Inmates of Prison in Rondonia Rebel for Having Traditional Brazilian Food in the Menu

01/08/2015 - 10h23

The creamy beef stroganoff is out of the menu and the feijoada - a typical Brazilian pork stew served with crackling - is in to replace it.

Alas, without the accompanying caipirinha - an also typical drink made with a local spirit, lime and sugar - and consumed inside a prison cell, 700 kilometers from the capital of the state of Rondonia, Porto Velho, in northernmost Brazil.

Inmates of a prison in the countryside of Rondonia rebelled last Sunday, January 4th, claiming they cannot stand to eat the same dishes day in day out: meat and gravy or stroganoff.

They burnt mattresses and plastic bottles, and only stopped after the heads of the Social Rehabilitation Center, in the small town of Vilhena, committed to changing the menu, to include mainly deep fried options.

The mutiny led to a result: on Wednesday, January 7th, the main dish served consisted of feijoada.

In order to demand a change of menu, a group of inmates were the leaders of the rebellion. The director of the prison, Paulo Ferreira, said that the mutiny occurred after negotiations had begun.

The director of the prison said that the six inmates that were the leaders of the "crackling revolt" will be charged for damaging public property.

Two days after the rebellion, Ferreira and the owner of the catering company, Lucinéia Kosloski, met with a committee composed of six inmates to set out the changes to the prison's menu.

According to Kosloski, some substitutions will be made in the original plan to accommodate the demands.

"Today we are serving feijoada and we will enhance other dishes by replacing meat and gravy with deep fried options more frequently", she said, whose company delivers 690 dishes every day to the prison.

There are 220 inmates in total, with a capacity for 256.

The businesswoman, who is also a nutritionist, said that the rejected dishes will not be removed from the menu, but will instead be served less often.

The new recipes, according to her, follow the nutritional balance anticipated in the original bidding document, which regulates the supply of food to the state of Rondonia's prisons.

After negotiations, inmates will now have available in addition to feijoada and crackling, pepperoni and fried fish.

The menu may have improved but the rebellious inmates have another problem to face: the burnt mattresses will not be substituted and, as punishment, they will not be allowed to have intimate visits in the upcoming weeks.

The director of the prison explained: if prisoners set fire to mattresses, it is because they did not need them.

Translated by CRISTIANE COSTA LIMA

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	Divulgação
	The creamy beef stroganoff is out of the menu and the feijoada is in to replace it