Hello, and welcome to Saber Prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reese.
And I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have an episode for you about Rascriez.
Yes, it is going to be a fun with pronunciation.
Yeah, uh huh absolutely.
As I've said before, I have studied a little bit of Spanish, just enough to really get myself in trouble in both Spanish and more trouble in Portuguese.
So here we are.
Here we are. But there was a particular reason we chose this one.
Yeah, okay, So what had happened was Annie and me, but perhaps more so Annie, we're fans of Star Wars. You know this about us, and of course May the fourth is a official Star Wars holiday has May the Fourth be with you always, but it's also you get May fifth, the Revenge of the Fifth. And it's furthermore, what the twentieth anniversary this year of Revenge.
Of the Sith.
It's the twentieth anniversary of Revenge of the Sith and the forty fifth anniversary of the Empire Staruk's buck Wow wow.
Okay, all right, so I was like, Annie, are there any Star Wars related topics that you would like to do, and she was like, well, because of the anniversary time with Revenge of the Sith, how about some kind of barbecued meat. Yeah, because of what happens to Anakin at
the end of that film. And so after I stopped laughing, I you know, had been thinking about Yeah, yeah, I went down a little bit of a Google rabbit hole about all it's kind of about that sort of thing, and came upon trescries as an interesting topic.
Yes, and you know, the memes are funny. I don't think Anakin Skywalker or Darth Vader would appreciate it. But I also don't think he'd be into any of the memes.
So I wouldn't say that he's got a good sense of humor.
No, I think that's the whole point this kind of honestly, he really really doesn't. But yeah, there are a lot of memes, and so here we are. I do have I wouldn't say a lot of experience with trescria is, but I do have some. The first time I went, I went with my little brother to an establishment we'll be talking about later, not a sponsor, but focus shall and it was for his graduation and we didn't know the protocol of flipping.
Oh huh.
So we got so much meat and it was it was bad news. But it relates to the Star Wars experience because when he walked out, he looked like C three peo he was so full.
Uh huh uh huh. Yeah, yeah, it was it's a danger. It's a danger.
Yes. We kept like panicking because we'd realize, oh no, it's still our paddles are still on green.
They're coming and they're coming. Yeah.
But then I also have a friend that I've always thought this was really interesting about her, but she would go to that same restaurant, but she would only pay for the buffet, so she wouldn't pay meats, but she did it for lunch, like not infrequently, and it was just I was like, oh, that's a new one.
From what I understand, they have a good buffet. Sure, I actually have never been to this style of restaurant. I'm not really who it's built for. I'm like, I'm like, oh no, I had four ounces of meat and a small salad.
I'm unbearably full. I'm that kind of human. I snack.
I don't really feast, so yeah, yeah, but I mean I think I should go. It sounds wonderful.
There is something fun about it, sort of like what we talked about with dim sumwhere you know it's by your table, get to see it, you get to smell it, you.
Get to try a little bit of everything. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and the paddle situation is sort of fun if you remember to do it.
You can also say no when they come to your table. You can be like, oh my bad, note, thank you.
You can also ask for meats, because there are some they don't bring out as often. I want that I did get. I did do this, and I think it was I was in Peru and I did it and it was It was really good, but it was much less of a I didn't leave feeling miserable. Okay, but that being said, there is Conan O'Brien, as the show called Conan O'Brien Must Go. I think the second season
is actually coming out this week. But he went to Argentina in the first season and they did a whole thing about where they went to a restaurant kinda like that, and they had a whole thing with the gauchos that they did and it's very funny. So if you want to check that out, that is something I recommend. Yes, Well, for past episodes, you could see maybe some we've done BBQ.
A little bit of barbecue related to I think we talked about it in our Ashville episodes.
That sounds right, I think so. We also did a really cool interview once with Howard Conyers.
Who is a rocket scientist who is really passionate about barbecue.
It was really cool.
Yeah, yeah, he's awesome.
