Food

So I love food! All of us SM’s love food. So much so that I’m pretty sure it’s our favorite topic. We talk about food we are craving all the time: before meals, while we are eating, when we’re going somewhere, when we are washing dishes, so yeah all the time! The food here pretty much consists of rice, pasta, potatoes, beans, eggs, and platano (that is, at least for the non-meat eaters). Whenever we go out to eat, rice and some form of beans or potatoes or eggs are served, with fried platano as a side. Usually soup is served, but since it has chunks of beef or chicken floating in it, I usually ask for a salad instead. Ok, so the salads are soo delicious. Lots of fresh, crisp vegetables. Mmmm…..cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, lots of avocado (yumm), carrots, etc. The salads are soo good-and without any salad dressing except lemon juice and salt!! I am so thankful that we are able to have fresh vegetables that taste great and are inexpensive! The fruit is really good too, though right now there isn’t any really in season except for platano (which I’m pretty sure doesn’t ever go out of season). Pineapple and mango season is coming up really soon, like next month, so I can’t waith for those fruits!! I’m learning to like papaya. I’ve found that the more yellowish looking variety tastes pretty good. We can also get mandarins and oranges, which are quite tasty but also full of seeds! We also have fruit salads, though not as often as vegetable.

Peruvian food has a strong Chinese influence. Soy sauce is used quite frequently in dishes. In Pucallpa, there are quite a number of Chinese restaurants. Some of them are quite touristy and more expensive, but others are quite economical. Lunch today was called Arroz Chaufa, pretty much Chinese fried rice. It’ definitely a favorite dish among us SM’s and Peruvian workers. There is also a pasta dish that is very similar to Chinese Chow Mein. It’s really good!! We found this one restaurant that serves this pasta dish and also the Arroz Chaufa for really cheap. I have never seen so much pasta piled onto one plate in my life---all for 3.50 soles or just over $1!! It was huge. I’ll have to post a picture sometime!!

I’m so excited to share all this amazing food when I get back to the states! So much great food, I’m really happy that I’m not tired of beans and rice yet. It’s kind of hard to cause there are many different ways to cook rice and since I’m hungry I’m not gonna complain!

Breakfast usually consists of fruit, bread, hot chocolate/roma type drink called Ecco, and hot cereal. Now, Peruvian hot cereal is quite thin. Normally it’s the drink and suplimented by rice and beans and fried platano. Sometimes we’ll have a sweet rice porridge type thing and so thats good. Eggs are really cheap and so sometimes, like this morning, we’ll make eggs and potatoes.

Lunch is the biggest meal of the day and is usually salad, rice and beans, and some form of potato or fried platano or boiled yuca. Yuca is a really starchy version of potato. It’s solid stuff. At first I thought it was pretty gross, but it’s growing on me and it’s quite good now!

Dinner is usually pretty small with popcorn, tea/Ecco, bread and fruit.