11 Foods That Got the Same Name But Have Very Different Flavors Around the Country

Imagine the following situation: a person from the south of the country, on a tour of the northeast, enters a bakery and asks for a pé de moleque. Instead of receiving a peanut candy, the attendant gives you a cassava cake.

Stories like this can be very common, since Brazil is so extensive and rich in cultures to the point of having dishes that are very different from each other, but have the same name. What at first can cause confusion, can later be a source of chat with friends.

And how do we awesome.club, We love to talk about food and curiosities, we’ve put together this list of different dishes that have the same name in several places, to “fuel” your conversations.

Originally, couscous is a North African food, made from semolina from cereals such as wheat. In some African countries, it is a dish consumed daily, just like rice for Brazilians. The dish was adapted in Brazil, but is served in different ways, depending on the region.

Well known as São Paulo couscous, this version has indigenous and European influences, mainly Portuguese. It is usually prepared with corn flour, tomato sauce, fish such as sardines or tuna, shrimp, boiled eggs and canned vegetables: peas, corn, hearts of palm, among others. All of this is mounted on baking sheets with a hole in the middle and served unmoulded, hot or cold. It is very traditional on festive dates, such as Festas Juninas, Christmas and New Year.

If you go to the northeast of Brazil and order a couscous, you will get a very different dish from the couscous from São Paulo. There, couscous is more of an everyday dish, being consumed in any of the three main meals. It is made with flour or cassava flour, corn or rice, seasoned and steamed in couscous. And it is served with butter, meats, eggs, among others. In northern Brazil, there is also sweet couscous, usually consumed for breakfast.

There is also a third version of couscous in Brazil, the couscous campeiro or couscous gaúcho, originally from the interior of Rio Grande do Sul. It is also made with corn flour, like the one from São Paulo, and with beef jerky, similar to the northeastern one. You can also have sausage, parsley, chives, butter, garlic and other seasonings. Chef Tuca Mezzomo reports that his grandmother served this couscous for breakfast, before leaving to work on the farm in Carazinho.

The hominy is a more Brazilian food than the feijoada, since its origin comes from the natives of our lands, the indigenous peoples. After all, corn is a proven South American food. Other scholars claim that the dish is actually African. And the discussions continue at the Brazilian tables, as the regions differ on which dish to call hominy.

For Brazilians from the north and northeast, hominy is a sweet made from green corn cream, with cow or coconut milk, sugar and cinnamon. It is a typical dish of the traditional Festas Juninas, but also consumed at other times. In Rio de Janeiro, this dish is called canjiquinha. The word comes from the term Kanjika, from Kimbundu, a language spoken in some regions of Angola.

For residents of the south and the Federal District, hominy is something else — but at least it’s a sweet from Festas Juninas too. For these Brazilians, hominy is made from white corn cooked in a broth that contains cow’s or coconut milk, sugar and, for some, cinnamon and cloves. Many still add condensed milk, grated coconut and peanuts. Northeasterners call the same dish mungunzá, while to the south/southeast the northeastern sweet is called curau.

And speaking of curau, this dish can also be the reason for long conversations between Brazilians from different regions. As if the confusion of names “curau versus hominy versus mungunzá” were not enough, we still have one more dish with that name.

The sweet corn that the northeasterners know as hominy and the cariocas, as canjiquinha, is called curar in the southeast and south of the country. It is closely related to pamonha, since the base of both is the same: grated corn. But pamonha has a firmer consistency, can be sweet or salty and is traditionally cooked in corn husks. Can curau be salty? Well, more or less. See below.

If you’ve never heard of salted curau, that’s about to change. In some places in northern Brazil, curau is the name of a dish made with manioc flour and dried meat, both pounded in a pestle. It is also a very common food in the sertão, but it is known by another different name: paçoca!

The word paçoca resembles “to punch”, and it is not for nothing. It comes from Tupi, a language in which it has the meaning “to finish punching”. The origin of the dish is also indigenous, as is its name. And it is precisely the name that brings confusion to many people.

Starting with its origins, paçoca is a dish made by mixing manioc flour, dried meat and seasonings, and finished by pounding it in a pestle or mill. That’s right, just like the version of curau we saw above. This paçoca is found on recipe sites as meat paçoca or jerky, to avoid confusion with the other paçoca, which you already know what it is.

This one, to avoid the knot in the brain, let’s call it peanut paçoca. She is a candy made of peanuts, manioc flour and sugar. It is also a typical sweet, originating from indigenous cuisine, but which has taken over the markets thanks to industrialization, including the popular cork version. Like the one in the photo, which melts in your mouth.

