Well, I wouldnt know If I hadn't been told, so dont worry. But turns out a good friend of mine is a Capixaba. Ok enough wondering what it means...what is a capixaba? a capixaba my friends is an Espiritu Santo native. Yes, Capixaba. Now, don't say capixabanes or anything like that... thats wrong and they'll shoot you for it. Ok so maybe not shoot but they'll look at you like the tourist you are.
Ok so a little bit about Espiritu Santo. First of all its abreviated ES and its the stated that touches the Atlantic ocean right south of Bahía, north of Rio de Janeiro and and east of Minas Gerais. ES was originally part of Minas Gerais and was later annexed to Bahía, however, ES has always pursued being independent, I would in fact, attribute that every capixaba you meet will always think that ES is the best place in Brasil to this self definition of the imaginary state. When ES was first inhabited, the colonizers created the city that would later come to be known as Vila Velha (old town), however, this city was so attacked by french and dutch merchants and natives that they decided to seek a more defendable area, so they moved to cidade nova or Vitoria, which is now the capital of the state.
Espiritu Santo, has always been like the forgotten family memeber, other than it being important for emerald export when it was first inhabited, the only other valuable crops that have been cultivated in ES has been coffee. However, as of recently petroleum deposits have given new life to the state. A crop that has also been gaining importance and growth in ES is papaya, or mamão. However, now there are a lot of other crops in ES thanks to its somewhat state induced industrialization.
The population of ES is mostly italian and german, however most of what can be traced are the italian roots since aroudn WWII, the state forced the desintegration of german areas and they mixed with the larger italian population. However, there are other considerable backgrounds, like portuguese (obviously), spanish, belgian, dutch and even Lebanese.
Futbol, however big in Brazil, is not the best sport for capixabas. The only known soccer player from the state could be considered to have been Keiza, but dont worry, you wont even find him on wikipedia.
The truth is that ES has always been pushed back by the three other states that surround it, Bahía, RJ and Minas have always had large importance, this in turn dim the importance of ES in the country wide panorama. Nevertheless, ES is famous for its beaches speacially guaraparí, which is visited mostly by people from Minas, since minas has no oceanfront. No matter what Capixabas are very proud of their state and finding one outside of Espiritu Santo is a rare task.
If you ever have the luck of visiting ES, it is worth it to try some of the native delicacies. The Muqueca Capixaba, for example, is known for having no dendé oil (palm oil), like its bahian counterpart. It looks really delicious and I left a link to a couple very simple demonstrations on how to make it, below. Other plates to try are Polenta, Pamonha, and the Torta Capixaba.
Some quicky aspects I found as I researched this, show that ES is not foreign to the americanization of its culture. The perfect example is the (for some shameful or shameless) Madoniha Capixaba. A girl that translates and sings all of madonnas songs in portuguese. Well, I posted a video below, hope you enjoy it.
And one last video I leave you with, has some promotions from the state government of Espiritu Santo showing some of the beaches and places you can visit in the beautiful state of the Capixabas.
Videos
#1 Version 1 of the Moqueca Capixaba (I think this one should be a bit better)
#2 Version 2 of the Moqueca Capixaba... probably more tomatoe flavor, but I think he doesnt have a lot of the other ingrediets from the previous plate;
#3 Torta Capixaba
#4 Comercial about Espiritu Santo
#5 Comercial by the State Government
#6 Madoninha Capixaba... lol
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