AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com

Back in April the Guatemalan government, following the lead taken by Colombia and Venezuela some years ago, issued the Ley de Transito-Motocicletas decreto 105-2009 (PDF file) which, simply stated, stipulates one person per motorbike.

At the time 6 out of every 10 murders in Guatemala were reportedly being carried out by gunmen on two wheels.

Bike owners were given exactly two months to equip themselves with a standard reflective waistcoat on the rear of which the registration number of their vehicle had to be clearly emblazoned. It also had to be stuck onto the back of their helmets — which for many must have meant acquiring this particular protective headgear for the first time.

For some, security’s (and safety’s) gain has been the economy’s loss, particularly the economy of families who liked to get around en masse on their moto. There have been huelgas de motociclistas (biker strikes) in various parts of the country and opponents of the new law can sign up for a Facebook cause called ‘Súbete a mi moto Guatemala‘ — Get on my bike Guatemala!

Now some of you may have noticed a patchier observance of this mandate here in La Antigua Guatemala. I’ve asked around and have been told that in fact, while the individualised helmet and waistcoats are still compulsory here, it is only in the eight administrative districts of Guatemala City that are you likely to attract the hefty Q1000 ($120) fine for carrying a passenger on your bike. I have to say I’m not entirely sure about this, and by the look of things I’m not alone.

This pic shows a pile of courier’s helmets at Domino’s Pizza just before closing time. One things for sure, the “30 minutos o gratis” decree is still very much in force here.

text and photo by Guy Howard.

Back in January Rudy marked his 1000th post with a pic of pacaya cooked in egg batter and duly polled readers for their interest in a series on comidas envueltas en huevo. There did seem to be some enthusiasm for this at the time, so I thought I’d relate here how my wife and I cooked up some ejotes envueltos for lunch recently.

This light vegetarian treat is very easy to prepare, especially if you possess an electric whisk. (Unfortunately ours appears to have gone AWOL.)

It’s also a very typical local dish. We were inspired to make ours after being served it up by some Guatemalan friends just a few days earlier — though our version has one or two Mediterranean touches.

French beans (ejotes) have been a common sight on Guatemalan tables for generations, but production in the highlands was increased dramatically during the 80s along with that of other so-called non-traditional export crops (NTXs) such as sugar snap and snow peas, radicchio and baby carrots — thanks largely to the ministrations of external development agencies.

Preparation:

Start by boiling or steaming some thin French beans; just enough to soften them up. Then whisk up the whites of several eggs — we used three for our pound of ejotes.

After about ten minutes your arm will be sore and your egg whites will have have fluffed up such that you can hold the bowl upside down over your head with some confidence.

Now add the yolks and stir very gently with a fork until the colour and texture of the mixture are consistent. Add some salt and pepper according to taste.

At this stage you need to decide how messy you want your hands to get. The authentic Guatemalan chef will have pinched the ends off the beans and organised them into little piles, consisting of approximately ten of roughly equal length. These will be picked up individually and manually dunked into the egg mix and thereafter deposited immediately into a lightly-oiled frying pan.

Alternatively, you can place your bean maletitas on a separate plate and use a spoon to cover them. This is how we did it. We also used olive oil and as some of the egg mixture was left over, we dipped a sliced salad tomato into it and slipped that into the pan as well. (Onions and cauliflower can be treated similarly.)

Our egg-wrapped beans were flipped over once and removed from the heat as soon as they had begun to brown. Meanwhile, we had put a pound of plain white rice in a bowl with water and heated it in the microwave for ten minutes. After that we took it out, stirred it, added olive oil and some of the water left over from warming the beans, and then returned it to the microondas for another six minutes.

We then made a sauce by lightly frying some finely-chopped plum tomatoes, red peppers and white onions, before liquidising them with the rest of the ejote-infused water. We also tossed in some torn basil leaves. (Most of the basil — albahaca — I’ve found here ‘in the field’ tends to be the pungent purple-stemmed variety. I haven’t found many Guatemalans who like cooking with it.)

The ejotes envueltos, the rice and the sauce were then united on the plate, as pictured. The final touch was a sprinkling of an admittedly rather Old World condiment, Pimentón de La Vera (Spanish smoky paprika) — it’s a spice that goes down a real treat with many traditional Guatemalan snacks, most notably fried plantains. I even sneak a little into in my frijoles.

text and photo by Guy Howard.

Not a farol left over from last year’s posadas. Nor indeed a house of ill repute, except perhaps with regards to the quality of Guatemalan grub to be purchased there.

For whatever a doorway in a narrow, dark alley illuminated by little red lantern might mean back where you come from, here it means ‘come buy our tamales‘. Or as the locals might say: un lugar de chuchos… no para chuchos. It’s a sight you are most likely to see on a Saturday evening; a traditional time for tamal consumption.

Similarly, whenever you see a house in La Antigua with a red flag flying above the doorway, think not that its occupants are bravely holding out for an increasingly unlikely sort of radical social shake-up, for this is in fact the kind of place where carnivores will encounter choice cuts of red meat (carne de res). So, not particularly right on! at all.

text and photo by Guy Howard.

About Guest Contributor: Guy Howard is a writer/blogger, digital media consultant, native Londoner, media analyst and private investor who this month celebrates the twentieth anniversary of his first visit to La Antigua Guatemala. Married to the local girl he met back then, he and his wife have maintained a house in the city since the end of the last millennium.