Brazil

It may well be only one country but Brazil offers a host of different culinary cultures. Merrilees Parker starts her journey in the Afro-influenced coastal city of Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia. She helps offer food to the Candomble Gods before filling up on sweet street food and being swept along by the infectious energy of street drummers. The next day, she meets Da Da, a famous restaurateur and TV chef who learned the art of Bahian cookery while living in the Favelas (shantytowns). Together they cook a spiny lobster and Moqueca fish, a delicious local coconut cream and fish stew. Merrilees then paddles up the River Amazon and journeys into the rain forest in search of Brazil nuts and bizarre fruits, tapioca pancakes and exotic barbecued fish. Downstream, Belem's wonderful market offers even more surprises including a Guarana smoothy, jambo leaf, manioc and dried shrimp soup and hundreds of herbal medicines. Merrilees then heads south to Recife in the Pernambuco state, where Portuguese flavours are the order of the day. Here, sugar plantations have given the world Cachaca, Brazil's answer to rum. Merrilees samples the national cocktail and whisks up a Cachaca mousse before joining the Easter celebrations at the extraordinary Fazenda Nova, an open-air reconstruction of old Jerusalem where tens of thousands watch the Last Supper and gorge themselves on goat kebabs and pastries. Further south in Porto Allegre, Merrilees meets the Gauchos who tend Brazil's famous beef cattle and cooks them Waggoner's Rice, one of their favourite dishes. The mixture of European culture and the love of meat means the area offers huge barbecues and sophisticated wineries, both of which Merrilees experiences before finishing her journey in the country's party capital Rio de Janeiro. She ends her Brazilian experience with beach food and the national dish, Feijoada.