The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

It's a slippery, messy business, kissing. Two tongues meetings in one person's mouth, touching and rolling and wrestling like snakes. The transfer of saliva. The hot, warm breath vaporous with what the kisser has most recently consumed.

Not only that, even strangers do it. People who've only just met in bars; partygoers on New Year's Eve; returning soldiers and can-can girls.

Yes, Brazilians really do eat this way. Fogo de Chão, the new Brazilian steak house at City Center in Minneapolis, is much more elegant—and more expensive—than the truck stop in northeast Brazil where I first experienced churrascaria (Brazilian spit-roasted barbecue), but the basic principle is the same: Waiters in black pleated gaucho pantaloons (at Fogo de Chão, not the truck stop) stroll through the dining room with a skewer of spit-roasted meat in one hand and a long-bladed carving knife in the other.