Andrew says my blog should be about clothes, but I'm going against his wishes, and making this one about food. As with everything else here, there are ups and downs. Now that I am living on my own, I have been taking this opportunity to cook some of the things I have been madly craving since my arrival here. This is also a chance to educate you all about what an Americanized kitchen in Nicaragua looks like.
This is my kitchen now. I have a wooden table for preparing food, a two burner stove and gas tank, and a place to wash dishes. I currently have a serving platter in place of a cutting board, one knife, a frying pan, and an aluminum pot that I have to pick up with my dish towel when it's hot. I recently sprung for the lovely green Tupperware so that I can preserve my leftovers.
As for food supplies, there is no grocery store here in Mérida. There are 3 pulperias that I go to with regular frequency, and if you'll remember pulperia means small store in someone's house that sells a random assortment of many things. From these pulperias, you can get the stock items, such as flour, oil, sometimes spaghetti noodles, instant soup packets with or without noodles, powdered milk, eggs, Kool-Aid like drink mixes, salt, sugar, bread, and of course rice and red beans. They usually have potatoes, bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and garlic. Sometimes there are also carrots, a couple kinds of Central American squash-type veggies, and fruit, such as pineapple or cantaloupe. They also sell copious quanitities of soda. So that's what I'm working with on a daily basis. In the towns near here, you can also get things like tomato sauce, although it's expensive, olive oil (really expensive), yogurt, Corn Flakes, and oatmeal. There's also a vegetable place in Altagracia where I can buy a wider variety of produce type items, such as cucumbers and black beans. So for about 4 days after I go to Altagracia, I have a lot more variety. After that, veggies won't keep anymore. From Managua, I have stockpiled a small collection of spices, including soy sauce, oregano, rosemary, bay leaves, curry, cumin, and cinnamon. So that's what I have to work with.
Having said that, this is a picture of my lunch today. Buddhism, the world's greatest vegetarian black bean chili, and some crackers. I also had a gigantic bottle of water and some mandarine oranges for dessert, but we'll address those later. This was my first attempt at chili ever, and I have to say I was very pleased. It has onions, carrots, tomatoes, black beans, garlic, and lots of spices. I didn't have tomato paste, so I used half a packet of tomato soup mix, and that did the trick. I put it in my small allotted space in my old host family's fridge, and it was even better today when I took it for lunch. Delish.
Here's my French toast, using those crazy hotdog bun things cut in half. Because the butter-like substance you can get here doesn't taste very much like butter, my usual French toast condiment, I went with a liberal sprinkling of cinnamon sugar instead. Credit to Trevor and his mom.
I have also made a very tasty stirfry, using Ramon soup, bell peppers, and soy sauce. I introduced my family to the idea of putting cut cucumbers in water in the fridge to crisp them up. Because stuff's not refrigerated here, and it's all imported from off the island, by the time we get them, they're not crisp. Homemade chunky tomato sauce for pasta, mashed potatoes, an omelet with tomatoes and bell peppers, hash brown style potatoes with rosemary, and cooked oatmeal complete the inventory of this week's culinary forays. That last one might not sound like much, but after I could no longer eat rice and beans three times a day, I started eating oatmeal cold in the morning, sometimes with yogurt if I had it, and sometimes with powdered milk, honey, raisins, and peanuts. Turns out that last concoction is even better with cooked oatmeal. I also feel so much better now. Not just because you there are no rice, beans, or plantain in the above list of foods, but because I'm deciding what to cook. I'm sure I'll start eating rice and beans again, although probably not more than once a day, but I can also tell how much better I feel with my veggie intake increased, even if for the most part it's the same three or four vegetables over and over again.
Now, for the best thing about food in Nicaragua. This place is a fruit paradise. Right now it's citrus season, and all over town there are lemon, lime, orange, and mandarine trees practically dripping with fruit. The mangoes are also coming into season, although these fruit are so soft that if they drop on their own, they're overripe. As a result, kids all over town are constantly throwing rocks up at the trees at the nearly-ripe mangoes in an effort to get them to fall so they can eat them before the ants do. There's also starfruit, which they call melocotón, which confused the heck out of me for a while because that's the word for peach as well, and I kept looking for the peach trees.
This is my starfruit haul from today, gifted to me by a friend of Ana's. Behind it is my bag of a dozen sweet, juicy mandarine oranges, for which I paid 10 cords, or roughly 50 cents. This was actually more expensive than the bag I bought last week, which only cost 5 cords from a different family. I am gorging myself on citrus and loving it.
In the future, I plan on trying my hand at cooking fish, which is sold by 4 different local fisherman. Fish a little bigger than my hand sell for 2 cords apiece, and they are delicious. I am counting on Trevor showing me how to clean fish when he comes, since every time I've tried to learn from my family they end up having fish when I'm in another town and they clean it without me. I do continue to eat pork and chicken from fritangas and at other people's houses, but I think it will be a while before I branch into cooking meat. My lack of refrigerator and hot water for cleaning make me hesitant to deal with that. I also intend to start trying out some of the Nica veggies.
