversity of Brazilian cuisine but not only. The first thing you see is an entire wall devoted to Havaianas flip-flops, another symbol of Brazilian culture. On the non-food side, the shop also offers a wide range of cosmetics and cleaning products.
With Brazilian radio playing in the background, I venture into the food aisles. The first aisle consists of a long row of fridges and freezers. Here you'll find cheeses such as queijo minas and queijo coalho (to be grilled like halloumi) and a huge range of meat, the mainstay of Brazil's famous churrasco (barbecue). As well as high-quality beef, the distinctive feature of the Brazilian diet lies in the types of cuts of the animal, not found in European butchers: picanha, maca do peito, bananinha, etc. Beef comes from both Europe and Argentina. Other types of meat are available, such as chicken hearts (for barbecuing on skewers) and beef and pork trotters, used for mocoto or the famous feijoada.
In the frozen food section, you'll find all the traditional Brazilian salgados, salty snacks often sold in the street or in bakeries. The shelves are lined with pães de queijo (cheese bread), coxinhas (chicken croquettes) and rolos de bacalhau (cod rolls). When it comes to sweets, the whole range of Brazilian fruit is on show, frozen whole or in the form of pulp, ice cream, juice or fruit paste. While açai berries have become popular in recent years, my eye is drawn to other fruits that are new to me, such as acerola (a type of cherry), cupuaçu (a sweet and sour Amazonian fruit) and pequi, a nut popular in the state of Goiás and traditionally served with rice.
Chile aisle in Carvalho
Cuisines under influences
Brazil's history is intimately linked to its food production. Even today, 40% of the country's exports come from the agri-food sector. From the 16th century onwards, the Portuguese colony developed a sugar cane economy in the north-east of the country. At the time of its independence, coffee became the flagship product of the young republic. At the beginning of the 20th century, Brazil produced up to three-quarters of the world's supply of this beverage. These two products, which have underpinned the Brazilian economy for centuries, obviously have a special place on Carvalho's shelves.
Brazilian gastronomy is a reflection of the country itself, diverse and a crossroads of many influences. It was shaped by the cuisines of the indigenous populations, with manioc as the essential staple. It was then enriched by European and African influences under the Portuguese colony, notably the use of cod, couscous, coconut milk and jilo (also known as African aubergine). Once independent, the country welcomed many waves of immigration, which were reflected in its cuisine. Between 1890 and 1930, more than 3 million people settled in Brazil, mainly in the Sao Paulo region. At Carvalho, some of the products of these Italian, Turkish, Japanese, Syrian, German and Spanish communities have been incorporated into the Brazilian diet, such as polenta, esfihas and kebbehs.
On the other hand, as a true country-continent, Brazil shares its border with ten other Latin American countries. As a result, many of the products sold at Carvalho belong to a regional repertoire of tastes and will delight consumers in neighbouring countries: mate, milk jam, canjica (nixtamalised corn), frijoles, chillies, tapioca, tamales, coloured gelatins, etc.
As we approach the checkouts, we find the traditional last-minute temptations: a full range of biscuits and sweets, as well as a small display of hot salgados, ready to be eaten straight away. I love the guava pasta, wrapped up like tamales in a corn leaf. These sweets are traditionally eaten with cheese (queijo minas), in a combination affectionately known as Romeu e Julieta.
I come out into the Brussels rain with a bag full of new flavours to discover. The bill is small, considering that most of the products are unobtainable elsewhere. If you're new to Brazilian cuisine, you should clearly come to Carvalho with an open mind and a desire to try new products. Because of its size, Carvalho has the advantage of bringing together an impressive range of products under one roof, but all communication is in Portuguese and there is little room for customer advice, as in a traditional supermarket. Nonetheless, in the space of a few years, Carvalho has become a must-visit place that showcases the cuisine of Brazil, an underestimated gastronomic giant.
Address: Bd du Midi 58, 1000 Bruxelles
Opening hours: daily, from 9:30 am to 7 pm.
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