$$$ · brisket, ribs, pork shoulder, and long smoke cooks
Render cupim's hump fat over a long, slow cook
Low-and-slow barbecue where stable heat matters more than speed.
Weber Smokey Mountain 18-Inch Charcoal Smoker
Cupim is commonly used as-is in English; the closest equivalent depends on the butchery tradition.
The neck-shoulder hump muscle of zebu cattle (Bos indicus), uniquely Brazilian — European/American cattle (Bos taurus) don't have this prominent hump. A signature Brazilian churrasco cut: dense, fat-marbled connective tissue that requires long, slow cooking (8 to 12 hours over low heat) to break down, after which it slices into ribbons of meltingly tender meat. Often wrapped in foil and slow-roasted over wood coals at large churrascarias, sometimes salt-baked. Has no real equivalent in any other tradition because the muscle simply doesn't exist on cattle outside zebu-breed regions.
Classic recipe
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