Wel­come to my “Cen­tral and South Amer­ica Food Saga”!

A lot of you were curi­ous about the food we ate when we were trav­el­ing (espe­cially a cer­tain gen­tle­man from Tulsa!), so I decided to make a mini-series. Today, we will see… the chicken era, aka food in Panama, Costa Rica, and to a lesser extend, Peru. This is by no mean an exten­sive gas­tro­nomic guide, but rather an overview of what two back­pack­ers ate on the road, and what locals eat every­day.

In, Cen­tral Amer­ica, as well as in Peru, you just need to know three words to order food: arroz (rice), fri­joles (beans) and pollo (chicken). Makes life easy, doesn’t it! How­ever, the food may be quite basic, and at one point, you’ll be des­per­ate for some­thing other than chicken. I mean, how much chicken can one eat???

In Cen­tral Amer­ica, break­fast is some­what a bit American-style: eggs, rice, beans are very com­mon. A pop­u­lar Costa Rican dish is gallo pinto: rice and beans fried together with spices such as cilantro, onion and pep­pers. Inci­den­tally, Nicaragua also claims gallo pinto as its national dish — a big dis­agree­ment between the two coun­tries. In Panama, you can have your eggs revuel­tos (scram­bled), fritos (fried), duros (hard-boiled), pasado por agua (soft-boiled) etc. In Peru, desayuno amer­i­cano (Amer­i­can break­fast) is also quite com­mon, even if locals will also eat tamales (boiled corn with meat or cheese and wrapped in a banana leaf).

At lunch or at diner, the same ingre­di­ents are used: the usual rice and beans mix, plus some kind of meat (yes, most of the time, it is chicken). A com­mon side dish in Cen­tral Amer­i­can is pat­a­cones (fried plan­tain), in Peru, it’s  choclo (corn).

A inter­est­ing fact in Peru is the numer­ous chi­fas. Chi­fas (from the Chi­nese “chi­fan” 吃饭, to eat) are Peruvian-Chinese restau­rants, typ­i­cally serv­ing fried rice, wan­tan soups and veg­etable stir-fries. The food is nor very Chi­nese nor very Peru­vian, but an inter­est­ing com­bi­na­tion of the two, which locals of all socio-economic lev­els enjoy.

Mar­kets are always very inter­est­ing to visit, but you need to have a strong stom­ach. The meat sec­tion can be quite a dis­play, with cow heads and numer­ous dead chicken (and the smell, oh, the smell…). On the other side, spices are col­or­ful and the veg­gie sec­tion is inter­est­ing to browse, since they are a lot of things we don’t have. All mar­kets also have a snack area and it’s always packed at lunch with locals… great place to grab a bite, but make sure it’s clean enough!

Eat­ing Break­fast In San Jose, Costa Rica

Meat At The Mar­ket, Are­quipa, Peru

Gallo Pinto Style Break­fast In Costa Rica

Choclo Con Queso (Corn and Cheese) In Are­quipa, Peru

Grab­bing A Snack At The Mar­ket, Costa Rica

Veg­gies At The Mar­ket, Peru

Related arti­cles:

1. The Food Saga: The Drinks
2. The Food Saga: The Feast Era
3. The Food Saga: The Sweets
4. It´s A Wild Life…
5. The Food Saga: The Fish Era