During the colonial era, the port of Recife, a city in Brazil’s northeast, flourished due to the production and trade of sugar thanks to the huge fields of sugarcane. The wealthy could afford to put heaps of sugar in their cooking and so eventually Recife became famous for its sweets. Bolo de Souza Leão, a pudding made with cassava flour and coconut milk, and bolo de rolo, a roll cake that uses guava jam, became emblematic sweet treats of the region.

“The owners of these large farms often held dinner parties. However, the ones who actually made the food were people who had been brought over from Africa. The memories of their homelands are embedded deep into this food .”

So Thiago, a chef who was visiting Japan from Recife, told me. To cook is to learn about the history of the relationship of people and the land, and also to connect the people and the land. This is a practice that Thiago engages with too and whenever he visits a new country, he goes off in search of new flavors. Another essential part of Brazilian food is a drink known as caipirinha. It is a cocktail made from cachaça (a distilled spirit made from sugarcane), sugar, and crushed lime. Knowing that limes are hard to come by in Japan, he decided to try making it with a Japanese citrus fruit and chose yuzu. He carefully removed the seeds, squeezed out the juice, and mixed it into the cachaça. Those gathered around the table of Thiago’s cooking who know Brazil or Japan, peer into their glasses with curiosity. They take a sip and find a door to a flavor world that transcends national borders.

For the dishes that Thiago treated us to—the moqueca and cashew nut soup from northeast Brazil—the spices he used were brought from Brazil and the meat, fish, and vegetables were bought here in Japan. As he walked around the fish market, it seemed like Thiago was excited to discover all sorts of Pacific Ocean fish that he didn’t get to cook with usually. Thiago has developed his own adaptable approach from living in Recife, a melting pot of cultures, and as I watched him work that night, I could really sense the flexible strength of those who people in Brazil who created their culture by using the ingredients they had to hand and the flavors that only existed in their memories.