Celebrating the Olympics

From Meg's Kitchen

The Brazilian Olympics are creating some serious saudades (yearning, longing, homesick...) for the hubs and me seeing our high school stomping grounds!  Listening to Brazilian samba and enjoying an occasional classical Brazilian meal has helped sooth our saudades over the years.  And no Brazilian meal is more classic than the national dish - feijoada completa.
Each dish of this complete meal is delicious on its own and the sides can be paired with other mains.  I have so many stories to tell to accompany the recipes I am going to turn this into an Brazilian Olympic series!
First, a bit of history and then a drink!  Feijoada originated as a slave dish - black beans stewed with whatever left over parts of butchered animals that came from the masters' house.  The "story" of a real feijoada is that it contains 27 cuts of meat including pigs ears, ham hocks, beef tongue, etc.  It is essentially the quintessential "soul food" of Brazil.  Brazilian slave master families had closer bonds to their slaves than Americans.  And slavery in Brazil lasted until 1888.  These two facts may account for some of the reasons why feijoada is the national dish of this huge country (larger than our 48 contiguous states).  Consider the culinary favorites of the US - is there one dish that originated in early 1800s  that would be considered the national dish of the United States?
OK!  Enough cultural anthropology.  Lets start our meal off with a caparinha!  I have seen a number of recipes for "so called" caparinhas which include ingredients that are not classic - my recipe is a classic.

Caparinha (per person)

1/2 lime quartered
1 heaping tsp sugar
1 jigger (1 1/2 oz) cachaca (pronounced ka sha sa)
lots of ice

In a 6 or 8 oz glass (ie not a huge water glass) muddle (squash) the lime and sugar.  You want to be sure to release the juice from the lime and oils from the skin so really work at it (drink aerobics?)
Add the cachaca (this is a sugar cane brandy.  Most of what we get in the state liquor stores is equivalent to the US "white lightning".  But there are also some very refined cachacas which are delicious but not required for caparinhas - get the cheap stuff)
Mix and taste - you might need to add a bit more sugar.  Fill the glass with ice, stir and serve.
When making a second round, do not dump out the mashed lime but add another 1/2 quartered lime and a heaping tsp of sugar.  Mash it all together.  Add the cachaca and ice, stir and serve.
More ice in the first round slows down the drinking because you can't make another with ice still in the glass.  However, the 2nd glass has more lime skin and less room for ice - just a word of caution!