La Comida

I won't lie and say I haven't been a picky eater all of my life. My mother always told me that I was so hard to please when it came to food. I wouldn't eat spaghetti or fish and vegetables were my number one childhood enemy. Luckily, my tastes expanded slighty as I got older but I am still pretty close-minded when it comes to my taste buds. So you can understand why I was a little worried about how I would handle the foreign food of Guatemala. I pictured everyone living off of solely beans (I hate beans) and tortillas and for many people here in Guatemala, unfortunately that is the case. But I am living with a family who is quite creative with their available ingredients.

My family has chickens so we eat eggs quite frequently. You would think this would get old extremely fast, but it doesn't. I think this is due to the fact that my host mom and aunt know at least twenty different ways to cook eggs. We have green beans surrounded by eggs (sounds gross but it is so good!), eggs on hamburger buns, eggs with tomato sauce, tacos with meat and potatoe and the outside shell is actually egg, eggs with beef and veggies scrambled together. The list could go on forever. It is always interesting to me to watch my host aunt go into the chicken shed, grab a couple of eggs and then fry them up for a meal.

Two other main ingredients in the Guatemalan cookbook are pasta and rice. I didn't realize pasta would be such a common food here. We eat pasta at least once day. I think this is because it is fairly cheap, readily available and easy to cook. It is mixed with veggies or eggs or tomato sauce. The tomato sauce is actually just tomatoes put in a blender, but it is really good. They also use pasta to make chow mein. Seriously. Chow mein. If there isn't pasta with the meal, there is definitely going to be rice. Rice and veggies, rice and meat, or just plain rice. It seems to be the carbohydrate of choice.

The biggest part of a Guatemalan meal is the tortillas. They are available every single time you sit down at the table. My host mom and aunt sometimes wake up at four a.m. and start making them. When I first got to my new house and couldn't speak any spanish, my host mom decided to take me with her on an errand run. I had no idea where we were going because I couldn't understand a word she was saying. She got me to carry a tub of corn (after we had shucked it) and we headed out. We ended up in a small room with one guy and a strange looking machine. Yeah. Terrifying. I was praying it wasn't some weird welcoming ceremony. It wasn't of course. I watched as she poured the corn kernals into the machine while the man fed water into it. The kernals were turned into the thick paste that is used to make tortillas. My first attempt to create perfect circular tortillas was an epic failure. They ended up looking like deformed eggs. My host mom made seven in the same time it took me to create one sad egg shaped tortilla. She looked at me, laughed and said "Poco a poco" which means "Little by little". Guatemalans use this term for everything "gringo". Learning spanish: poco a poco. Making tortillas: poco a poco. Finding a husband: poco a poco. I'm starting to loathe the phrase.

The fruits and vegetables in Guatemala are so fresh and always available. Today, I bought a watermelon and a pineapple from a woman in the market. They were both so juicy and sweet that I felt like I should have paid her more. Guatemalans are not very big on eating fruit with meals though. Sure they can be a snack, but they rarely eat them with other foods. I am a fruit lover. Luckily for me, my host mom noticed this and now gives me two pieces of fruit with every meal. A little much but you won't hear me complain.

The final staple in the Guatemalan cookbook is bread. There are "panderias" on every corner. And it is so cheap! I once bought 10 pieces of bread for my family and it was only 3 quetzales. That is equivalent to about a quarter. We eat bread for breakfast and bread before dinner. My family dips their bread in coffee. Since I'm not a coffee fan, I stick with tea but it is just as good. The best bread, for me anyway, is the sweet bread. I already know that when I go back to the States, one of the things I will miss is the amazing fresh muffins and sweet rollls.

Overall, the comida here in Guatemala has been pretty tasty and a fun new experience. Everyday I ask my host mom what she is cooking and there are only four replies: juevos (eggs), fideo (pasta), arroz (rice) or carne (meat). But this amazing woman is not simply cooking plain old eggs. She is turning what I thought would be monotonous, boring cuisine into wonderful, flavorful dishes I will never be able to replicate. Hopefully, I can sneak a few recipes out of her before April.