Menarosto is one of the most characteristic dishes of the region colonized by Italian immigrants, in southern Brazil. Pathfinders used meat from wild animals, it was a matter of survival, they used rustic wooden equipment, manually moved to rotate and roast slowly.
The descendants of immigrants, while incorporating the dish into their cuisine, perfected the system. Currently, the mechanism consists of metal discs joined by an axle. The skewers, about one meter long, are attached to the disks. The device is powered by an electric motor and rotates next to a brazier, that is, it is rotating. Slowly, the meats - quail, chicken, pork and even rabbit - are roasted for a minimum of six hours.
The process starts the day before, with the preparation of the meats - cutting, seasoning and skewering - and also requires a lot of work.
The video was made in Otávio Rocha, a district in the municipality of Flores da Cunha, State of Rio Grande do Sul, where Menarosto is officially the typical dish. There were about 500 kilos of meat, 250 of which were quails raised in captivity, plus pork and chicken. Which were enjoyed by hundreds of people, who participated in the lunch, which was part of the schedule of the Festa Colonial da Grape and Festa do Strawberry, in February 2022.
A curiosity: according to legend, this way of roasting meats would have been created by Leonardo da Vinci, around 1480, when he frequented the Court of Ludovico Sforza, in Milan. The noble had the custom of holding lavish banquets for hundreds of guests. And Leonardo came up with a way to roast large amounts of different meats at the same time, to satisfy everyone's gluttony at the same time. The rotating system ensured uniformity in the roasting.
4 мар 2022
