Black beans stewed slowly with salted, smoked and fresh pork and dried beef, served with rice, greens, farofa and orange.
What makes it feijoada
Black beans, cooked until the broth is thick and dark.
Several pork cuts and sausages, with carne seca.
Rice, couve, farofa and orange alongside.
Where it comes from
A popular story says it was made by enslaved people from the cuts their masters threw away. Many food historians doubt it: ears, feet and tails were prized in Portuguese cooking too, and the dish looks more like the bean-and-meat stews of Portugal, made with Brazil's black beans.
However it began, it became a national dish. In Rio it's a long weekend lunch — Saturday especially — and the full spread, the feijoada completa, brings rice, sautéed collard greens, farofa, crackling, orange slices and a caipirinha.
How it varies
Feijoada light
Leaner, with fewer cuts — just sausages and dried beef.
Feijão tropeiro
A drier Minas relative: beans tossed with cassava flour, bacon, eggs and greens.