One of the best things (for me) about traveling and getting to know another culture is the
food! I tend to be a picky eater, but I also enjoy trying new food (a bit of a juxtaposition, I know). There is still a lot of Guatemala cuisine I have yet to try, but sharing a couple of the dishes that we get at school (I get free breakfast and lunch as part of my job), and a bit of the country's food that I've tasted.
First up, which is very typical of Guatemalan cuisine is frijoles (black beans) (picture on the left). At school, we'll have it either with crema (cream) or queso (cheese). Frijoles are typical not only for breakfast, but for lunch and dinner as well; it's very common to have it on the side of a meal. On the picture on the right you have dobladas (meaning "folded") which are deep fried stuffed dough mixture. The stuffing can range from potatoes to cheese to meat and whatnot, and even a mix of several ingredients. They're traditionally topped with salsa (tomato sauce) and repollo (cabbage). We usually have them for breakfast at school, and they're also popularly sold as street food in the City.
For breakfast we almost always drink
atol, a traditional hot corn drink usually spiced with cinnamon. While the most common
atol is of corn, it can also be made of milk, rice, pineapple, and banana. There is also a chocolate based
atol with rice bits called
champurrado, a bit similar to the one in the Philippines. I'm not a huge fan of
atol, but it is nice to drink in the morning as it warms my bones and fills up my stomach. We also sometimes have soy milk from UPAVIM's factory (either plain, chocolate, or strawberry-flavored. An interesting note on drinks: in Guatemala if you ask for
agua (water), it usually means a soda or carbonated beverage. If you want bottled water, you need to ask for
agua pura (pure water).
Another popular food here is
tamales, a corn dough which is first wrapped in plantain leaves and then boiled. They can also have fillings or other things cooked inside it. The one in the picture below has small bits of
chipilín (some sort of plant native to Central America). One of the women here at UPAVIM makes the most delicious
tamales which her son and his friend sometimes bring around the building to sell. Every time they come upstairs I can't resist buying one (even if I'm not hungry).
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| tamales de chipilín with atol de plátano |
One interesting version of tamales are
chuchitos in which the filling is a
recado flavored meat (usually chicken or pork), and are wrapped in corn husks.
Recado is the term used for a tomato-based sauce spiced with chile and sesame seeds.
The funniest "Guatemalan" food I've come across is
tostadas con chao mein. I say "Guatemalan" with quotations, because
chao mein is obviously not of Guatemalan origin, yet I've heard from my coordinator that there are people who consider it Guatemalan, especially when served on top of
tostadas (which are a bit like open faced hard taco shells). I was quite amused at the notion at first, but we had it for breakfast one day, and it was, I must admit, my favorite breakfast we’ve had so far.
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| chao mein on top of tostadas |
Other than that we'll also have a lot of eggs (either fried, hardboiled, or scrambled, and served with
salsa), cereal with banana, and fried
plátanos (plantains) with cream. Students will typically eat with just one utensil (a spoon), if they eat with one at all. Otherwise they use either bread, a
tortilla, or just their hands.
The lunches we've had resemble Filipino cuisine for me. On my first week here my coordinator cooked us a chicken soup dish which smelled and looked almost like
tinola, but tasted very different. The cuisine is similar to Filipino food in the sense that there are a lot of stews and soups (with vegetables like carrots and potatoes), though the taste is quite different. We do eat quite a lot of rice here (not as much as back home, obviously, but enough so that I don't miss it), and
frijoles, of course. The picture on the left is a
caldo (broth) with beef (which reminded me of
nilaga), and the one on the left has some typical
frijoles and
arroz.
My favorite dish that I've had so far is
pepián, which a quick Google search will tell you is Guatemala's "national dish." I don't think I could ever be a food blogger because I'm terrible at describing food (I just like to eat), but here goes...
pepián is a stew made with roasted spices containing meat and vegetables. Below you'll see potatoes, carrots, and green beans, though the last time we had it there was also squash, and if I remember right, corn on the cob. The sauce is quite thick, and is made of toasted squash seeds, sesame seeds, chiles, and peppercorns which are then added to tomatoes, garlic, and onion, ending up with a spicy and rich taste. It pairs well with rice, and is also commonly served with tortillas.
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| pepián de pollo |
There is also a lot of produce that is similar to that in the Philippines. There are a bunch of tropical fruits such as bananas and plantains, papaya, pineapples, and mangoes, and they also have chico, tamarind, and mangosteen here, though I have yet to see the latter in the market. The mangoes here are pretty sweet and yellow, though of course, for me, nothing beats Philippine mangoes. There is always a huge variety of fresh fruits (and vegetables, but I'm not too keen on those haha) to choose from at the market which is really nice.
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| fruits in the market |
Speaking of fruits, when avocados are in season they can cost as low as 1Q (US$0.13 or Php7) for a small avocado!
Guacamol is also a favorite and common in Guatemalan cuisine.
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| small avocados for 1Q |
On the streets, it's prevalent for freshly sliced fruits to be sold (in little plastic bags). Green mangoes are common here too (much like in the Philippines), but are traditionally spiced with salt, lime and
pepita.
Pepitoria (or sometimes just
pepita) is a powder that comes from roasting and mashing squash seeds (
pepitas), and is used to garnish a lot of fruits and food here.
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| green mango |
On street food: Guatemala has a nice variety of street food which is cheap and tasty.
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| different kinds of snacks at the Central Market in Guatemala City |
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| along the streets in Antigua |
Popular eats are deep fried foods such as
dobladas or
pupusas. While
dobladas are usually folded (a bit like an empanada shape),
pupusas remain round and flat but are still stuffed with filling before being cooked.
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| street food in the market |
Another loved snack here is tostadas, which are like open faced hard taco shells that are topped with a variety of ingredients. Toppings can range from guacamol to frijoles volteados (refried beans) to pico de gallo (chopped tomatoes and onions) to chicharrones or carnitas to salad (Russian salad or radish salad are popular) and plenty of other things.
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| a tostada with guacamol, cilantro, onions, and a little bit of salsa |
A heavier food that is common are tacos and gringas. Tacos here are not hard-shelled like how we have them back in the Philippines, but are made with soft corn tortillas. They're served open faced, but then you eat them rolled or folded (picture on the left). Gringas are similar to tacos but with a bigger flour tortilla and with cheese, and is usually served wrapped (picture on the right).
I tend to crave salty snacks more than sweets, but the other day I tried some buñuelos, a deep fried pastry which is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
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| hot buñuelos |
They were served with a light syrup (hidden underneath the buñuelos in the picture below), made of water, sugar, and anise seeds. They were pretty good; very light and not too sweet.
Last but not least, a favorite among the kids and the sweet-toothed: granizadas. These are shaved ice snacks (much like a snow cone) that are flavored with fruits, syrups, juice, and/or condensed milk. Interestingly, you can also get a salty granizada. A lot of my students love to get theirs with green mango, salt, and lime juice, and sprinkled with pepitoria. In the picture below you have a sweet strawberry-flavored granizada on the left, and a salty one on the right.
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| granizadas |
That's just a bit of the food here (and my mouth is watering just writing this). Another post in the future when I try more of Guatemalan cuisine. :)
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