semi-traditional

And here's how feijoada is more or less supposed to look when served in the traditional style:

Not visible: the pile of white rice underneath the stew.

Post-feijoadic insights:

This was way, way salty. I didn't add any extra salt to the stew, but the bacon, chorizo, and salsiccia ensured that this was going to be one hell of a salty meal. If I ever do this dish again—and I probably will—I'll likely do something sacrilegious like let everything simmer happily for a few hours, then dump out the broth and replace it with water, thereby eliminating much of the cooked-out salt. I might also make the recipe a bit more bean-heavy.

To be clear, though, the feijoada was damn tasty. I ate two bowls of it for lunch, and the second bowl was better than the first. Taste-wise, this dish has everything going for it. Salt-wise, though, it needs to be toned down, and/or I need to see whether I made some missteps along the way when cooking this for the first time ever. (Some feijoada videos show the cooks using quite a bit of water, so perhaps the stew's broth should be thinner...? Not sure. Despite the abundance of water in those videos, the stews often come out looking mighty thick.)

Otherwise, it's true what they say: the orange wedges, though strange-looking to a non-Brazilian, really do complement the feijoada's flavor, cutting through any remaining fattiness from the meat (I skimmed off so much grease and scum that there was precious little left). The panko sprinkle (panko, butter, olive oil, orange zest, and parsley—all toasted, but with parsley added in the latter stage to avoid burning) also added a very nice accent to the meal; the sprinkle didn't make much sense to me until I shoveled some stew into my mouth. Maybe I'll be able to find some cassava flour and do it right next time.