A taste of home: the immigrant grocers bringing global snacks to Dublin

Irish Times

04-05-2025

With its exterior the colours of the Brazilian flag, Real Brasil is instantly noticeable on
Capel Street
in
Dublin
. Inside, packets of pão de queijo and coxinha line freezers, and condiments such as dulce de leche and condensed milk occupy the shelves. Most products on the shelves are labelled in Portuguese, except for the pão de queijo in the freezers that have labels in English. On a Wednesday afternoon, the shop is busy with customers briskly moving about.
Among the many snacks stocked here are packs of paçoca, a sweet treat made with ground peanuts and sugar. The consistency is praline-like, and the taste is as addictive as candy. 'I would say paçoca is quite popular; we import it from Brazil,' says Robson Oliveira, who has been managing the Real Brasil business for 16 years. 'Açai is also popular; we import that too'.
'Biscoito de polvilho [cassava starch crisps], paçoca [peanut candy], and Guaraná Antarctica [a Brazilian soft drink] are among the most recognisable and widely available packaged snacks in Brazilian grocery stores in Dublin,' says Euzana Forkan, a food enthusiast from Brazil with a master's degree in gastronomy and food studies from
Technological University Dublin
.
Paçoca, Forkan says, is a very popular snack in Brazil, with indigenous origins – the earliest versions being a savoury dish made from dried meat and cassava flour. 'Today, paçoca is strongly associated with Festa Junina, a traditional Brazilian festival celebrated throughout June. While we now enjoy paçoca year-round, it still carries a nostalgic connection to this festival, which is one of the most beloved celebrations in Brazil.'
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Oliveira says: 'Irish people buy our snacks too. Irish children like them because children like to try something different.'
According to Forkan, Brazilian snacks in Ireland are significantly more expensive than in Brazil. 'Beyond currency differences, factors like importation costs, taxes and limited availability drive up prices,' she says.
Some of the snacks, such as pão de queijo and coxinha, are produced in Ireland, with ingredients imported from Brazil, says Oliveira. Pão de queijo is traditional Brazilian cheese bread, made with cassava starch. Real Brasil sells frozen pão de queijo which can be bought and baked. Small balls of cheesy tapioca flour slowly rise and puff up in the oven, with the top turning golden brown. They feel light as air when bitten into. The packs that Real Brasil sell are produced in Ireland.
'My perception is that when Brazilians go to these stores, it's usually not for packaged snacks but rather to buy ingredients or frozen food. Or to buy freshly made Brazilian snacks like pão de queijo and coxinha, which hold a much stronger place in Brazilian food culture and can be found in pretty much all Brazilian shops,' says Forkan.
Coxinha is a deep-fried chicken snack, with the chicken minced and encased in a dough. Both the outer casing and the chicken filling fall apart on the first bite, with steam rising from the centre when the coxinha is served hot. Oliveira says that while pão de queijo and coxinha are popular sellers, the shop ensures it always has them in stock.
Robson Oliveira, manager of Real Brasil, with the products paçoca and açai. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
This is unlike Ingredients, the
Indian
grocery store in
Stillorgan
, where popular snacks are often sold out. Packets of Haldiram's, an Indian brand that produces savoury snacks like aloo lachha (spicy potato sticks) and aloo bhujia (a sort of potato vermicelli), often disappear from the shelves. Haldiram's is a household name in India, and their packaged snacks are popular accompaniments with tea.
According to proprietor Melvin Moby, however, the two most popular snacks at Ingredients are Lay's crisps and Maggi noodles. Indian Lay's come in flavours such as Magic Masala (spicy) and Tomato Tango (ketchup flavour). Magic Masala is frequently sold out at Ingredients. Maggi is an instant noodle brand that's a favourite with both children and adults, often a popular student meal because of how quick it is to prepare.
