Para o amor de minha familia...

This evening I made one of my most favorite dishes in the world: feijoada. This dish is a stew of beans with pork (and sometimes beef). It is considered the "national" dish of Brasil, but was brought to South America by the Portuguese. It was considered a "luxury" dish of the African slaves on Brazilian colonial farms, seeing as it was prepared with relatively cheap ingredients (beans, rice, collard greens, farofa) and leftovers from salted pork and meat production. Over time, it became a favorite dish of everyone in the country and now it's found nearly everywhere over there. In Brasil, it is made with black beans, but in Portugal, it is made with either white beans or kidney beans, depending on the part of Portugal you are in.
This is one of those meals that is truly a labor of love. It takes all day to make correctly, but once it's finished, it is just divine. This dish reminds me of being about eight years old, and watching my paternal great-grandmother cook it in my grandmother's kitchen. She spent all day stirring, watching, tasting, adding the correct amount of seasoning. Every time I smell or taste the dish, it takes me right back to that kitchen, where you just knew she was putting all of her heart into making it for her family. It just doesn't get much better than that.
It is typically served with white rice, and maybe some greens, fried bananas, sliced oranges, and another coarse roasted cassava flour called farofa. Tonight I just made it with rice and a side of spicy carrots, mostly because I was too tired to fry bananas. But I did add some bread to the mix, which, let's face it - it just isn't Portuguese unless you're eating it with a piece of bread in your left hand.
And, in case you were wondering: yes - it was well worth the wait of the slow, all day cooking. I'm pretty sure my grandmother would be proud.