Sunday, March 14, 2010

Hot Pepper Colombian Style

This time last year I was in Colombia on a short-term Fulbright grant. I lectured at a local university, visited various community-based organizations, lived with a wonderful family, and ate delicious food. My host family consisted of a mother (Lorena), her young son and daughter in one apartment and her parents upstairs in another apartment. We lived across the street from the university and walked back and forth to campus. Lorena’s parents (Faneth and Emilio), especially Emilio, prepared all the food. Talk about fresh, colorful, nutritious, and tasty. I loved it!!

A typical day started with breakfast, a hearty lunch, and a light dinner. My first breakfast included papaya, mango, and guanabana, grilled cheese/meat sandwich, orange juice, and coffee. After a couple of days I had to ask my host family to cut back on the breakfast because it was too much food for me. I’m usually a yogurt, little bit of granola, coffee breakfast eater.

Lunch was the highlight of the day. Lorena and I would walk home and up to her parents’ apartment. On March 4, I overslept a bit and didn’t get to campus until 9:45 a.m. I ate just a little pineapple, a slice of cheese, a cracker, and hot chocolate. I walked to campus alone for the first time (my host family was very protective). By lunch time I was starving. The food looked so good that I had to take a picture.

My March 4 lunch included pan fried chicken breast fillet; rice with fried vermicelli; plantain torte (cheese, milk, egg, flour, plantain); and avocado salad with chopped tomato, onion, green pepper, salt, lemon, vinegar. I ate two helpings of rice and salad. Afterwards we had coffee and a cookie (tasted like shortbread) and then they brought me some shaved coconut mixed with sugar and milk. Everything was delicious!!

March 5
Breakfast: papaya and mango, coffee, cheese and toast
Lunch: chicken and rice (arroz con pollo), beet salad, sweet plantain, juice, coffee

March 6
Breakfast: Activia strawberry yogurt, papaya and mango
Lunch: slivers of beef, lentils, rice, and plantain, fresh guava juice, coffee, and chocolate fudge-like dessert made with chocolate milk, lemon and sugar. Delicious!!

It was after this meal that I noticed how much coffee I was drinking each day, but it was because it tasted so good. Emilio made coffee from scratch. He roasted fresh coffee beans, constantly stirring them in a pot on a stove for about 20 minutes. He ground them in a blender; then brewed the coffee. You truly tasted the essence of the coffee, which is probably why I drank so much and drank it black with just a little sugar.

March 7
Breakfast: mango, papaya, Activia yogurt with pitaya (a local fruit)
Lunch: slices of marinated beef, rice, patacon` (fried green plantain), green beans and green onion cooked together

March 9
Lunch: lentils and rice cooked together, potatoes with some kind of sauce (I forgot to ask what), fried chicken (yes), and carrot salad. Lorena exclaimed, “an orange lunch!” I took a picture.

March 10
Breakfast: a little fruit, coffee and cornmeal based pancake filled with cheese
Lunch: cow tongue, rice cooked with plantain; cucumber and tomato salad; yucca prepared thinly, formed into a donut shape and fried. The juice was made from corn. I loved the food; the juice was an acquired taste.
Dinner: I drank water for the first time in a long while. Colombians drink “natural juices” more than water. I also had carimanola, something similar to a samosa but made with yucca as the outer shell and potato with a little meat as the filling. It also could be filled with cheese.

March 12
Breakfast: mango, papaya, coffee
Lunch: fried red Tilapia (whole), coconut rice, tomato and avocado salad, 2 patacon`, juice. I had started eating when Lorena’s mom reminded me to take a picture. I flipped my fish over to get a before-eaten picture!

During my two weeks in Colombia I ate a total of 3 junk food items; lemon flavored chips, lemon flavored chips with plantain and chicharron (pork rinds), and a strawberry soda. That’s what good, fresh food does to you. It diminishes your desire to eat junk.

March 13
Breakfast: empanada with a fried soft egg inside, mango, and coffee. For someone who doesn’t like fried eggs, I ate the whole thing. First, it actually tasted good. Second, I couldn’t see myself wasting any food there.

After breakfast Emilio took me to the Plaza Minorista, a huge food distribution center. It was magnificent and I could have spent the whole day there. The place was divided into sections by the type of food – fruit, vegetables, beans, bread, fish, and meat. And goodness did I see meat, whole pigs strung up, being carved up on the spot, and everything displayed in trays from the usual (intestines, chops, ribs) to the not so usual for American eyes (scrotum, nuts, pancreas, eyes)!! Cows were on display the same way. Nothing was wasted. Amazingly there was a smell, but it wasn’t that bad, probably because the meat was so fresh. I took several pictures. I also took pictures of different varieties of avocadoes, mangoes, pineapples, oranges packaged in mesh and strung up looking like balls of chimes, lemons, limes, carrots and potatoes neatly packaged in plastic bags, huge meaty fish sliced and presented like accordions, and pyramids of berries, kiwi, and plums.

Afterwards, we walked across the street and I bought two utensils, one for cutting plantain, the other for flattening them into patacon`. It was a wonderful morning and a fantastic way to begin my departure from Colombia.

In 2001, the Capital Area Food Bank published “From Farm to Table, Making the Connection in the Mid-Atlantic Food System.” It described the flow of food from local farms to distribution to consumption and food access. Seeing the Plaza Minorista made me want to learn more about how food is distributed in my area. Next stop for me will be a visit to my local food distribution center in Jessup, MD. Once farmers markets open up in spring, I’ll be off to see them as well. You’re welcome to come along.