This is my kitchen now. I have a wooden table for preparing food, a two burner stove and gas tank, and a place to wash dishes. I currently have a serving platter in place of a cutting board, one knife, a frying pan, and an aluminum pot that I have to pick up with my dish towel when it's hot. I recently sprung for the lovely green Tupperware so that I can preserve my leftovers.
As for food supplies, there is no grocery store here in Mérida. There are 3 pulperias that I go to with regular frequency, and if you'll remember pulperia means small store in someone's house that sells a random assortment of many things. From these pulperias, you can get the stock items, such as flour, oil, sometimes spaghetti noodles, instant soup packets with or without noodles, powdered milk, eggs, Kool-Aid like drink mixes, salt, sugar, bread, and of course rice and red beans. They usually have potatoes, bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and garlic. Sometimes there are also carrots, a couple kinds of Central American squash-type veggies, and fruit, such as pineapple or cantaloupe. They also sell copious quanitities of soda. So that's what I'm working with on a daily basis. In the towns near here, you can also get things like tomato sauce, although it's expensive, olive oil (really expensive), yogurt, Corn Flakes, and oatmeal. There's also a vegetable place in Altagracia where I can buy a wider variety of produce type items, such as cucumbers and black beans. So for about 4 days after I go to Altagracia, I have a lot more variety. After that, veggies won't keep anymore. From Managua, I have stockpiled a small collection of spices, including soy sauce, oregano, rosemary, bay leaves, curry, cumin, and cinnamon. So that's what I have to work with.
Having said that, this is a picture of my lunch today. Buddhism, the world's greatest vegetarian black bean chili, and some crackers. I also had a gigantic bottle of water and some mandarine oranges for dessert, but we'll address those later. This was my first attempt at chili ever, and I have to say I was very pleased. It has onions, carrots, tomatoes, black beans, garlic, and lots of spices. I didn't have tomato paste, so I used half a packet of tomato soup mix, and that did the trick. I put it in my small allotted space in my old host family's fridge, and it was even better today when I took it for lunch. Delish.
Here's my French toast, using those crazy hotdog bun things cut in half. Because the butter-like substance you can get here doesn't taste very much like butter, my usual French toast condiment, I went with a liberal sprinkling of cinnamon sugar instead. Credit to Trevor and his mom.
I have also made a very tasty stirfry, using Ramon soup, bell peppers, and soy sauce. I introduced my family to the idea of putting cut cucumbers in water in the fridge to crisp them up. Because stuff's not refrigerated here, and it's all imported from off the island, by the time we get them, they're not crisp. Homemade chunky tomato sauce for pasta, mashed potatoes, an omelet with tomatoes and bell peppers, hash brown style potatoes with rosemary, and cooked oatmeal complete the inventory of this week's culinary forays. That last one might not sound like much, but after I could no longer eat rice and beans three times a day, I started eating oatmeal cold in the morning, sometimes with yogurt if I had it, and sometimes with powdered milk, honey, raisins, and peanuts. Turns out that last concoction is even better with cooked oatmeal. I also feel so much better now. Not just because you there are no rice, beans, or plantain in the above list of foods, but because I'm deciding what to cook. I'm sure I'll start eating rice and beans again, although probably not more than once a day, but I can also tell how much better I feel with my veggie intake increased, even if for the most part it's the same three or four vegetables over and over again.
Now, for the best thing about food in Nicaragua. This place is a fruit paradise. Right now it's citrus season, and all over town there are lemon, lime, orange, and mandarine trees practically dripping with fruit. The mangoes are also coming into season, although these fruit are so soft that if they drop on their own, they're overripe. As a result, kids all over town are constantly throwing rocks up at the trees at the nearly-ripe mangoes in an effort to get them to fall so they can eat them before the ants do. There's also starfruit, which they call melocotón, which confused the heck out of me for a while because that's the word for peach as well, and I kept looking for the peach trees.
This is my starfruit haul from today, gifted to me by a friend of Ana's. Behind it is my bag of a dozen sweet, juicy mandarine oranges, for which I paid 10 cords, or roughly 50 cents. This was actually more expensive than the bag I bought last week, which only cost 5 cords from a different family. I am gorging myself on citrus and loving it.
In the future, I plan on trying my hand at cooking fish, which is sold by 4 different local fisherman. Fish a little bigger than my hand sell for 2 cords apiece, and they are delicious. I am counting on Trevor showing me how to clean fish when he comes, since every time I've tried to learn from my family they end up having fish when I'm in another town and they clean it without me. I do continue to eat pork and chicken from fritangas and at other people's houses, but I think it will be a while before I branch into cooking meat. My lack of refrigerator and hot water for cleaning make me hesitant to deal with that. I also intend to start trying out some of the Nica veggies.
Comments
if not, i'd love to send you some useful ones.
And ye Gods, do you know what I'd do for one of those starfruit right now? YUM!!!