CULTURE AND CUSTOMS


The people of PoA are known as Gaúchos the beef herding pampas cowboys. Of course they're not all like that, the real Gaúcho does exist here however!
Most of the population of PoA are of mixed race, there are a lot of decendents of German, Italian and Polish immigrants so there is a European flavour that has embraced the Gaúcho culture.

Gaúcho stuff:

churrasco: barbecue. Most Gaúcho homes have a brick barbecue pit with a chimney. Even the modern flats have them on the balconies. Churrasco is not the lamb chops, grisly sausage and hamburger stuff we have in UK. Churrasco is delicious chunks of red meat skewered on yard long spits and roasted high over the charcoal for the fat to slowly drip through. Beef is very cheap, a 2.2lb (or 1kg) chunk of prime cut sirloin is about 1.50 pounds sterling and the cuts are varied and each as delicious as the other. The best cut people go for is picanha, the equivalent of rump steak. The sausages are fat and not grisly. Chicken hearts, about 30 to a spit flavoured with garlic and rock salt, are YUMMY!
A churrasco is not just a meal, it's a social and family gathering, with a few beers a good churrasco will go on over a few hours.
The churrasco is the families' normal Sunday lunch at home or a lot of people go to churrascarias, the barbecue restaurants. A lot of these are espeto corrido, literally, "running spit", which means, for one price, you just keep getting served until you shout "help!" or "I SURRENDER!". A lot of these places have a reversible sign at your table place, on one side it says "No Thanks, maybe later" on the other it says, "Yes Please", this way you don't have to keep calling the espeto corrido over or sending him away, he just keeps an eye on your sign. Churrascarias vary in price from about 2 pounds sterling to about 5 pounds sterling not including drinks.

chimarrão, most Gaúchos drink this green herb tea mixture. It's drunk from a hollowed gourd, known as a cuia through a metal straw. The chimarrão is continually topped up with hot water from a vacuum flask and passed around, it's a social drink. The Gaúchos take their chimarrão with them wherever they go. It's quite normal to see people strolling in the parks with the cuia in one hand and the flask in the other. It has a bitter herby taste and is quite pleasant but needs getting used to.