Cooking and Eating Costa Rican Style

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Pictures: Some street scenes  and cooking class photos at the end of this posting.

Weather report: It did NOT rain today! In fact, it was partly sunny when we left for school today! Yay! However, it was cloudy when we arrived in town and stayed overcast and pretty windy all day...but at least it was dry.

I couldn't wear my jacket to school today because it was still wet from yesterday's downpour. No one here has a clothes dryer. Washing machines, yes; but no clothes dryers. Everything gets hung on the line to dry, which means during the rainy season one may have to wait awhile for clean clothes. The mother of the house washes our clothes, but we have been advised to give her a couple of days notice so we don't run out of clean clothes before the laundry has a chance to dry in el aire libre (outdoors.)

National Holiday: Today was a dia feriado (a national holiday), celebrating the annexation of an area west of here known as Guanacaste. I have been told the people there are native tribes so to speak and would like to be their own country, but the area is too small. They had to choose between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and they chose to be annexed to Costa Rica. (Wise choice). This happened about 70 years ago or so. Los nicaraguenses (Nicaraguans) aren't too happy and think they should be part of their country, but too bad, so sad, they aren't. Anyway, a lot of people didn't have to work today and the public schools were closed, so the commute to town was easy this morning. (We DID have school today.)

Emilio, the son of Marcia (the teacher at our school and daughter in the family here) had to dress up as a campesino (person from the country/not a city dweller) for school yesterday to participate in a play about the annexation of Guanacaste. Campesinos dress in traditional clothing: sandals, short pants with red bandana tied around their waist, white shirt, and straw hat. Well, Emilio is about 7 years old and has very definite feelings about how things should be, especially when it comes to socks. He does not like to be without his socks (even at the beach.) He had a melt-down when he was told he could not wear socks with his sandals yesterday. It has been the talk of the family for days. They were afraid he would sneak socks to school in his mochila (backpack) or somehow have a fit once he got there.  But when the big day came yesterday, with tears in his eyes, he dutifully walked to his microbus at 6:30 yesterday morning without his socks for his ride to school. As it turns out, once he got to school and saw the other campesinos without socks, he was fine, and proudly said his lines in the school play.

Ugly Americans: Although the school has students from all over the world, there are more Americans than other international students. The great majority are very kind and well-behaved, but I had the misfortune today to experience two who definitely fit under the category of ugly American: rude, brash, arrogant:

UA #1:  Remember the man in my conversation class yesterday who butchered the language so badly? One of his classmates said he is totally disrupting their class by arriving upwards of 30 minutes late, expecting the teacher to fill him in on what he missed, interrupting her constantly, and dropping the f-bomb and other choice words in class. He happened to show up to the cooking class I took today and was swearing all over the place. Ugh!

UA#2: As we were introducing ourselves in one of the classes today, we were supposed to say our name and where we are from...in Spanish. The woman next to me said she was from Egipto (Egypt). A very brash, loud-mouthed young woman immediately blurted out in English, "What the hell is that?"  I think everyone was embarrassed; I know I was. Someone told her that it was the Spanish word for the country of Egypt. The young woman was unphased and didn't seem to realize how rude she was and how uncomfortable she probably made the Egyptian feel.

TRAVEL TIP OF THE DAY: Don't be an Ugly American when traveling abroad.

Cooking Class: Every Wednesday a cooking class is offered at the school. A woman comes to the school and teaches us how to make traditional Costa Rican food. Today we made empanadas.
The entire class was conducted in Spanish, as is everything at the school. We mashed 6 cooked platanos maduros (ripe plaintains-- like bananas, only bigger and harder),  and mixed in 1/4 kilo of grated queso blanco (white cheese) and 1 taza (cup) of harina (flour). We took that dough and formed balls, which we then flattened into a tortilla shape. We filled each "tortilla" with a little more grated cheese and mashed 1 lata (can) of black beans (yes, I had more beans today!). Then you fold it half and pinch the edges together and fry it in oil until it is well-browned. Very delicious! The sweet taste of the plantains with the cheese and beans was an interesting combination. Culturally, I learned that these empanadas can be made as a dessert as well by adding either vanilla or sprinkling with cinnamon. They are sort of an equivalent to our coffee cake. They invite friends over in the afternoon for empanadas and a cup of coffee.

Dinner: Our dinners have now taken on a more international flare with the addition of Pauline, the woman from France that I mentioned in yesterday's blog posting. We had 3 different languages going tonight at dinner as she struggled to translate words from French to either Spanish or English.
Kesa was talking about foods from the south, such as collard greens and pigs feet (I guess we could say there was a 4th language) and we were trying to translate not only what Kesa was talking about, but Pauline's descriptions of French food and the traditional Costa Rican food on the table. I learned that chicharrones (Pork Rinds) come in different styles. When I said I didn't like them because they taste like greasy air, Jennifer told me that chicharrones de carne are the best and I would like them. It sounds like they will be bringing them into the house for us to try.

We had a salad of sliced Bok Choy mixed with chopped tomatoes and corn tonight. It sounds gross, but it was actually pretty good. Did you know that Bok Choy is called mostaza china (Chinese mustard) in Spanish? We also had baked chicken pieces (meat is not a big part of the meal---more of a condiment with just small pieces served), some kind of salsa made of a vegetable that I have never heard of before (ajote, I think?), and rice.

After dinner Pauline showed us some pictures from her Facebook account of their home in Provence, in the south of France. It is a lovely, traditional French cottage.

Kesa, mama Mayra, and her daughter Jennifer and I laughed for over an hour over the antics of children. We swapped stories about the funny things our children or grandchildren have done. I haven't laughed so hard in months as I did tonight. Jennifer was telling us funny stories about being the youngest in the family. Her brother Jorge (he fixed my computer) is 15 years older than her and Marcia is 9 years older. Some of the things they did to her were typical, funny big-brother-picks-on-little-sister stuff. Once when they went to the beach and it was Jennifer's first time at the beach, Jorge and Mayra told Jennifer that everytime a wave rolled in she should open her mouth. After 15 minutes of that, Jennifer was vomiting and her parents were like, "What the heck?" I laughed and laughed at her stories. I told them about the time Billy was 2 years old and said to a scraggly man with a beard at the bank, "Hi Jesus. I go to church."  They really cracked up over that!

Progress: I can't believe how fast I have learned to understand most of what is said to me. I have heard Spanish from sun up to sun down for 5 days now and it really makes a difference. If I don't understand something I can usually pick out the word that I don't know and ask for clarification. When we were telling stories and laughing so much after dinner tonight, it felt really good to understand the stories, especially well enough to get the humor and laugh.

However, I still struggle with putting my thoughts together to say things. Some things just roll off my tongue so easily; others are sputtered out hesitantly. It just depends on the theme of the conversation. Speaking seems to be the last piece to come together for most language learners and I'm told it will get easier the more I practice. Although I am by nature more reserved, I am really pushing myself to speak as much as I can with as many people as I can. When I go to school, I speak to the bus driver, security guard, the receptionist, the teacher, and all the students in Spanish. I use Spanish at the mall, the bank, the store, & at church. I'm trying really hard to obtain a higher level of fluency.

Cooking class: mashing the platanos



Above: Frying the empanadas
Below: the finished product!

The buses like to get real close to each other. View from inside my bus.

Street scene at rush hour

Above: Some guys saw me taking pictures and motioned for me to take theirs!
Below: For WILL. The local police out and about.