After the hominy that turned into curau and that turned into paçoca, we moved on to the next culinary mess. But this one is more controversial: after all, Brazilians have two different dishes with the same name, the moqueca. For starters, moqueca is basically a fish stew. Let’s see what are the differences?

For Bahians, moqueca is prepared with fish and/or seafood and a broth with coconut milk and palm oil, two very typical ingredients from Bahia, as well as chili, coriander and others. This way of preparing the moqueca shows the influence of African cuisine, approaching the Angolan moqueca. In Pará, its most outstanding ingredients are still added: tucupi, jambú and manioc gum.

Looking at the photos, it looks like the same moqueca, but in Espírito Santo the flavor will be very different, thanks to the absence of typical Bahian ingredients. For the capixabas, moqueca with coconut milk and palm oil isn’t even moqueca, it’s fish. To give it its characteristic color, the moqueca capixaba uses annatto seeds, a brand of indigenous cuisine.

While the Bahians and Capixabas settle down, we enjoyed both moquecas. With the differences aside, it is important to point out that all moquecas are traditionally prepared in clay pots. And with that, everyone agrees.

Did you know that the kid’s foot has Arab origins? And that the same recipe that inspired our sweet also gave rise to the nougat of France and Portugal? In addition to having inspired other sweets in other countries as well. But what do Brazilians call a pé de moleque, anyway?

The best-known pé de moleque is the candy made from roasted peanuts and brown sugar, and in the absence of brown sugar, condensed milk can also be used. One of the stories that explain why the name of the candy is that is that the grocery stores that sold it were constantly stolen by children. Annoyed, they scolded the little ones, saying that they could at least ask: “Ask, kid!”

If you’re used to biting the sweet kid’s foot, you’ll be surprised on a trip to the northeast. Over there, pé de moleque can refer to a cake! That’s right, a puba cake (fermented cassava dough) wrapped in banana leaves and baked in a wood-fired oven. No peanuts and no brown sugar. This sweet is also called manuê or Pé de Zumbi.

Quibebe is one of the dishes that African peoples brought and won the heart and stomach of Brazil. However, it is more likely that kibebe is a collaboration of African and indigenous cuisine, as there were no pumpkins in Africa. But, of course, there is more than one dish called kibebe in Brazil. Which one do you know?

Afro-indigenous kibebe is a pumpkin puree, usually from the neck squash. The sweet taste of the pumpkin mixed with the spices of the kibebe makes this dish delicious. It is usually accompanied with meat, and some places have kibebe on the table on a daily basis.

For Goiás, kibebe is a totally different dish. A stew of meats and cassava, or sausages and cassava. This dish that many call swamped cow is, for the people of Goiás and even a part of the miners, the kibebe.

Some say it’s a type of cake, others say it’s bread, others it looks like a cookie. The broa is another real example of how a name in Brazil can have different meanings and stories. Originally, the bread came from Portugal which, in turn, was inspired by the Germanic peoples. The name comes from the word brauþ (bread). But for Brazilians, the story is different.

The Brazilian bread most similar to the Portuguese bread is the cornmeal bread, small and with a cracked and crunchy crust. It looks like a bun or biscuit and is also known as corn bread (after all, cornmeal is made from corn), and is very traditional in the Southeast region. It goes well with coffee.

Still in southeastern Brazil, cornmeal bread can be another dish, quite different from the first. This time, it looks more like a cake and is traditionally baked in a mold with a hole in the middle, although this beautiful bread in the photo was made in banana leaf. It goes well with coffee.

Moving a little to the south, we find another bread, in Paraná: the Polish bread. This one is much more like homemade bread, and has its origins in the southern settler families. The main difference is that, in addition to cornmeal, this recipe also includes potatoes. Differences aside, let’s agree that it also goes well with coffee.

Anyone out there surprised that açaí is on this list? How can you have different foods that are called açaí in Brazil? Well, know that there are actually different ways to eat açaí, so you can expect to find a dish and end up eating another. Did we pique your curiosity?

In the Midwest, Southeast and South regions of Brazil, açaí is the name given to a dessert. It is the frozen pulp of the açaí fruit, which is consumed as ice cream and accompanied by fruits and sweets. Generally, açaí is eaten in these regions in the afternoon or evening. It is also considered a very energetic food and associated with good intestinal functioning and strengthening bones.

In the northeast and especially in the north of the country, açaí has ​​another identity….