Sobá

Sobáis a dish from theBrazilian stateofMato Grosso do Sulthat is an adaption ofOkinawa soba. It is made with wheat noodles, beef, green onion, and omelette strips. The dish is popular inCampo 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 Braziliansobáis 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.As of 2023, Campo Grande has the 3rd largestJapanese Brazilianand 2nd largestOkinawan Braziliancommunity in Brazil with 11,000 people of Japanese descent. 70% of Campo Grande's Japanese Brazilian community is of Okinawan descent.
According to theOkinawa Association of Campo Grande(Associação Okinawa de 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 theCentral Fair of Campo Grande[pt]to Brazilians by the mid-1960s.The dish became so popular that it soon became the principal attraction at the fair's eatery.
The modern-daysobáthat 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,sobáuses noodles made fromwheat flour, instead of thebuckwheat soba noodlesused in Japan, and includesgreen onionandomelettestrips.
On 10 August 2006,sobáwas registered with theNational Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritageas an Intangible Cultural Property (Bem Cultural de Natureza Imaterial) of Campo Grande by Municipal Degree n° 9.685 of 18 July 2006.A contest started on 21 October 2017 to determine the representative dish (prato típico) of Campo Grande presented residents with the choice betweenarroz carreteiro,espetinhos, andsobá. After the voting period closed on 21 January 2018,sobáwon by winning 41% of the over 15,000 votes.Arroz carreteiroandespetinhoscame in at 27% and 32% of the vote, respectively.On 7 August 2018, the owners of 70 Campo Grandesobárestaurants met with Campo Grande officials to officially determine a recipe forsobá. At this meeting, they also discussed the possibility of creating an official seal that restaurants could display to show that they serve the officialsobárecipe.
The firstSobáFestival (Festival do Sobá) 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,gauchoandCenter-WestBrazilians have contributed to Campo Grande.The festival is a popular attraction in the city and drives domestic tourism.TheGovernment of Mato Grosso do Sulestimated 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 JapaneseRyukyu Broadcasting Corporationcompared the differences between the traditional Okinawan soba and thesobáfrom Mato Grosso do Sul.