A Brazilian Dinner

Jean-Baptiste Debret (1768-1848)

A Brazilian dinner, 1827. Watercolor, 15,7 x 21,9 cm

Museus Castro Maya, Rio de Janeiro – IBRAM – MinC

A Brazilian Dinner

Paulo Seidl

Université François Rabelais

Abstract

The watercolor A Brazilian dinner painted by Jean-Baptiste Debret and the homologous text the artist has written provide substantial information on the eating habits and table manners of upper class Brazilians in the 19^th century. Among them, the type of food they ate indicates a large amount of meat, the presence of manioc meal on the table, and the lack of rice as a staple side dish. Also, it confirms the Caucasian, African, and Indigenous influences of Brazilian cuisine.

 Resumo

A aquarela Um jantar brasileiro de Jean-Baptiste Debret e o texto homólogo que escreveu forneceram diversas  informações sobre os hábitos alimentares e as maneiras à mesa da classe alta brasileira no século XIX. Entre essas, o tipo de comida que comiam revela uma grande quantidade de carne, a presença da farinha de mandioca na mesa, e a ausência de arroz como alimento básico. Além disso, confirma as influências europeias, africanas e indígenas da cozinha brasileira.

1.    Introduction

The objective of this short article is to provide insight on Brazilian eating habits and table manners in the 19^th century, in light of the analysis of the watercolor A Brazilian Dinner by Jean-Baptiste Debret, who lived in Brazil between 1817 and 1831. This was a critical historical time for Brazil, when a number of important historical events took place and marked the birth of a nation.

Debret was a keen observer of Brazilian society. He was particularly interested on street scenes, food trade, and people of all walks of life, including enslaved black people, who were the object of a great many art works he produced during his long stay in the tropics (Straumann, 2002). Upon his return in France, he wrote Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil, which was published in 1834 (volume I) and 1839 (volume II). In his book, extremely detailed information is given on each of his paintings, adding a substantial surplus to the already rich collection of information he had left by means of his paintings.

The watercolor A Brazilian Dinner is among those commented works. It stands out as a unique piece, as most of his works depict the underprivileged class and popular events. Instead, the Brazilian Dinner portrays a wealthy family, but at the same time provides paramount input for the study of eating habits of a society at its wake.

2.    Brazilian society in the 19^th century

Debret painted the Brazilian Dinner in 1827, when the independence of the country had been proclaimed only five years before. Rio de Janeiro was a bustling city at that time, with an estimated population of 500,000 inhabitants (Gomes, 2007). Slavery was still legal, and Africans dominated the street scenes because they were in charge of supplying the household of their masters with food, water, charcoal, and other basic needs of the carioca families. As a result, slaves were a very common site on the streets, shops, and markets.

Most families, regardless of their economic status, had at least one slave in the household.  Wealthy families, naturally, had more than one and it was customary for masters to send their slaves to the street to sell food in order to supplement the domestic income. Freed men equally carried out these tasks.

Life was rough for the slaves. Deprived of freedom and sometimes of their language and culture, they could be severely punished for small misdemeanor, depending on the rigidity of their patrons. Living a life with no rest, their only hope was to raise enough money to buy their freedom, sometimes at an exorbitant price. They did so by putting aside part of the profit they made from the selling of food on the street, a deal previously arranged with their masters. Farm slaves could not contemplate this dream due to the fact that they had no contact with people or currency.

In addition to blacks, who could be overwhelming in number, whites, mestizos, and indigenous were among a multi-ethnic and growing society in Rio de Janeiro. White men could be Brazilian-born or foreigners, most often Portuguese, but also French, Italian, and German, among other European nationals who came to the tropics to venture new opportunities.

3.    Iconography analysis

A Brazilian dinner

Among the many watercolors painted by Debret abundantly describing Brazilian food culture in the 19^th century, the only one that portrays a meal is the Brazilian Dinner. The table is set with a number of foods on it. The master of the house is sitting at the table accompanied by his wife while three slaves stand around and two nude black children sit on the floor. Thus, table manners may be identified, such as the use of tableware (very long forks and knives), a wine glass, a water pitcher, individual plates and several platters with food. The atmosphere is relaxed, perhaps a little too casual for the artist’s European manners, excused by high temperatures which ‘abandons the good manners’ and ‘neglects the dress code’ (Debret, 2014, p 166).

A number of items in the dining room suggest that the family is well-off, such as their garments, the furniture, the white tablecloth, as well as the wine glass and platters on the table. The poor hardly ever had a table, and usually ate on the floor. If they were to drink an alcoholic beverage, it would be cachaça, a sugarcane spirit. Likewise, they would not have a tablecloth and ate most often ate with their hands, habits that remind those of European peasants in the Middle Ages (Laurioux, 2002).

The description the artist wrote accompanying the watercolor is equally insightful. In it, Debret expresses his disgust when compares one of the children, who is being fed by the housewife, to a dog, which has been repeatedly painted by European artists from the Middle to the Modern Ages (…la femme s’amuse de ses petits negrillons, qui remplace la famille presque éteinte de petits chiens carlins en Europe, p. 166).

The differences between the meals of higher and lower classes are also present in his description, mainly concerning the variety of food. The meal of the family consisted of several dishes, including a breaded soup (whose recipe reminds that of the famed Parisian soupe restaurante), boiled meats, a shrimp coulis, chicken rice, cooked vegetables, a roast, and a pile of oranges. This could have been a meal in any European country if not for two items, namely the escaldado and the chili sauce. The former is manioc meal plunged with hot stock while the latter is made with malagueta (bird-eye) chili and vinegar.

