Brazil's main cuisine regions

 North

 The cuisine of this region, which includes the states of Acre, Amazonas, Amapá, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, and Tocantins, is heavily influenced by indigenous cuisine. In state of Pará there are several typical dishes:

Pato no tucupi (Duck in tucupi) – one of the most famous dishes from Pará. It is associated to the Círio de Nazaré, a big celebration which is like Christmas for people from Para. The dish is made with tucupi(yellow broth extracted from cassava and therefore needs to be cooked over a week), the duck, after cooking, is cut into pieces and boiled in tucupi, where is the sauce for some time. The jambu is boiled in water with salt, drained and put on the duck. It is served with white rice and manioc flour.

Tacacá – This dish is It is based on tucupi with shrimp and jambú(Acmella oleracea) and, also, garlic and chilli pepper. The dish is sold by street vendor called "tacacazeira", very common in Belém do Pará.

Caruru – Made with okra, dried shrimp, alfavaca and chicory, dry and fine flour and oil from palm (dendê)After the boiled okra, the green sauce and shrimp in the water, is added to the flour and make itself homogeneous. After that, add it to the okras well drained, the shrimp already mixed with all seasoning and finally, the oil palm.

Vatapá – This is a dish also made in Bahia, but in the State of Pará does not take fish or peanuts, or Cashew nut. When the broth cooking the heads and the shells of shrimp with salt scented alfavaca, chicory, garlic and green smell, add up wheat flour and / or rice, resulting in a mess. Furthermore, if the pure coconut milk, and boiled shrimp has palm oil.

Maniçoba – The dish looks doubtful, takes at least a week to be done, as the leaf of maniva (of the cassava plant), after ground, should be boiled for at least four days with the intent to remove the hydrocyanic acid that contains. After that is added charqui, fat, tripe, calf's foot jelly, ear, foot and salted pork ribs, sausages, sausages and bunkers, basically the same ingredients of a feijoada completa. It is served with white rice, flour water and hot peppers to taste.

Northeast

The northeast part of Brazil, mainly the states of Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, and Sergipe, comprises geographically of a narrow, fertile coastal plain with abundant rainfall where much of the population is found, an equally narrow transition zone called the Agreste, and a large semi-arid region called the Sertão, which is dominated by large cattle ranches. All kinds of tropical produce are grown on the coastal plain, with sugarcane and cacao being particularly abundant.

Within the state of Bahia the predominant cuisine is Afro-Bahian, which evolved from plantation cooks improvising on African, Indian, and traditional Portuguese dishes using locally available ingredients.

Typical dishes include vatapá, moqueca (both having seafood and palm oil), and acarajé (a salted muffin made with white beans, onion and fried in palm oil (dendê) which is filled with dried shrimp, red pepper and caruru (mashed okra with ground cashew nut, smoked shrimp, onion, pepper and garlic). The main staple is a plate of white rice and black beans but other common foods include farofa, paçoca, canjica, pamonha and quibebe.

In the remainder of the coastal plains there is less African influence on the food, but seafood, shellfish, Coconut and tropical fruit are menu staples. Commonly eaten tropical fruits in the North-eastern region include mango, papaya, guava, orange, passionfruit, pineapple, sweetsop, "hog-plum", Soursop, and cashew (both the fruit and the nut).

Southeast

The Southeastern region, comprising mainly of the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, is the industrial heart of Brazil, and is home to several distinctive cooking styles for which Brazil is probably best-known.

In Minas Gerais the regional dishes include maize, pork, beans, chicken (including the very typical dish frango com quiabo, or "chicken with okra") and local soft ripened traditional cheeses. In Rio, feijoada (a black bean and meat stew rooted in the ingenuity of African slaves working in the plantations of colonial Brazil), is popular especially as a Wednesday or Saturday lunch.

Also consumed frequently is feijão com arroz, or rice and beans. Traditionally, black beans are prepared in Rio, rajadinho or carioquinha (brown) beans in São Paulo, and either in Minas Gerais. Another typical food in São Paulo is the Virado à Paulista, that consists of rice, tutu de feijão (a paste of beans and manioc flour), sautéed collard greens (couve) and pork chops, typically bisteca, the pork equivalent of the T-bone steak. It is usually accompanied by pork rinds, bits of sausage, a fried egg and a fried banana.

The cuisine of São Paulo shows the influence of European and Middle Eastern immigrants. The majority of immigrants in São Paulo arrived from Italy, along with many from Portugal, Japan, the Lebanon, Spain, and other nations. Hence, it is possible to find a wide array of cuisines. In the city of São Paulo, pizza is a popular dish, and sushi has entered the mainstream and can be found in regular, non-Japanese restaurants. Many Brazilians eat pasta as well.

In Espírito Santo, there is significant Italian and German influence in local dishes both savory and sweet. The state dish, though, is of Amerindian origin, and is called Moqueca Capixaba (a tomato and fish stew prepared in a clay pot).

The cuisine of Minas Gerais is also strongly influential there, with many restaurants serving that fare. Farofa (a dish of toasted manioc flour with small amounts of flavoring ingredients such as pork, onions, hard boiled eggs or different vegetables), polenta, couve (collard greens), chouriço (a type of sausage that is less spicy than its cousin chorizo), tutu à mineira (a paste of beans and manioc flour) and fried bananas are examples of popular dishes from Minas Gerais.

South

The south of Brazil comprises the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. The gaucho (cowboy of the pampa) contributed to the national cuisine with dishes made with sun- or salt-dried meats and churrasco (a Brazilian counterpart of barbecue), a meal of grilled meats on over-sized skewers. Arroz Carreteiro (rice with meat)it's another dish very commun in this region.

The traditional food from the state of Paraná is the barreado, boiled meat, made in ceramic pans, often put under the soil to boil with the sun's heat is called comida

The European immigrants (primarily from Germany, Italy, Poland and Portugal) were accustomed to a wheat-based diet, and introduced wine, leaf vegetables, and dairy products into Brazilian cuisine. When potatoes were not available they discovered how to use the native sweet manioc as a replacement. Lasagna, Chicken Stroganoff and other pasta dishes are also very popular.

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