Here is what my husband got when he asked for some Tabasco for his fried food snack at the Haras (horse farm) near Ribeirão Preto. He should know better; he's Brazilian. A huge soup bowl of homemade peppers came out--you can't tell from this photo but that spoon is big. This bowl would probably kill you. A drop of its oil killed my taste buds for most of the evening.
Brazil is not known as a particularly spicy food country. It has a range of peppers that go from biquinho (which my six year olds snack like grapes) to the excruciatingly hot ones like comari. Tabasco is now available almost everywhere here but I feel like a tourist when I ask for it. I do prefer the homemade peppers and their many different styles of being served. I generally try to stick to just drops of the pepper oil and let my husband sweat the peppers themselves.
Most tables at simple restaurants in Brazil are set with a container of paper napkins ("paper" is an exaggeration for the oily things that only serve to wipe the food across your chin rather than absorb it), a salt shaker, a toothpick holder, and a pot or bottle of hot peppers. Forget fresh ground black pepper (here known as "pimenta do reino" or kingdom pepper)--that's only at the chic restaurants in the city.
I think you even struggle to find freshly ground black pepper even at most of the chic restaurants!
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