The anniversary of the city of São Paulo was celebrated this Sunday (25th) with a congratulation in samba rhythm that attracted many people to Bixiga, a traditional neighborhood in the center of the capital of São Paulo. There was no shortage of cake distribution, a tradition that was started in 1986 by Armando Puglisi, Armandinho do Bixiga, an illustrious resident of the neighborhood.
After Armandinho’s death, in December 1994, this tradition ended up being organized by Walter Taverna, owner of the Conchetta cantina, who ran the party until his death, in 2022. Now, the event has passed into the hands of his granddaughter, Thais Taverna.
“This is a tradition that passed from friend to grandfather and then to granddaughter, and [continuará] for the mother, for the great-grandchildren and for the entire community”, said Thais Taverna, in an interview with Agência Brasil.
In the first editions of the event, the cake reached 1.5 km in length and, due to its size, entered the Guinness Book, the book of records, as the largest birthday cake in the world. The idea was for the cake to grow by one meter each year, keeping pace with the age of the capital. But nowadays, the event brings together a variety of cakes brought by local residents and traders.
Birthday cake celebrating 472 years of São Paulo – Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil
“This event reminds us of the importance of taking care of our history”, highlighted the organizer.
“This event brings together, aggregates and embraces the entire neighborhood community. So, it’s the traders, the residents, the people who work in the neighborhood, the cultural and social associations, who participate in the event”, he added.
In the past, the cake was available to the population, who arrived at the party with pots and buckets to take it home. Now, they are cut into slices and delivered to the population by volunteers.
“The tradition started with Armandinho asking his moms to bring the cake here to the middle of Rua Rui Barbosa to celebrate the city’s birthday. This party had several formats. My grandfather took it and transformed it into a very gigantic size, made with an industrial kitchen. Now, we are rescuing this story with the community, asking door to door to bring a cake for us to celebrate our birthday. And we always intend to reach the goal of making the number of cakes related to the city’s number of years”, he explained.
Volunteers distribute birthday cake to visitors – Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil
Bixiga, highlights Thais, is a very old and also very diverse neighborhood, which helped build the city’s history. “We define this neighborhood like this, in many ways, but Armandinho had a very beautiful phrase in which he said that ‘Bixiga is a state of mind’. When you come to this neighborhood you see people greeting each other on the street, looking each other in the eye, with cultural activities taking place in the streets – and this within a megalopolis like São Paulo”, he reports. “There are few places in São Paulo where you still find this human relationship on the streets”, he highlights.
“We cannot forget that this neighborhood is also a cradle of culture: the cradle of samba culture, theaters, music and arts. We have here the history of Italian immigration and also the history of the Saracura quilombo. It is part of the historical formation of the city of São Paulo”, he highlighted.
