About a year ago my husband began working in the state of Espirito Santo, just north of Rio. As a result, road trips have become part of our weekly routine. And you know the best part about roads trips? Junk food!
I believe road trips offer a brief hiatus from rules of healthy eating. Any car trip lasting longer than two hours puts the world into a state of suspended animation allowing you to eat whatever you want without consequences.
True road trip food must come from either a fast food chain or gas station convenience store. (Rest station vending machines work too.) My go to road trip munchies in the US are Yoohoo and ranch flavored corn nuts. Mmmmm, delicious! Sadly, neither of these exist in Brazil, so I’ve had to explore new options.
First, candy! Brazil has two big candy makers, Garoto and Lacta. Garoto sells many delicious candies including mini chocolate bars, only four squares, in a variety of flavors. In my opinion, Lacta is a second-tier candy maker. The only Lacta product worth consuming is a Bis, a type of Brazilian Kit Kat.
Another popular snack is Japanese peanuts. They’re roasted peanuts with a crunchy, salty shell around them. I don’t know what the shell is made of or what exactly makes them Japanese. They sure are tasty though.
You can also find small bags of pretzel sticks. Based on the exclamations points and the word “NEW” all over the packaging, I can only assume pretzel sticks only just made it to Brazil and everyone is very excited about it.
There seems to be a lot of dried fruit. I don’t really know. I don’t shop in that section.
A favorite of many Cariocas is the biscoito de vento, air cookie. It’s salty so it’s not really a cookie but it has so little substance I’m at a loss as to exactly what it is. It’s crispy, filled with air pockets, and dissolves immediately upon hitting your tongue. Is it corn? Wheat? I can’t say but it has a very satisfying crunch.
Finally, potato chips. I can sum up the difference between American and Brazilian chips in two words, meat flavored. Yes, the US has BBQ flavor but it’s referring to the sauce. When a Brazilian chip bag says “roasted meat” the chip is going to taste like pot roast. Unmistakably and disconcertingly like pot roast.
If you’re not a red meat fan, there is also grilled chicken and turkey breast. Even the “herb” flavored reminded me, oddly, of tandoori chicken.
And here we have the limit of my cross-culture understanding. I do not want my potato chips to taste like meat. Ranch dressing, fine. Turkey breast, no. My tolerance goes only so far. This is one tradition I will not be adopting. I’m going to stick with my Japanese peanuts.
