There are few pleasures I rate higher than cooking and eating. Having grown up in a family that valued making beautiful food from first ingredients, I had no choice but to become a foodie. Living away from Brazil, though, I don’t have access to the ingredients I need for many of my favorite dishes.

When it comes to replicating in the U.S. what my indigenous ancestors cooked in northern Brazil, I can pretty much forget it. On mom’s side of the family, I had a great-grandmother who was a bona fide ”índia” from the Amazon region so I grew up eating many of their typical foods. My favorite, tacacá, is not at all available in this country. Once or twice, I invested months to plant the right herb (jambu) and later made my own tucupi, but the flavors didn’t turn out terribly well so I’m not looking to go through it all again.

What is feasible and easy for day to day cooking here is to make a meal of rice, beans, some kind of meat, and some kind of vegetable side dish. I discovered early on, when I came to live in this country back in 1992, that I can find here a broader variety of beans than I actually find in Rio de Janeiro. Combining good beans with the quality pork available in Pennsylvania makes it easy to replicate well several non-Amazonian Brazilian dishes. Last night’s meal proves the point.

Even though this plate has a political bitter pill (Hey, Goya, I only buy your products when I have no choice!), all the ingredients were sourced in the U.S. What you see is:

• Roast pork (marinated in lime juice, ground coriander, cumin, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and garlic powder),
• Pinto beans made in a pressure cooker with a simple sofrito made of onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and chili powder,
• Farofa, the most ”exotic” thing on the plate, which uses a meal made of manioc (aka. yuca or cassava), toasted on olive oil, with onions and an abundance of chopped cilantro.
• Lime, because pork likes it a lot. (Try to engage me in a discussion on limes versus lemons, if you are looking for a long debate.)

This plate represents a pretty standard meal in Brazil regardless of one’s socio-economic status and actually lacks the obligatory rice (because I’m trying to avoid excess of carbs) and a vegetable side dish. One can find this in popular bars and restaurants in Rio for less than the cost of a McDonald’s meal. I can go a few days, maybe even a week or two, without something like this, but I’m happiest when I can dig into this kind of meal.