Brazil Changed The Way I See People

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]If there is something that I've learned in Brazil, it is that we should celebrate people. Now, we don't do that so well in our American culture. We don't do [music] that so well as far as I know in European cultures. And when you when you celebrate people, you become [music] a part of their world. You become a part of their family. You become a part of something that's really mean- meaningful to them. And I don't know about you guys, but I used to hate my birthday. I used to not like tell people about it. That must have been something that I just got accustomed to doing. But here in Brazil, what I've really learned after 10 years of living here is that it's so important that we celebrate each other and celebrate people. And what people love to do is they love to gather together. They love to eat food. Right here in Brazil, we're always eating food. We're always gathering. We're always coming together, spending time in community, spending time together. And it's something that I've learned to uh appreciate, something that I've learned to really embrace is this cultural difference of celebration.

[00:00:51]Now, Brazilians love to party.

[00:00:53]They love to party in every context, in every circumstance, and in every way.

[00:00:57]They love to eat food together. They love to celebrate together. They love to dance together. They love to, you know, it's insane like to think because it's so culturally different than me as an American and maybe you if you're from Europe, if you're from America. But Brazilians love to celebrate each other.

[00:01:12]There's something special. And it's beautiful because it's actually our identity. Like it's how we we were made to be in community and connection with people. We were made to be celebrated.

[00:01:21]We were made to receive words of affirmation. We all have our love languages. We all have things that bring us us hope, bring us value, bring us encouragement. And so, I've really learned that here in Brazil. So, what I want to do is I want to bring you guys a friend of ours is having a birthday party. And I'm just going to show you guys around here a little bit in this video. I think it's really important. Um just this experience. So, this is a friend of ours. Her name is Marta. She turned 58 years old. Parabéns, Marta.

[00:01:46]Celebrating you today. And um we're here with friends gathered. And it's really cool. She made tacos for everybody. And another friend of ours here that's part of our group of friends here, she made a cake. And she makes the best cakes in the world. Her name is Rosie and she she puts Oh my goodness, it's the best cake.

[00:02:00]Maybe I'll have to just do a a a show with her that [snorts] just like her cakes are just the best. And so anyway, all of our friends here we're celebrating. We are enjoying the time.

[00:02:09]We we had a time where we shared like we asked questions from Martha what it you know, she has advice to give and wisdom and all this stuff and now we're going to enter in to I'll enter into this party and I'll show you guys around and show you some of the the traditional foods as well that we eat. This isn't The Mexican food we have here isn't traditional but we have brigadeiro which is this like I don't even know how to explain it. Maybe I'll explain it better later but it's like a ball of like chocolate and they make it with like condensed milk and sugar and all this. Anyway, or actually I don't even think they use sugar. I think it's just condensed milk and they they add like other stuff to it as well.

[00:02:42]It's really good and then we have cake, we have Mexican food and then we have a birthday party here. A time to celebrate her and to enjoy time together being in Brazil. I've really learned to value these times together so I want to invite you guys in in this process and for you guys to participate with us here as well.

[00:03:01]>> [laughter] >> All right guys, I am at an anniversary of a friend here and I'm using a different camera so I don't know if it's going to work out so well but we will see. So she likes Mexican food.

[00:03:26]So what we have here is we have these like fried tortillas and I'm not exactly sure what kind of tortilla these are cuz they're not the traditional ones but I'm going to make this sandwich sandwich I'm going to make this taco and then I'll show you guys how it's done. So there's there's chicken, there's beans, there's fried carne How how you say shredded meat?

[00:03:52]Shredded beef, and then there's cheese, and there's onions, and there's guacamole, and there's pimenta, which is like bell peppers and everything else.

[00:04:00]And so, this is going to be a wonderful treat cuz this is not a normal thing that we have in Brazil. So, Brazilians don't normally eat too much Mexican food, so I'm excited. I'll bring you along for the trip. All right, so let's get started.

[00:04:12]So.

[00:04:17]This is a taco with She said it was made with puba puba puba, which is like a corn taco, and then I put shredded chicken.

[00:04:30]I put uh you guys can see here.

[00:04:38]Guacamole, tomatoes, cheese. What else?

[00:04:44]Let's try it out.

[00:04:48]Wow.

[00:04:52]Google.

[00:04:54]Boom.

[00:04:56]She said it's a recipe that she learned learned with her American friends.

[00:05:00]It's not like a traditional like corn shell, but it's very Brazilian. So, in Brazil, people make their own style of thing.

[00:05:10]I would say like it's a taco shell, but it's not like hard like a taco shell.

[00:05:13]So, it's kind of like a fried taco shell, and it is good.

[00:05:20]It works.

[00:05:21]This is very Brazilian.

[00:05:23]You make the best of what you can.

[00:05:26]And how you can do it and make your own mixture.

[00:05:28]Guys, I want to show you something really interesting here. So, in Brazil, we have a couple different types of lemons. We have the regular yellow lemon that you guys are used to seeing. And then we have this lemon here that's called a lemon Tahiti. So, the inside of this lemon Tahiti looks like this. And we usually put it like on our on our meat or in our water. I like water with gas. So, in Brazil we don't drink water out of the tap. We drink it out of the bottle and this is Agua com gas. This has What is it called? Carbonation in it.

[00:06:00]And so, what you do is take your lemon, squeeze some of this glorious juice in it and then you have that. And so, that's how we do that with the Tahiti lemon here in Brazil. It goes really good with Mexican food, meat and everything else. You put it on our on our fish as well. I can put it on our on our meat. Guys, one more thing I want to mention here is that hot sauce in Brazil is really different. So, this molho de pimenta, right? This hot sauce always has in Brazil, almost always, almost almost always it has vinegar. It's the second ingredient. You guys won't be able to read that probably, but it's vinegar. And so, it's basically just like a Tabasco. They don't have a normal hot sauce. I really miss pico de gallo. I really miss like like if you go to a Mexican restaurant in America you have a couple different options of hot sauce. In Brazil, not so much. I miss that. And so, anyway, um they do have I don't know what kind of hot peppers these are here, but normally hot sauce is just with a vinegar base.

[00:07:01]>> [singing and music] [cheering] [singing] [singing] [music and singing] [cheering] >> Ah, thank you.

[00:08:11]So this is Rosie. She is the world's best cake maker.

[00:08:16]O melhor bolo do mundo é da Rosie.

[00:08:19]>> [laughter] >> Look at inside of this cake.

[00:08:24]It is marvelous. What kind of cake is this?

[00:08:34]Oreo?

[00:08:36]Oreo cake and it's amazing. And then here's a little brigadeiro.

[00:08:48]So it's leite condensado, which is like condensed milk.

[00:08:52]And we put it together. They like cook it and then they add like other chocolate things and other stuff.

[00:08:58]And they have coconut version called a little kiss and it's wonderful.

[00:09:12]>> [singing] >> So yeah, there you go guys. A little taste of Brazil.

[00:09:25]A taste of Brazilian culture, a Brazilian party, a birthday party. And as I said, this is what I have come to love about this nation is the way that we celebrate people, the way that we create community, create family, and you know, Brazilians have a wonderful attribute of of learning how to become family with people and doing life well together, celebrating each other, encouraging each other in that way.

[00:09:50]Yeah, this is me building my life between two worlds, America, Brazil.

[00:09:54]Thanks for watching, guys. Let me know in the comments what you think and we will catch you on the next time. All right, guys. Later.