Provisioning for Brazil

BigART

BigART

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We're currently in South Africa, getting ready to do the final provisioning run before heading off for Brazil and all points NW. Any info about what is scarce/expensive in Brazil would be gratefully received - for example, powdered milk is expensive here but maybe it is unavailable there?? Any decent cheeses?

Thanks in advance,

Mrs BigART
 
BigART said:
We're currently in South Africa, getting ready to do the final provisioning run before heading off for Brazil and all points NW. Any info about what is scarce/expensive in Brazil would be gratefully received - for example, powdered milk is expensive here but maybe it is unavailable there?? Any decent cheeses?

Thanks in advance,

Mrs BigART
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The only thing I can think of is peanut butter. Plenty cheese and I still have some Brazilian powdered milk :) Good cheap meat to set fire to on the braii :p Yachty stuff thin on the ground though, the back street shacks will happily do a great job rewiring an alternator by hand or turn up some acetol bearings but specific yacht bits are hard to find and cost a fortune to import.
 
Hi, you will probably take the same route as we did. ---St Helene, Acension, fernando da rhona. All food is available on route cheap butter and eggs and cheese in fernando.

Very good steaks from the american base in Acension

Peter
 
i've only had a short time in Brazil (will be shortly returning). I didn't grt to any big supermarkets in Salvador,but noticed that in smaller shops it was difficult to find sny bresd that would last longer than a day, no cheese, and no cured meats such as salami or ham. But as I say, my experience is limited.
The beer was cheap!
 
The only thing I can think of is peanut butter

We've found that (compared to UK price) even in the Med - if you can find it! How can a bag of peanuts be half the UK cost, but a jar of peanut butter twice the price? - However, I've now discovered that it's very easy just to make:

Unsalted nuts are best, but if not easily available just wash the salt off and then dry some ordinary salted ones.
Put the peanuts in a good poly bag, wrap that in a teatowel and then smash to pieces - we've no fancy blender job, so I usually place the bag between two planks of wood and beat it with a hammer; works OK if you like 'crunchy' peanut butter.
Empty the bag of smashed peanuts into a bowl, then pick out and eat any nuts which aren't sufficiently smashed.
Add a desert spoon of honey, a splash of oil - peanut oil's probably best, but olive oil works fine - and a pinch of salt (omit if you used washed pre-salted nuts) and stir the whole lot together.
Pack into old jam jars and enjoy. Actually, it's not quite as good as the premium brand commercial stuff, but its easily as good as the cheaper brands and probably 1/4 of the price; more importantly, whilst you can rarely find peanut butter, you'll always find peanuts.
 
I can only talk about Recife, Cabadelo and Forteleza all of which are on a route to the Carib. The supermarkets we found were on a par with those in Europe and probably cheaper although Brazilian inflation may have changed all of that.

Don't know about cheese but as others have said meat is very cheap and good quality. We had less provisioning problems in Brazil than in Carib and Bahamas.

Enjoy your trip.
 
BigART said:
We're currently in South Africa, getting ready to do the final provisioning run before heading off for Brazil and all points NW. Any info about what is scarce/expensive in Brazil would be gratefully received - for example, powdered milk is expensive here but maybe it is unavailable there?? Any decent cheeses?

Thanks in advance,

Mrs BigART
Click to expand...

In the big Brazilian cities, it is a question of price, but you may virtually find *anything*

For example Salvador: "Mercantil Rodrigues" is an *enormous* supermarket (road along the sea towards the NE, not far from the main Policia Federal building, every taxi knows), you find ten different types of rice, 5m shelves with tomato sauce, 10m shelves with fruit juices, etc etc; prices are average. You may easily victual there for weeks and weeks to come.
Then there is the "Bompreço" chain (there are several in town, namely one near Shopping Barra), a bit upmarket, also with a lot of supplies.
Then there is a final one whose name I forgot (should ask my wife :D ) that offered French cheese, real Japanese upmarket food, and even Marmite, unfortunately they hired a jeweller to sum up the final bill.

If you like wine, I'd bring some, we tasted a few times the most expensive Brazilian wines we might find and honestly it's not worth it; though in that heat beer is a lot better imho, a 0.6l bottle can often be found for a lot less than 1 euro.
 
You can get anything you want here in Brazil but anything imported is very expensive. Bring all the spares you might need, if you like wine bring your own, you can't bring any cheese into the country and Brazilian cheese is horrible. Cheap good meat makes up for the cheese though, as does cheap booze.:D
 
Thanks All

Shame about the cheese. We are currently in South Africa and decent cheese is quite expensive. Oh well, we will just have to suffer doing without for a little longer.
 
I spent six months in various parts of Brazil and had no problem finding cheese. What I did struggle with was jams and marmalades; you can get them, but they are more like flavoured sugar eg, you will not find a Seville bitter orange marmalade with rinds. In fact, before you leave Cape Town, please buy me a tin or two? Koo is the brand of preference. Thanks... I'll wait for you in Sint Maarten.
 
stingo said:
I spent six months in various parts of Brazil and had no problem finding cheese. What I did struggle with was jams and marmalades; you can get them, but they are more like flavoured sugar eg, you will not find a Seville bitter orange marmalade with rinds. In fact, before you leave Cape Town, please buy me a tin or two? Koo is the brand of preference. Thanks... I'll wait for you in Sint Maarten.
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Hello John

Great to hear from you! I will send a PM

All the best

Angus
 
food and drink

fill up with wine and spare parts, electronics and olive oil
supermarkets here are great
check-in is a lot easier in cabedelo than salvador
bon voyage
 
gonad said:
check-in is a lot easier in cabedelo than salvador
bon voyage
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You're only saying that because you need new drinking buddies.
Let me rephrase that for you, Jonny; check-in in Salvador is just as tiresome as check-in in Cabadelo.
 
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