I highly recommend. If you haven't listened to that episode, buffets perhaps sure, yeah, yeah, But I guess this brings us to our question traskaria. What is it?
Well, trescaria is a type of restaurant that serves primarily treascos, which are grilled meats, often in the rdizio style, in which large cuts or skewers or plates are brought out from the kitchen and patrons signal if they want some, and then the servers will will portion some of it off table side. The grilling is usually over charcoal. The meats can vary, but there's an emphasis on beef. Often
the only seasoning applied before cooking is salt. Those skewers are sometimes layered with like chunks of vegs, like an onion and tomato among the meat, and sometimes sauces are applied after cooking or offered table side. And sides at these restaurants can include leafy salads, grilled vegetables, various starches. Drinks often include wine and beer and cocktails. It's fun because you can write, you can try a lot of different things, and it's often a you know, like long, relaxed, chatty,
friends and family kind of meal. Though, as with any kind of steakhouse, like, some individual restaurants and chains are more casual and some are more upscale. But in any case, it's you know, like you've got am, you've got some like barbecue masters in the back, and then people just bring their best works straight to your table. It is a veritable parade or dance of meat dinner in a show.
Yes, you get jealous when you're like, oh, oh, that one's over there, I want to try that meat.
I should go okay anyway. Let's note here that chirasco is a broader term used in both Spanish and Portuguese to refer to barbecue, and just as in the US, barbecue can mean a lot of things and is like specifically culturally evocative in different ways for many different people. Chiasco is not a single thing. Chascarias are a more specific type of restaurant that arose in like the southeast corner of South America, like like Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay
uh in the cattle raising plains region there or pump us. Okay, So there you go. That's that's that's one set of definitions. Next, Rhodizio means rotation, and it refers to the rotation of dishes around the dining room.
In Brazil.
There are other ridizio style restaurants and dishes served in that style in other restaurants, like basically any anything you can think of, because it's a it's a it's a type of service. The redizio servers are called passadors or more romantically, gauchos, gaucho being a word for cowboy. We'll
get into that in the history section. So in redizio dining dishes will come around the room, but you can, as Annie said, often make a specific request from the grill or order things a la carte, or be like, oh hey, could you bring that one back here?
That was really good?
When the passador cuts you off a slice you use personal little tongs to nab it and transfer it to your plate. Specifically, American Redizio escriaz usually charge a flat price a prefee for redisio service plus access to a salad bar and hot bar with all kinds of sides. And yeah, each table usually has a card or a paddle that you can flip between green and red. Green means please bring whatever you've got by the table, and
red means that you're taking a break. But as I said, you can also say oh, oh, no, thank you when someone gets tiered table with something you're not morally obligated to take everything that they're serving.
Sometimes it happens so fast.
Lord, I know, I know, you can get overwhelmed.
It's a marathon, not a sprint, for sure.
Taste yourself. But okay, let's talk about those meats. All sorts of cuts of beef, sometimes from specific breeds of cattle, some cuts that are traditional to this part of South America and Brazil's specifically, like the cut of pecuna, which is a really visually iconic one. It's this top sirloin cut that still has a thick cap of fat attached to one side. And these thick strips of it will be curved into a cea shape onto skewers, with the fat cap on the outer edge, so it just melts
into the meat. There's also a coupine, which is this cut from like the fatty hump of this specific breed that's popular in Brazil. All kinds of cuts may be served lean to fatty, everything sort of in between. Again, most of these are only seasoned with salt before they're grilled. But table side, you might garnish your plain steak with the sauces like some chimmy cherry, you know, like like herbal and bright and garlicee or other vinegar vegetable type sauces.
But they will serve all kinds of proteins pork, lamb, chicken, fish, shrimp, various sausages, you know, All of the above, including different cuts of beef, might be wrapped in bacon or crusted in parmesan, or given a rub or marinate or based you might get awful like chicken hearts.
In there.
Then there are the apps and sides, which a lot of the conventional wisdom or like American wisdom, or like American this is how you eat the most meat wisdom is like ignore them.
