By Andrea Blum and Jessica Pires
The buffet consolidates its proposal of taking handcrafted, local and affective cuisine throughout the city, combined with training in gastronomy and income generation for women from Maré
Rio de Janeiro, May 9, 2021
Redes da Maré presents an interview with chef Mariana Aleixo, founder of the Flavors of Maré buffet and nominated, in 2021, between the two Brazilians in the list of “The World's 50 Best”, an important global award that reveals young entrepreneurs who contribute with the future of the gastronomic world. Mariana, 33, was born and raised in Parque Maré, holds a master's and doctorate degree in production engineering at Coppe/UFRJ and a degree in gastronomy.
From the experience with the territory, she made her academic and professional choices. One of Mariana's oldest memories comes from the tradition of a very predominant culture in Maré: meeting and celebrating with northeastern food. “My parents were entrepreneurs at Maré, so my brothers and I were always together with them at the store or at our grandparents' house, which was seasoned with northeastern food,” she says.
She shared with us some of the experience and consolidation of this initiative, which trains women from Maré and encourages the generation of income, autonomy and female empowerment, with the production and delivery of an artisanal menu with Brazilian recipes that reveal traces of the territory´s culture and ancestry. Discover this story here.
Redes da Maré - What is the importance of gastronomy for Maré?
Mariana Aleixo - Gastronomy plays an important role in the social dynamics of Maré. It is a relevant topic for the development of the territory, since the right to adequate food and nutrition sovereignty consists in the continuous access of all people to food and resources. Gastronomy in Maré, in a broader way, motivates a reflection on the possibilities of residents to build a relationship with food beyond its physiological sense, and new possibilities in the field of knowledge, as well as in the exercise of this profession. 
Gastronomy also speaks of our strong community life and the socio-affective relationships established in the territory. It is precisely around sociability that Maré's ventures acquire their configuration and assert themselves in the face of the classic construction of the supply/need/consumption relationship. In these spaces of sociability, the gastronomic sector stands out as the most powerful economic activity in Maré, both in terms of the offer of goods and services for local consumption, as well as for the generation of work and income among residents.
How was the Flavors of Maré created?
The project was created in 2010, based on the demand of mothers of CIEP Operário Vicente Mariano´s students, in Baixa do Sapateiro, where Redes da Maré worked with education projects. At the meetings held at the time, the mothers showed their interest in professional qualification in gastronomy and the desire to build a new relationship with food and eating habits for their families.
From this, Flavors of Maré was born and started to develop gastronomy courses with two modules: basic and advanced. The proposal was to unify important issues for the performance of the profession, with classes on food production and handling, consumer sales strategies and entrepreneurship.
How does the training of these women work?
The gastronomy course qualifies its participants to work as cooks, but mainly to open their own businesses, individually or collectively, promoting an increase in their income. Lasting eight months, the course offers, in addition to gastronomy classes, workshops on Gender and Society, where students are encouraged to reflect on autonomy, self-esteem and the role they play in society, in addition to offering socio-legal support, with access to psychologists, social workers and lawyers.
Over the course of eleven years, Flavors of Maré has trained more than 800 women from all favelas in Maré and made it possible for several of them to enter the labor market. We do not only impact the women who work in the buffet, but also the ones we train in our courses and their families, because from these experiences, other possibilities open up for each one of them.
We managed, with the income from the buffet, to invest in an industrial kitchen, which was set up at the House of Women of Maré, where we carry out training courses, workshops and all the buffet production. And we were also able, recently, to acquire a van that allows us to access even more spaces in the city with more quality and faster delivery.
Tell us a little more about the buffet and the project's trajectory. What were the most memorable moments of this trajectory?
The professional qualification was expanded from training to the generation of work and income and, with this, we created the buffet, with women from Maré who had already been certified by the workshops. Today, they are part of a collective that offers catering services to institutions, universities, social events and delivery services for individuals. Women are paid for their direct work, which provides them with increased income and economic autonomy, in many cases breaking the cycle of financial dependence and domestic violence experienced by some of them. The improvement in their living conditions is prominent, in addition to the financial aspect.
And how was the menu formed?
Regarding the formation process of our menu, the fact that Maré has in its base of origin northeastern families with strong links to the cuisine was definitive. The buffet carries out a work of valuing the diversity of Maré and Brazilian cuisine, and brings the roots of these stories to its artistic and cultural activities.
