Flora Purim at the table

In Brazil, the midday meal is not organized as starter-main-dessert but around an unshakeable foundation: arroz com feijão (white rice and black beans), on which fish or meat, farofa (toasted cassava flour), and sometimes a salad are added. On Saturdays, this foundation gives way to the feijoada shared with family. Sweetness (a dessert, a tropical fruit juice) punctuates the afternoon with coffee rather than the end of the meal. Flora's cooking keeps this Brazilian skeleton even when exiled in New York or on tour.

Scarlet oil from the African palm tree, brought to Brazil by the slave trade and become the soul of Afro-Brazilian cuisine from Bahia. Its saffron color and earthy flavor mark the moqueca. For Flora, daughter of a mixed-race Brazil where African music irrigates everything, it is the ingredient that connects Africa, Brazil, and the jazz she carried around the world.