Go only for the steak, Yeah, which I think is a little silly. I'm like, food is good.
You don't need to you don't need to like put them the most, Put the restaurant the most in the hole for letting you eat there. That's make the point of restaurants. But yeah, so you might get grilled vegetables or fruit like pineapple, lots of raw salid options, often some cheeses and or charcouterie, maybe some chilled seafood. A common hot option is faijuata, which is this traditional Brazilian
black bean stew. Then starches like fried polenta or some cassava cheese, bread or rice with or without beans, maybe some fried plantains or bananas, some mashed or grilled potatoes, or farrofa, which is a type of like fluffy grained cassava meal dish. Yep, little bit like a fine grained couscous. And as these are full service restaurants, they usually have a dessert menu. But that's not what we're here to talk about today.
We did get dessert the first time we went, Even as miserable as we were, we were like, it's a celebration. Let go.
They do have some traditional Brazilian ones at a lot of these places that we've been meaning to do whole episodes on, So.
We'll get back to those. Yeah, that's a later episode for sure. Well what about the nutrition.
That depends on you?
That is up to you. That's a problem. Despite what certain influencers might tell you, eating nothing but meat is bad him.
Bodies are complicated. Get a vegetable, drink of water.
Drink of water, pace yourself, have a nice time, have a nice time. This is I would say, I would put this in the category of treats.
I would I would assume so, yes, I'd say that most steakhouse experiences are probably treats, especially all you can eat steakhouses.
Yeah, yes, so just don't do it all the time. Maybe, Yeah, we do have some numbers for you.
We do.
Okay, So, any given Shrescaria is usually going to have like ten to twenty different meats on the menu at any given time. This is what's going to be, especially if it's rudisio like circling through the dining room. One Sarscaria chain that originated in Colorado, currently has twenty five
locations throughout the United States. That's a Rudizio Grill, another one from Texas, Texas to Brazil, has fifty five locations in the United States and thirteen abroad, including in the United Arab Emirates and South Korea, and Foga de Sheell, which originated in Brazil, has nine there, eleven throughout Central South America and the Middle East, and eighty one in the United States. Yeah, and those are just the chains. There are a plenty of independent restaurants out there.
Yes, there are. And there's a really interesting, if not complicated history behind this style of dining, in this style of meat.
Yeah yeah, and we are going to get into that as soon as we get back from a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay. So the history of grilled meats is quite a long one.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's too much for us today, but all right. So, in terms of cattle in this region, Spanish colonizers brought cattle with them to the Americas as early as fourteen ninety three, with Columbus on his second voyage, arriving first in the Caribbean. Cattle then spread with colonization and also just on their own in the wild through Central and South America. The Spanish brought them to Bolivia as work animals for the silver mines and the fifteen hundreds.
Portuguese colonists were also bringing their own cattle to Brazil during the early fifteen hundreds, and due to all of this, cattle existed in the pump us in great numbers by
the mid seventeen hundreds or so. Like this significantly changed the environment and ecosystem and human food ways in this area, and then, especially as uprisings brought an end to enslavement and colonial rule in this area in the early to mid eighteen hundreds, cattle rearing became this increasingly important agricultural business.
Yes, so when it comes specifically to Turrosco, experts believe that it dates back to the Gauchos of South America in the eighteen hundreds. We've discussed this before, but the Gauchos were nomadic horsemen, farmhands, and ranchers in parts of South America. In Brazil, they were particularly associated with a region called Rio Grande do sol again write in if I'm mispronouncing anything Portuguese. Yeah, not a language, but yes,
let us know. So as the Gauchos traveled around. One resource they didn't lack was beef, and it didn't take them long to start roasting a variety of cuts of meats on a spit for a meal. According to some sources, the core of this style of cooking meat goes back to the sixteen hundreds, when the Guarani people indigenous to Brazil with a lot of livestock, salted raw meat and cooked it on a spit, and then the tradition spread
across Brazil. This is a much larger topic for a different podcast, but I do think we should point out that many countries use the gaucho as a national symbol, a point of pride. Whenever you introduce that sort of rhetoric and national pride, these histories have the potential to be massaged or overblown or fabricated entirely to align with that narrative. In this case, since the Chotaskania is tied to the Gauchows, they can get wrapped up on all
of that depending on your source. That's not to say that these stories aren't true, but that national pride does entail a vested interest that is important to keep in mind, and countries everywhere do this.
