Eating Gohan in Brazil

by Laura Yoshimoto Turpin (she/her)

One of the most dominant tastes of my childhood has always been the one of Japanese white rice—or as we call it gohan.

I'm mixed and was born and raised in São Paulo. Even though Brazil is home to the world's largest community of Japanese descendants outside of Japan, I was one of the very very few—and I cannot stress how few—Brazilian East Asian students in my school. So, while my friends ate long grain white rice and beans, in my household we would eat gohan and beans.

See, the Latin American stereotype of rice and beans isn’t a stereotype, it’s a reality. We had rice and beans served for our school meals every single day. However, I had grown up so accustomed and in love with the taste of gohan that long grain rice just never did it for me. I would go to a friend’s house for dinner where they only had long grain rice and I would just smile and shake my head when the rice bowl was being passed around.

On the other hand, when I had non-East Asian friends over, they would be marvelled by our different rice. “It's like the one they have at Japanese restaurants!” They told me they always looked forward to having dinner at mine because they would get to eat this delicious sticky rice.

Nowadays, long grain white rice is present in some of my meals. But, gohan is still the only rice I buy in bulk.