Casava or tapioca is the flour used in Brazilian cheese rolls. Yum!

We had a houseguest from Brazil who stayed with us while he finished his degree, he's the one who introduced me to Brazilian cheese rolls. I found a recipe and started making them, he said mine were as good as his mother's.

We went to a Brazilian-American Friendship dinner a few times, and my Pao de Queijo were very well received by the Brazilians present.

I've been told that in Brazil, it is more common to use casava flour than tapioca starch, I suspect the main reasons many online recipes use the latter is because casava flour is harder to find in stores here. The biggest difference between them is casava flour has more fiber.

I've also made them--without the cheese--for gluten-free cream puffs, and I made some that were intentionally more like English muffins that we used for eggs Benedict when our daughter-in-law was on a gluten-free diet.

I haven't had the courage (or the ingredients) to make my own feijoada yet. It's a peasant dish that traditionally uses leftover parts from the pig: foot, ears, snout, though many recipes use things like pork shoulder that are easier to find.