Pão de Queijo - Brazilian Cheese Bread
Traditionally from Minas Gerais, cheese bread is enjoyed at tables across the country. The bread, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, is in the hearts of Brazilians and many foreigners.
The history of "pão de queijo" is mixed with the Gold Cycle in Minas Gerais. Some records point to its creation in the state of Minas Gerais in the 18th century, a time when the wheat flour available was of poor quality and, instead, flour was used, originating from manioc, brought by the Portuguese.
To the recipe were added leftover cheese that had hardened, eggs and milk, which, thanks to the expansion of livestock, were easily accessible ingredients. The rolled and baked dough would start the history of cheese bread.
Another version of the origin of the recipe mentions the period of slavery, when the mixture of eggs and milk, inherited from the Portuguese, was associated with manioc, the basis of indigenous food. Cheese was added to add flavor to the dough.
If you visit a Minas Gerais house and they don't offer you a cheese bread, it means that you are not in Minas Gerais yet. In fact, preparing a cheese bread is an important event, after all, it is from this meal that the meeting of people takes place. According to history, this dish would have arisen due to the abundance of the two main ingredients: flour and cheese. So that these ingredients do not spoil, they produced this delicacy and distributed it free of charge to several farms. The cheese bread (or variations of it) can be found all over Brazil, but it is in Minas Gerais that it takes on its tastiest form.
Minas Gerais is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a major urban and finance center in Latin America, and the sixth largest municipality in Brazil, after the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Brasília and Fortaleza, but its metropolitan area is the third largest in Brazil with just over 5,800,000 inhabitants, after those of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
