Cassava flour toasted in butter or bacon fat with onion and garlic until golden and sandy, for scattering over beans and meat.
What makes it farofa
Farinha de mandioca — coarse cassava flour.
Toasted slowly in fat until it smells nutty.
Dry and crumbly, never wet.
Where it comes from
Cassava flour has been eaten across Brazil since long before the Portuguese came; Indigenous peoples made it, and it travelled well, so it went with everyone. Toasted in fat with onion and whatever else is to hand, it becomes farofa — on the table beside feijoada, churrasco and Christmas turkey.
How it varies
Farofa de ovo
With eggs scrambled through.
Farofa de banana
With ripe banana or plantain fried in butter first.