This is not Oh yeah, this happens in the United States everywhere. Yeah, yes, sure, but at any rate. Yes, The cattle industry in this area kept growing, including in the early nineteen hundreds with the import of zebu, which is this breed of cattle from originally from South Asia that does well in warm climates and has a little fatty hump on its back.
Ahm hm, all right. So over time, this style of dining of meats on skewers over usually grilled over hot coals, grew in popularity alongside the growth of Brazil's network of roads. In the mid nineteen hundreds, as restaurants started opening up along these roads to sustain travelers, meat was plentiful, so it was fairly cheap for these early charscadias to offer
a lot of meat. By the nineteen seventies, this style of restaurant was pretty popular in southern Brazil, though they were almost more like gas station stops at the time from what I read like roadhouses. Yeah yeah. The meat
was typically cooked outside on wooden skewers over charcoal. As time went on and as the country became more urbanized, these venues grew popular enough to transform into larger restaurant spaces, and kind of going back to my earlier point, a lot of big modern restaurant chains that specialize in the style of dining like to take credit for the invention of this type of meat being served at the table.
Yeah, the regizio style. Yeah, exactly as usual. A lot of them these stories cannot be verified. But one popular story a lot of them liked to tell is the classic.
It was an accident, pretty simply, a waiter in a Rio Grandu soul restaurant accidentally delivered a meat skewer to the incorrect table. The waiter shaved some of the meat off for the table anyway before finding the correct recipient, but the whole thing was really well received, and a lot of other tables then requested the same treatment. They're like, what is this? I want to try this?
And the rest was history.
Yeah, the rest was history. And that does bring us to Fogo de Chao. Fogo de Shao got its start in nineteen seventy nine after two pairs of brothers purchased a churrascaria in the Brazilian city of Porto Aleegra.
We one pair were investors, the other pair had gotten into the restaurant industry a few years before working in steakhouses and readdition narrow before taking over that first fog To show, and they were at the forefront of a growing trend when it came to these types of steakhouses
and particularly Rhodizio style steakhouses. This is the style that a lot of US are now familiar with, where customers pay a fixed price and waiters carve off several different types of meat from skiwers table side at the diner's request. They were also the ones who made it into a fine dining experience and like really brought the Brazilian steakhouse into cities and tourist areas. Fog To Shao opened their second location in this posh neighborhood in Sal Paulo in nineteen eighty six.
Yes, and to reiterate, they are often credited with introducing this concept to big cities in the US as well, but they were not the first. No, we've already mentioned this establishment, but Rudizio Grill was the first Brazilian state house chain restaurant to open in the US in nineteen ninety five or nineteen ninety six. The founder was a Brazilian immigrant who worked various jobs in the food industry before setting his sights on bringing Brazilian food and culture to the US.
Yeah.
Other independent restaurants in the style were opening in America around that time, including Chidescaria Platiforma in New York City in nineteen ninety six.
One of the first reviews of Fogo de Shall printed in American media proclaimed it, quote a meat eater's mecca. Their first international location opened in Texas in nineteen ninety seven.
They chose Texas because they figured that, like Texans already love a steakhouse.
Yeah, they were like.
Well, if not there, then where.
But generally speaking, like the concept had had a lot going for it at that time. Time in the nineties to early aughts, you know, like all you can eat buffets were really.
Popular around here.
Then steakhouses in general were big, and anything a little showy or kind of participatory was very posh. Like think of all of those melting pot fondoue restaurants that were around then. This is anecdotal, but a lot of the American articles that I read while doing my reading for this episode, we're like like that we're explaining basically to Americans, what trascarias are. We're from the early twenty teens. That seemed like some kind of zeitgeist moment in this country for this style thing.