The buffet menu offers products that promote:
1) Conscious and healthy eating habits;
2) Full use of food and no use of ultra-processed products;
3) Hand maid production;
4) Preference for fresh products and organic foods;
5) Rescue and promotion of local food culture with the inclusion of traditional recipes and ingredients from Maré.
VEJA MAIS
Maré de Sabores em 2020
Geração de renda para mulheres na pandemia
Leia mais no Quem tece a Redes
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How many actions and events have you done?
Since 2010, Flavors of Maré has produced more than 2,500 events, including coffee break, brunch, lunch, cocktail, dinner and outsourced meals for companies. We served more than 175,000 guests, generating direct income for more than 220 families in Maré.
What does it mean for the public to be able to consume the products and services of Flavors of Maré?
The buffet allows our consumers to have an anthropophagic experience of Maré. We offer another logic of representation of the city, privileging women from Maré, our northeastern culture that builds and constitutes Rio de Janeiro and still breaks the stigmas established in a racist and prejudiced way for the favelas, founding a place of power in peripheries that expands to the entire city.
Flavors of Maré is an invitation to more conscious food choices that can impact the quality of life of those who consume it and contribute to a chain of sustainability for Maré, helping the city's democratization process and promoting an entrepreneurial alternative that can be replicated in other periphery territories.
And during the pandemic, what did the project learn from working with the 'Maré says NO to Coronavirus' campaign, and supporting families in safe isolation with Conexão Saúde?
The campaign allowed Flavors of Maré to reflect on its actions. The crisis also made us discuss the guarantee of the rights of Maré residents, especially women, as well as the access to adequate, healthy and quality food, on an ongoing basis.
First, we engaged in the development of a Food Security front, based on the campaign that, as one of its actions, delivered food baskets and ready-to-eat meals to ensure adequate food for the population of Maré, which was even more vulnerable during the pandemic. In this sense, in 2020, Flavor of Maré produced more than 65 thousand meals for the homeless population of Maré.
With this, we emerged as a possibility to guarantee meals for families in extreme social vulnerability, we kept the income for women and also rethought and adjusted our services for a new consumer public. We also extended production to the program to support safe home isolation, of the Conexão Saúde project, a partnership between Redes da Maré, Fiocruz, Data do Bem, SAS Brasil, União Rio and the Manguinhos Community Council.
As part of the support for people with Covid-19, the project offers healthy and meals for the family to go through recovery during this period. Through this action, since September 2020, more than 900 people have received meals made by Flavors of Maré (lunch, dinner and snacks during the family's recovery period). Flavors of Maré produced and distributed, in total, 12 thousand meals, until the end of May 2021.
The buffet is among the 10 global actions to receive an honorable mention by the 'Basque Culinary World Prize', for its performance during the pandemic.
Watch the campaign video
For 2021, what can we expect from the buffet?
In 2021, our classes were resumed in a hybrid format: the technical content is sent to students through WhatsApp, and practical classes are held at scheduled times within the buffet meal production. There are two students per shift, divided between the days of the week.
We continue to serve companies and events, but we felt a huge drop in 2020. Therefore, we diversified our business model and improved our online delivery and menu, also focusing on meals for individuals and families. Our food is produced and delivered weekly throughout the city.
What does Flavors of Maré leave as a legacy for the lives of the women of Maré in these 11 years of work?
Historically, women have occupied different places and functions. Until today, they are the main responsible for the housework and for the care of children and family members. They are also occupying the labor market and, as a result, the number of households whose financial responsibility are women has been increasing rapidly. In Maré alone, 45% of households have women as their financial heads. 62% of the women in Maré between 25 and 29 years of age are already mothers.
Therefore, women from Maré often face triple journeys, occupying different social roles and strategic places for formation and social transformation. Therefore, they are essential to promote a better diet.
With the Flavors of Maré buffet, it is possible to reveal the daily life of the favela, thus facing the set of distorted representations and about who they are and how the inhabitants of popular territories work. Flavors of Maré enables, in the long term, the strengthening of public policies that promote the development of women and the food sector in Maré and is a reference for other marginal areas of the world.
We, the women of Maré, have the challenge of guiding, in our daily work, themes such as gender, race and class and, therefore, we know how important it is to be committed to a positive agenda that confronts structural inequalities. We believe that, in these 11 years, Flavors of Maré has been collaborating in this struggle. And we will remain firm in this purpose.
