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Next: 24 Jun 2027

Festa Junina

Brazil's midwinter harvest party, with quentao of cachaca, ginger and cloves, canjica and pe-de-moleque with cinnamon.

Paróquia de São Francisco Xavier do Engenho Velho, Rio de Janeiro.
Photo: Leandro Neumann Ciuffo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Festa Junina

Festa Junina marks the saints of June, especially John, and is celebrated with bonfires, square dances and food made from corn: canjica, pamonha and curau. The drink of the night is quentao, hot cachaca or wine simmered with ginger, cinnamon, cloves and sugar. Peanut brittle (pe-de-moleque) and rice pudding are flavoured with cinnamon, and the sweet spices are plainly European and African in origin. Brazil is a country where cloves and cinnamon are grown in Bahia.

The spices

GingerIn hot quentao.CloveIn quentao and in sweets.CinnamonIn canjica and curau.
About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Festa Junina" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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