Food!

Here it is: The much awaited food blog! I’ve tried to take pictures of the more traditional foods that I’ve eaten in both Guatemala and El Salvador. We’ll start with:

Breakfast

Breakfast is one of my favorite meals, both here and in the U.S. In Guatemala, more often than not my breakfast consisted of fruit (usually papaya!):

This was at Patricia's B&B in Guatemala City

Sometimes, my host moms have made me panqueques (I’ll give you one guess as to what those are! Haha). In Guatemala I put honey on them, but here in El Salvador I use maple syrup. I must say, I think the honey thing is going to stick- so yummy!

Although I enjoy both fruit and pancakes, the most common meal I eat for breakfast is eggs. Eggs and beans. Eggs and ham. Or (like this morning) eggs with cut up hot dogs. Good thing I like eggs. :-) My least favorite thing to eat for breakfast is plantains. I would much rather just eat a plain banana than eat a cooked one. But, I still get served them, and I still eat them (but usually not a lot of them…). 

This was my last breakfast in Xela. Eggs, beans, plantains

This was actually dinner one night, but it could just as easily have been breakfast! Eggs, beans, plantains.

Guatemala

Now for some traditional Guatemalan food. My Guatemalan host family made some traditional meals, here are some pictures:

They look similar, eh? They all consisted of rice, chicken (or some other mystery meat), and a sauce. They were all very good. The sauces all had a different taste- the darkest one smelled like chocolate (but didn’t taste like it! Haha) The green one was my favorite, and it wasn’t too spicy.

At Sakribal, our language school, we also ate traditional foods. I forget the name of this dish, but it was served during our first “farewell” dinner for students. It is chicken, rice, vegetables, and some kind of sauce. It was very good!

And these are tamales. They were actually pretty good, but at first we had no idea what was in them. I’ve definitely gotten into the habit of not asking what meaty items are, because part of me doesn’t want to know. 

Not sure what we're eating! (Photo bomb- Susan!)

They were actually yummy! And I think they were chicken. ha

At our farewell dinner at Sakribal we ate “make your own” enchiladas! 

On mine I have guacamole (me encanta guacamole!), eggs, chicken, mystery meat, veggies some sort of sauce, and beets. Great flavors!

Sadly I'm pretty sure something in this meal made me sick. But I'm all better now!

My favorite meal in Guatemala was one I didn’t take a picture of, so I just did a Google search for this. Empanadas. Con pollo. They are SOOO good. Basically fried tortilla stuffed with chicken, and then you put a salsa-esque sauce on them. Yup, quite yummy!

El Salvador

Now on to El Salvadorian food! This first picture is of one of the national dishes (if not THE national dish), papusas! It’s a flour tortilla stuffed with different things and then fried a bit more (at least they taste like they are fried). Mine were all stuffed with beans because I can’t eat cheese. However, last night I had ones that had beans and chicken. Although I don’t really like tortillas (I’ll usually just have one with lunch), I really like papusas! 

With a yummy salsa to put on top!

Last Saturday my host mom, Mari, made paella, a seafood and rice dish! I love seafood, but I’ve never eaten a whole crab before, and I wasn’t quite sure how. But I realized that I like food that makes me work because I have to slow down and appreciate it! It was so good. 

This next dish is chicharrones, which is pork (I did ask what kind of meat this was). We ate at a nice restaurant last weekend, and the food was quite good. I enjoyed the chicharrones but I think I will order something else next time. This is the restaurant that new mission teams are taken to their first day in El Salvador, and since we’re now welcoming the new mission teams, I bet we’ll be able to go again. The restaurant is also a coffee plantation, and wow is fresh-brewed El Salvadorian coffee incredible. (And I don’t even like black coffee)

And this last picture of El Salvadorian food is a stuffed pepper that we had for lunch one day. Normally lunches at the mission residence are pretty normal- meat, veggie, rice, tortilla. However, when they brought out the stuffed peppers I thought “Wow!!” And (yes, you guessed it) they were really tasty!

And if you want to know what it was stuffed with, I'll just have to say "mystery meat" (but I think chicken, or maybe potatoes. hahahaha)

Sometimes the meat here can be kind of sketchy (as I’ve mentioned before), but really the meat here is probably better than a lot of meat in the U.S. Guaranteed it is processed less, and my mom probably knows the people she buys her meat from, and they keep their animals safe on a farm (but the animals might not always have enough food). One really sad day for me was back during my second week in Guatemala when I went to the Mercado (Market) San Francisco with Odilia, and we went to the place where they sell animals. Cows, goats, chickens- all sorts of different types of animals being sold for food. I was practically brought to tears, but this way is much more humane than the way meat is processed/sold in the United States. This was the little urge I needed, because I think I am going to try and be a vegetarian when I go back to the U.S. I will still eat meat if it is offered to me (like if I’m at a friend’s house), but I think cooking for myself I am going to try and go meat-less. Bam. I’ll need to find some good recipes!

Smoothies

As if we all didn’t know this already- Smoothies are incredibly refreshing in a hot climate. Who am I kidding? Smoothies are always refreshing. I had the yummy mango one in Panajachel, Guatemala, and the blackberry one I had last weekend with my chicharrones. I know how to order yummy drinks. :-)

 

Sweets

No doubt about it, I have a sweet tooth. The sad thing is, dessert isn’t really a thing here or in Guatemala. This made me and Meredith very sad, so we have definitely gotten our fill of sweets. Our first weekend we found a cake shop in Xela:

With a Coke of course. Lots of sugar!

One day during the break I went with Meredith and her teacher, Paty to a great little coffee/hot chocolate shop and got cinnamon churros (and hot chocolate!)

This was after I had eaten two. hehe

We celebrated Sakribal’s birthday while we were there (18 years!) and we ate this yummy banana bread!

I think I’ve talked about “Bake Shop” before- it’s a little Mennonite bake shop in Xela that sells the best donuts I’ve ever eaten (Clara, I wanted to bring some home for you so badly!). This is a picture of my teacher, Flor, and I eating our donuts. She had a jelly filled one, and I had a cinnamon cruller. (I’m realizing while writing this how much I like cinnamon! Haha)

I miss Flor.

And my adorable little favorite children at Bible School our first week, eating their Friday afternoon treat- ice cream. People (especially kids) seem to really like sweets here, even though they aren’t eaten that often. 

Yvette and Natalie!

Yup, it was that good!

Sadly (or maybe not so sadly), I think I’m losing a bit of my sweet tooth! My family offered me a piece of cake that Walter (host brother/dad) brought home from work, and it was really good, but I found myself thinking, “This is too sweet…” and I NEVER say that. I’m always saying, “Bring on the sweet stuff!” But truly, that cake was too sweet for me. Sad day. :-P

Pizza

And then there’s those days when you just have to have pizza. Gracias, A La Gran Pizza, the best pizza place in Xela. 

Ben and Meredith, posing

I hope you aren't too hungry now. But if you are, remember that in Spanish it's "Tengo hambre" (I'm hungry), not "Tengo hombre" (I have a man). Meredith made that mistake and the Sakribal teachers didn't let her forget it!! 

Peace, Love, and Smiles,

Christa