In India, smaller grocery stores called kirana shops sell packets of Lay's crisps and Maggi. Children often frequent these shops after school to buy their favourite crisps and noodles. Magic Masala is a particularly popular flavour for Lay's, a bright blue packet with spicy crisps inside.
Street vendors who cook Maggi noodles often set up stalls outside schools and colleges, stirring the noodles in pots of boiling water until they're cooked. Stalls like these also often sell chai alongside Maggi.
'We can't seem to get enough of them,' says Moby when I ask him if Lay's and Maggi sell out often. This despite a huge difference in price between here and in India. 'By the time the duty and container charges are paid, the price would be five times more.'
Ingredients is Moby's family business, also involving his father, Moby PB, and mother, Mini Moby. He took over 10 years ago, and his brother Ivin Moby and he are responsible for scaling it now, he says. 'I've always been around it so I had an interest in scaling it.' He grew up in Ireland and so enjoyed snacks such as Tayto, but wanted Lay's and Maggi when he went to India. 'There was a nostalgic factor for me, and I see Irish kids enjoying a mix of both Irish and imported snacks.'
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Besides packaged snacks, Ingredients also sells fresh vegetables and herbs. Bunches of bright green coriander and mint lie on shelves, next to refrigerated radishes and chillies.
Yes Kabayan, a Filipino shop in Dublin city centre, doesn't stock fresh vegetables or herbs but brings packaged Filipino snacks to Dublin. Jars of peanut butter are stacked above jars of coconut gel in syrup. There's dried fish in the freezer and pinoy hopia (a kind of Filipino pastry) in a basket near the counter.
Another Filipino shop, Pinoy Sari Sari on Mary Street, is bigger with more snacks on offer. The refrigerators stock aubergine, karela and okra, and the snacks section has pandesal (Filipino bread rolls), coconut gel in syrup and butter coconut biscuits.
Goldilocks polvoron, a popular Filipino shortbread
'The most popular packaged snacks that are widely available outside of the Philippines are Boy Bawang, Ding Dong, Piattos, Chiz Curlz, Sweet Corn, polvoron (a type of shortbread, usually the Goldilocks brand), and dried mangoes (any brand),' says Krissel Alcaraz, a Dublin-based Filipino-Australian food content creator known as
Porkyeah
on Instagram. 'Food is such a huge part of Filipino culture; after greeting someone, we usually say 'kumain ka na ba?', which means 'have you eaten?',' she says.
Boy Bawang Cornick, a packaged corn snack, is on the shelves at both Yes Kabayan and Pinoy Sari Sari. 'Boy Bawang is pretty popular – its literal translation from Tagalog (Filipino) is 'garlic boy'. Garlic is used in almost all of our savoury dishes,' says Alcaraz. 'I suppose Boy Bawang is the popular manufactured version of cornick or corn nuts, but I remember when I was a kid that people sold these in little plastic bags, packed full of salt and garlic. I saw vendors selling them on the streets, but it has now moved on to fancy-looking packaging.'
Alcaraz says the snacks here are far costlier than in the Philippines. 'The exchange rate is currently around €1 to 65 Philippine pesos. Boy Bawang, for example, can be bought in a popular high-end supermarket in the Philippines, for around 70 cent and would be even cheaper in 'sari-sari' stores (small convenience stores), but in Ireland it costs around €2. This is why every time I have the chance to visit the Philippines, I stock up a lot on snacks.'
Alcaraz was reared in
Australia
, but she loved Filipino snacks growing up there. 'It's also nostalgic to buy them now as an adult. I love checking out the Asian supermarkets here as it brings back memories of all the snacks I used to eat when I was still living in the Philippines as a kid.'
Browsing the aisles or shelves of grocery stores can hold special importance for immigrants seeking familiarity and comfort from home. Food, especially when coupled with nostalgia, is a powerful emotional connector. Packaged snacks have their own place in this realm, whether it be the memories they conjure, or simply having a stock of the familiar in a new country. These snacks at Dublin's immigrant-owned grocery stores are markers of what it feels like to have a home away from home, bringing communities together over a shared love of snacking.