Certainly.
By twenty eighteen, this tabletop game company called Absurdist Productions released a card game called Escaria, a cutthroat game of gluttony wherein players vie to gain the most meat cards and pass off any sides and dessert to other players and furthermore cause shenanigans to mess up other players' plans to do the same. You have like an active face up space in front of you. That's your plate, and then you have like a sort of victory point card pile that's your stomach.
It sounds adorable. To be honest, I would play that. I would play that. I love that.
It's the point is, let me send these sides and.
Deserts to somebody else. I only want the meats.
Yeah.
I think a lot of these restaurants did have a hard time during the COVID pandemic, perhaps obviously the whole restaurant industry did. But but they are back on their feet again. As of twenty twenty three, a private equity firm bought fog to Shao for about one point one billion dollars, including a little bit of debt that it had, and Fogo to Show is currently working on opening an additional thirteen locations around the world, like actively right now.
So yeah, also a currently in like late twenty twenty four, early twenty twenty five, there's been a bunch of Tirasco like popping off on TikTok. I'm not on TikTok because I'm old, so I couldn't tell you, but this is what I read.
I saw that too. I'm also not on TikTok, but I was just looking up how to pronounce certain things and it kept being TikTok videos of people being like, oh I met this chatasca to you, and I was like, what's going on here?
I mean it is.
It is visually striking, yes, and it's fun and people like taking videos and restaurants bless yeah.
Yeah, And I think it's got a little bit of that I don't know, almost like the challenge food aspect of like let me see how much of this I can eat that we find popular as humans for some reason, I don't know. I ran into a lot of it too.
It certainly occurs, and Truscuria is certainly a place where you can participate in a cutthroat game of gluttony.
That's true, you can also participate in an accidental game of gluttony. Remember to turn your battle around everyone.
Or politely say oh no, no, thank you, please.
No more, be vigilant, stay in touch with your body and your writers.
Or as Anakin Skywalker might say, a simple.
No, you don't have the high ground, the truscorea. You're in danger of overeating wisdom.
Wisdom absolutely well.
If any of y'all have specific Trascaria experiences, if you have been to a place that is in the US, perhaps where this tradition comes from, we would love to hear more about it. If you have tuasco or other barbecue traditions in your family, we would love to hear about them.
We would. And any other Star Wars recipes memes.
Oh yeah, oh man, we love those, always always.
But that is what we have to say about Shaasca. He is for now.
It is.
We do already have some listener mail for you, though, and we are going to get into that as soon as we get back from one more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you.
And we're back withoo it's Flames.
I was gonna do a whole Star Wars thing in I panic, so we went with Flames. I think it was good.
Yeah, I had a Star Wars vibe to it.
It did it? Did? I have to say a bat all the heroes? John Williams that song, That's what I was going to try to go for, but it would be too complicated too.
It's difficult to express.
I mean I can express it, but I would need more space and more time.
Yeah.
Yeah, like if you if you started, yeah, different different pieces of John Williams music, if you started the choreography for a specific fight scene, I might be able to pick it up.
But but not like not like over our video chat.
No, LUs, we have some constraints. Oh well, okay, So a lot of you have written in about Krispy Kreme.
Oh yay, this is awesome and I love it.
Please it coming. Christina wrote, loved your Krispy Kreme episode. Donuts are one of my most favorite foods. So I had to listen on a full stomach. I was trying to find the details. But krispy Kreme has always struggled in the Houston market. I remember all the excitement of going and seeing them make the donuts when they first came to town as a child, and they closed abruptly,
it seemed because of financial troubles. Personally, I think they were unprepared for Houston's loyalty to our local franchise, Shipley. The most interesting thing about Shipley is the cutter for the donuts is actually hexagonal to reduce dough waste once fried. They do appear more around, but if you look, you may notice they also serve Colatch cheese, which is like a big pig in a blanket, but another Texas favorite. Be sure to stop it next time you're around Houston.
