RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) Last week, my fellow columnist, codename This Gringo, said it was hard to be happy about anything at all in Brazil these days. He’s right, of course, but on the last night of April, I was able to (re)discover happiness.
For most adult Brazilians, and many of us expat gringos, happiness is a place called “boteco”. You shouldn’t call it a bar or tavern, which don’t really do food. It’s more like a pub, with grub, “the local”, as Brits refer to their favorite watering hole.
Botecos in Brazil specialize in beer and cachaça – they don’t serve wine or fancy cocktails. The food is mostly simple – no meals, just side dishes or appetizers like “espetos” (more on that later).
There are two types of botecos – the more traditional is a “pé sujo” – in America, we’d call it a dive or a dump. The other, more modern, is a “pé limpo” – the floors are clean, and the quality of the food and the booze is much better (and more expensive).
For most of the 40+ years we lived in Rio de Janeiro, my wife and I always had a “pé limpo” boteco near our home. We could, when the mood struck, head out the door and around the corner for a quick drink and food, rather than having to think about cooking lunch or dinner.
Some time back, we moved to Ribeirão Preto, a mid-sized city in São Paulo that is home to several breweries, one of which (Colorado) has gone nationwide.
Everybody in RP, as it’s known, drinks beer. The “kit churrasco” includes beer as well as meat for the grill. There are no wine bars, and it’s hard to find drinkable wine in any restaurant, although you can always get a caipirinha.
To our surprise, after we moved to a residential district with lots of small shops and professional offices, we sought a “pé limpo” boteco within walking distance of home. Alas, it was all in vain: there weren’t any.
That is, there weren’t any until the last Friday in April! Walking back from the grocery store around 2:30 PM, I passed by a local cafeteria, where there was a brand new illuminated sign out front, advertising the “Boteco Brazukis, do Mé ao Espetis”!
Two young men were setting out small wooden folding bar tables and chairs in the empty parking lot in front of the restaurant.
I asked if it was now a boteco, and was told it was – opening at 3 PM. When I arrived home, I told my wife “tonight you’re not cooking, we’re heading down to the boteco.”
We did, and it was a pandemic-perfect pé limpo! 3-4 person tables widely spaced around the (paved) parking lot (no cars), menus only by QR code (no paper or plastic) on each table.
The Boteco Brazukis’s surname – “do Mé ao Espetis” – is jargon that sums up both the drink and the food. “Do Mé” means cachaça, and an eponymous artisanal cachaça, drinkable straight, was on offer, as was a local craft beer branded, perhaps presciently, “Hope”.
“Espetis” is argot for “espetinhos”- food grilled on small wooden skewers, like shish kebab. One of the kebabs even featured a uniquely local RP specialty: “tulipa” – the middle part of a chicken wing.
HAPPINESS DEFINED: THE RETURN TO NORMAL
After 30 months in RP, the last 14 quarantined, my wife and I (both now fully vaccinated) had not fully realized just how much we missed what had been our “normal” in Rio de Janeiro.
“Normal” for us had always meant being close to a happy, friendly, safe, clean, “pé limpo” where we could hang out, or take family and friends when they visited, without having to rely on designated drivers.
By nightfall Friday, 6:30 PM, all the tables at the Boteco Brazukis were occupied; animated conversations abounded; everyone there was clearly just as delighted as we were to be out the door and around the corner, once again, in a return to normal.
Shortly before 8 PM, complying with the nightly curfew, we walked the 50 meters back to our apartment, where WhatsApp helped us to share with our relatives that we had once again found happiness.
This vignette is to remind all the RioTimes readers that happiness can still be found.