Sobá should not be confused with Soba.
| Name Italics: | true |
| Name Lang: | pt |
| Place Of Origin: | Okinawa, Japan (origin) Brazil (adaptation) |
| Region: | Mato Grosso do Sul |
| Associated Cuisine: | Brazilian cuisine |
| Type: | Noodle soup |
| Main Ingredient: | Noodles (wheat flour), meat-based broth, beef, omelette strips, and green onion |
is a dish from the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul that is an adaption of Okinawa soba. It is made with wheat noodles, beef, green onion, and omelette strips. The dish is popular in Campo Grande, the capital city of Mato Grosso do Sul, where it is a recognized symbol of the city and the subject of an annual festival.
The modern day Brazilian is an adaption of the soba that Okinawan immigrants to Brazil brought with them when they arrived in Campo Grande. Okinawan immigrants arrived in Campo Grande in 1914, 15 years after the foundation of the city in 1899.[1] As of 2023, Campo Grande has the 3rd largest Japanese Brazilian and 2nd largest Okinawan Brazilian community in Brazil with 11,000 people of Japanese descent. 70% of Campo Grande's Japanese Brazilian community is of Okinawan descent.[2]
According to the Okinawa Association of Campo Grande, prominent Okinawan immigrant Eiho Tomoyose was the first to serve soba in Campo Grande at his bar in the 1950s. Despite initially only serving the Okinawan community in the area, Tomoyose was serving his soba at the to Brazilians by the mid-1960s.[3] The dish became so popular that it soon became the principal attraction at the fair's eatery.
The modern-day that is found in Campo Grande and throughout Brazil has been adapted to the Brazilian palate by substituting beef for the traditional pork and changing the seasoning of the broth. Like Okinawa soba, uses noodles made from wheat flour, instead of the buckwheat soba noodles used in Japan, and includes green onion and omelette strips.[4]
On 10 August 2006, was registered with the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage as an Intangible Cultural Property of Campo Grande by Municipal Degree n° 9.685 of 18 July 2006.[5] A contest started on 21 October 2017 to determine the representative dish of Campo Grande presented residents with the choice between Portuguese: [[arroz carreteiro]],, and . After the voting period closed on 21 January 2018, won by winning 41% of the over 15,000 votes. Portuguese: [[Arroz carreteiro]] and came in at 27% and 32% of the vote, respectively.[6] On 7 August 2018, the owners of 70 Campo Grande restaurants met with Campo Grande officials to officially determine a recipe for . At this meeting, they also discussed the possibility of creating an official seal that restaurants could display to show that they serve the official recipe.[7]
The first Festival was held in Campo Grande in 2010. The event is held annually in August in the Central Fair of Campo Grande. The festival has events like live music, dancing, and workshops to show the cultural wealth that Japanese, indigenous, gaucho and Center-West Brazilians have contributed to Campo Grande.The festival is a popular attraction in the city and drives domestic tourism.[8] The Government of Mato Grosso do Sul estimated that the 2023 festival would be attended by 100,000 people over the five days of the festival.
In 2018, a news segment on the Japanese Ryukyu Broadcasting Corporation compared the differences between the traditional Okinawan soba and the from Mato Grosso do Sul.[9]