As a good Frenchman, Debret observes that there is no bread on the table. Actually, although bread is consumed by the Brazilian elite, its lack could be justified by the consumption of manioc meal, here presented in the form of an escaldado. Cascudo (2008), in his Anthology of the Brazilian Foods, lists a number of 19^th century foreign writers who endorsed Debret’s observations on bread, such as Von Martius and Marcgrave. Others imply that corn flour was an equally good replacement, like Saint-Hilaire and Derby.

While the well-off Caucasians had abundant food on their tables, lower classes, including poor Caucasians, enslaved or free Africans, as well as mestizos, had to content themselves with a one-dish meal, a porridge-like food prepared with manioc or corn floor, vegetables and pieces of meat, referred to as angu. Interestingly, in Brazilian Portuguese, this word today has a rather pejorative connotation, implying something like dog food, or food made haphazardly.

Debret’s depiction of a Brazilian dinner is consistent with the description of John Luccock (2008), an Englishman who lived in Brazil between 1808 and 1818 and traveled in the Brazilian countryside. Luccock also points out that manioc was a substitute for bread on Brazilian tables, and peasants often ate it with their hands, making use of a knife only to cut the meat. Tables were inexistent, for meals were served upon a board set over two trestles, revealing table manners similar to those in the Middle Ages (Laurioux, 2002).

If we compare today’s meal of the upper class with that of 200 years ago, similarities and differences could be pointed out. Firstly, it is important to bring out that what Debret calls ‘dinner’ (dîner) is actually an afternoon meal, which would occur as from 12 or 1 pm. As for similarities, most of the dishes illustrated would not be a surprise to any Brazilian. The meats and their techniques, such as stewed or roasted, the vegetables, the hot sauce, the fruit, and above all the omnipresence of the manioc meal, here in form of a purée (although the word pirão is of a more updated usage than escaldado, as used by the author).

The striking difference, however, is two-pronged. First, the amount of food seems rather excessive for two people, as today a couple would not be likely to serve such substantial amounts in an ordinary dinner (or lunch, if terminology is to be adapted). It is conjectured that leftovers would be consumed by the large entourage, which today is inexistent or at least substantially reduced, or saved for the next day. Secondly, the variety of food and the combination thereof is rather out of the ordinary for current standards. It does not seem likely that soup would be eaten in an afternoon meal nowadays, or shrimp, beef, and poultry be served in the same meal. It seems like the menu presented, and the order in which it appears has an influence of eating habits of Modern Age’s bourgeoisie.

Finally, another striking difference is the lack of white rice, which today dominates the scene on any Brazilian tables. Although rice is present on the menu of the Brazilian Dinner, it is cooked with chicken and functions more like a main meat dish than a side dish, as it is normally served today. These observations, despite having an anecdotal side, are seconded by the findings of Barbosa (2007), who carried out substantial research on the Brazilian food habits of the early 21^st century.

4.    Conclusion

Jean-Baptiste Debret witnessed a critical time for the formation of Brazilian society. The arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family with the transfer of the Portuguese court to the colony in 1808 brought about significant changes in Brazilian eating habits. By means of his art works, Debret illustrated the birth of a cuisine

Brazilian multi-ethnic society and their pluralistic cuisine started to be defined at that time. The influences the Brazilian dinner illustrate are noticeable, such as European table manners and meats, the constant African touch of the cooks, and the indigenous heritage like the manioc meal and chili.

As a suggestion for further development, a closer analysis of dozens of the artist’s work, accompanied or not by their description on Voyage Pittoresque could reveal precious findings on Brazilian food habits of the 19^th century.

5.    References

Barbosa, L. 2007. Feijão com arroz e arroz com feijão. O Brasil no prato dos brasileiros. In Horizontes Antropoloógicos, Porto Alegre, 13, 87-116

Debret, J.B. 2014 (1834, 1839). Voyage Historique et Picturesque au Brésil, (Introduction by Leenhardt, J.). Arles, Impremeries Nacionales

Derby, O. 2008. Farinha de milho e mandioca em São Paulo e Minas Gerais. In Cascudo, L. C. Antologia da Alimentação no Brasil (pp 208). São Paulo, Global Editora.

Gomes, L. 2007. 1808. São Paulo, Ed. Planeta.

http://museuscastromaya.com.br/colecoes/brasiliana/ last visited April 01, 2016

Laurioux, B. 2002. Manger au Moyen Âge. Pratiques et discours alimentaires en Europe aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Paris, Hachette.

Luccock, J., 2008. As refeições no Rio de Janeiro no princípio do século XIX. In Cascudo, L. C. Antologia da Alimentação no Brasil (pp 194 to 1998). São Paulo, Global Editora.

Marcgrave, J. 2008. Cardápio do indígena nordestino. In Cascudo, L. C. Antologia da Alimentação no Brasil (pp 284 to 287). São Paulo, Global Editora.

Saint-Hilaire, A., 2008. O passadio em Minas Gerais. In Cascudo, L. C. Antologia da Alimentação no Brasil (pp 203 to 205). São Paulo, Global Editora.

Straumann, P. (ed)., 2002. Rio de Janeiro - la ville métisse. Paris, Editions Chandeigne.

Von Martius, C. F. F., 2008. Dieta carioca em 1817. In Cascudo, L. C. Antologia da Alimentação no Brasil (pp 288 to 289) . São Paulo, Global Editora.