Oh yeah, I love it lace because I feel like krispy Kreme sort of has that, you know, as we were talking about that nostalgic Southern vibe. Perhaps, but it sounds like Shipley is doing that. This is already for Texas, so right, right, right, So Christy, I can see krispy Kreme would struggle if already you've got.
You already have a favorite nostalgic donut place. Yeah, yeah, I've not been to a Shipley.
Now I need to.
Go no, and I did because I actually wasn't sure what klotchtes were.
Oh, and I.
Read a whole article about them and the difference between a pig and a blanket. I got really interested. I went deep in a rabbit hole. Yeah, only a savor ladies and listeners perhaps would appreciate. But I did get really invested because I know there's a lot of opinions opinions about it, but you know we'd.
Love Oh, yes, always, Oh it was so good.
Speaking of Leslie wrote, thanks for the great podcast. As always, I to enjoy the idea of pelting someone with garlic. In protest, I had to learn some strong pest opinions last year, and some strong food pinions in general, because someone I love very much has developed a cashew allergy.
Yikes.
We found out the hard way because they ate a whole lot of a takeaway curry that we learned was mostly made out of cashews and that had a serious reaction to it.
No airway involvement. Few.
We then found out that a jarred pesto we'd used for some pasta that eaten a little of a few months prior and reacted to but we weren't sure if they had also contained cashew. I was really surprised because I'd never heard of cashews and pesto.
Growing up.
It was always pine nuts, maybe walnuts or almonds if you were doing something fancy with kale or arugula, or just leave it out if.
It's too expensive.
Plus, the standard pre made pesto at both of the large scale food service operations I've been at for the past eight years is not free for allergy safety reasons. Que the scouring of grocery store shelves to find a cashew free pesto, and they all now contain cashew, or at least the ones buy us do. How disappointing. I'll have to wait until summer and we'll just make our own and freeze it. This has since spilled over into
some passover related angst. Both very well known brands of commercially made macaroons now use cashew in their Rocky Road versions, which means that it's safer for us to just make our own.
Sigh.
Thirty plus years of this being a beloved holiday treat, but between this and a few other factors, will just stick to only buying their MATSA.
Now that is a bummer.
Oh, manishevitz angst I feel you.
Yeah, or just like nostalgic brand. Yeah, that's oh you're like, You're like, no, but i'd need that packaged thing.
It's not the same when I make it at home. It's good medi that I'm.
Used to, right, that reminds me of my childhood, but also another great reminder to always look at your labels because oh yeah, I didn't know that either about pesto. And actually after we got this email, I went and looked at mine and it has cash us in it.
Well huh, I mean, yeah, they're they're less expensive than pine nuts probably in most cases really creamy. Yeah, interesting though.
Yeah, I'm sure you probably have more to say about this than me, but I feel like that's it'd be better to have kind of this allergy safe version. I don't know that doesn't have, or at least you make clear like on the label, like nuts or something. I don't know.
Yeah, that's a yeah.
I as as a human with interesting food intolerances. I read the ingredients label of everything that I buy, even and if it doesn't seem remotely possible for there to be sweet peppers or pineapple and something, I'm like what if it does, and you know it's important, it's important to do. But who I'm so glad that your loved one is okay. Allergies are very serious or can be, and so I'm glad that y'all are finding workarounds even if they are kind of a pain in the.
Tukis yes, And I bet your homemade pesto is going.
To be Oh, it's going to be so good. You're gonna be happy that you did it overall.
Let us know, let us know.
Yeah, yeah, oh, I know.
I am always happy when I do homemade pasto. Like somewhere halfway halfway through the process, when my whole kitchen smells like basil, I'm like, oh, all right, this is why I'm doing this.
Yeah, it is a delightful smell. Wow. Thank you to both of those listeners writing in. If you would like to write to us, you can. Our email is Hello at savor.
You can also find us on social media. We are on Instagram and Blue Sky at saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Saverr is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.