New Continent, New Food -Josiah Lyon

It’s still hard to believe that we’re actually here! I think in these last couple of days almost all of us have had this surreal feeling that we can’t believe we’re finally in Brazil. In some ways, it doesn’t feel too different. We are together with many of our friends, we are studying hard, and we are spending time with lots of nice and friendly people. One obvious thing that has been different though, is the food. It’s only been a couple of days so far, but when I was asked about my favorite part of the trip so far I was surprised to find that my answer was the food!

When it comes to describing what they eat in Brazil, the first thing that comes to everybody’s mind is probably rice and beans. The rice and beans are great, and I’ve had them with almost every meal. However, another thing that is different from home which is my favorite part of Brazilian food is the fruit. I love fruit, and in Brazil, they eat so many different kinds of fruit, many of which we don’t even have! Not only is that delicious, but they use all this fruit to make lost of different kinds of juice. Orange, pineapple, watermelon, passion fruit, and mango are just some of the kinds of juice that we have tried already and they are all delicious! The fruit is also used to make my new favorite Brazilian treat: açaí. Açaí was like a delicious mix between a smoothie and ice cream, with some fruit like strawberries on top. It is perfect for a hot day and I already know that I’m going to have it many more times before we leave!

People in Brazil are just like people in America (or probably people anywhere) in this sense: they love their food, they love to eat, and they enjoy sharing their specialties with people who haven’t tried it. In the short time that we’ve been here, we’ve tried a number of new things, but I know that we have so much more left to try that we will get to experience in the next couple of weeks! I can’t wait to try it all!

-Josiah Lyon