Nica Comida

Realized I haven´t really talked about Nicaragua food yet. It´s good. Lots of black beans and lots of white rice. The main dish here is gallo pinto, which is rice and beans, more rice than beans. it´s a good staple, a little dry in my opinion, but compliments other goods. It´s only served at breakfast and dinner, not lunch. You´ll still get rice and beans at lunch, but not together as gallo pinto

I´m pretty lucky with the food I´ve had in my house. My host mom gives me a variety of foods and usually pretty balanced meals.

For breakfast, I normally have eggs, fried or scrambled, beans, rice, or bread(basically the only bread we have here is white bread rolls). Some mornings I´ll have fruit and bread. The main fruits I have are watermelon and amazing cantaloupe(reminds me of New Jersey cantaloupe, it´s so sweet). Sometimes oranges, mandarins, or bananas for snacks.

Lunch is usually something like rice, chicken with veggies, and a plantain. The plantains I normally get are not that exciting. they´re like a starchy, heartier, flavorless banana. I tried the sweet ones recently, madura(so they´re ¨mature¨which means they are yellow skinned instead of green). They´re much better, sweet like the ones you get in the US.

Dinner is normally similar to lunch-rice, beans, and veggies. The veggies I´ve eaten are tomato, cucumber, beets, carrots, and a squash like veggie called chayote. Some highlights from my dinners have been: torta de espinaca or a spinach omelete, fried yucca= potato chips out of yucca, quesilla a thick tortilla with melted cheese on top, and popusas, small thick homemade tortillas with beans and cheese.

Other people drinks lots of refrescos but we don´t have them in our house. I have had homemade OJ and watermelon juice. My host mom made them simple or without sugar, which I liked better than with sugar.

Outside of my home, I´ve really only tried smoothies and pizza. One of our favorite places to go is this little cafe that serves batidos or smootheis. I´ve tried cantaloup & strawberry, but my favorite is zapote. Zapote is a kind of fruit with a pink/orange inside and a big pit. Looks kind of like a small coconut on the outside-rough skin. Tastes like a chocolatey, cinnamony strawberry smoothie.

Last weekend I went to the 2 popular piza places in Jinotepe. One, Pizzeria Coliseo, was really good and pretty expensive. Lonely Planet actually recommends it. We really enjoyed it. It probably wasn´t that expensive in US $, but I think in terms of cordobas now. And a large pizza with 2 toppings cost 180cords... so what, is that like $9? I only get like 300cords a week, so blowing a lot of money on pizza wasn´t the best idea. I also went to Togo, which has cheaper, gooey pizza. Still good, but I´m not a pizza elitist. But nothing will ever be as good as Cheeseboard or Zachary´s in my mind.