Food & Drinks

Guatemalan Fair: The French Fries Stall

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Papas fritas is the Guatemalan Spanish name for French fries. Here is the abbreviated history that gave us the Guatemalan french fries stall: first the Quechuas or Incas domesticated the potato (Solanum tuberosum) into a crop in southern Peru and northern Bolivia; the Spanish conquistadors took it to Europe where it was an instant hit and along with maize turned a famine-prone population into a healthy society; somewhere in one of the northern European states, quite possibly Germany, the potato lost its skin and got deep-fried; This Eurpean recipe crossed the Atlantic with the new immigrants that came to U.S. and since it was a foreign-looking recipe, they called it French fries (remember Coneheads); so the French fries came to Guatemala along one of the many incursions from the United Stateians (Americans they seem to call themselves 😉 ) as a side dish for the hamburger or the hot dog. Guatemalans thought that French fries were too good to be side dish and turned it into a meal by itself. That is how the papas fritas cart came to be.

Guatemalan Fair: The Pizza Kiosk

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A recent addition to the Guatemalan Fair zoo is the pizza kiosk. Just like many other aspect of modern Guatemala idiosyncrasy, pizza has come to stay, but it must evolve, just like chinese food. So the typical Guatemalan town fair pizza is made from a less tasteful dough, only mozzarella cheese and ham; nothing more. You get your slice and normally ad ketchup to it. The Guatemalan town fair pizza stand is, almost invariable, managed by one or tow young indigenous teenagers or young adults with a taste for extremely heavy rock metal music which they blast from a portable boom box. The pizza booth may have posters describing their pepperoni or salami pizza even though they only sell ham pizza. Go figures!

Guatemalan Fair: The Churreria Stand

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A town fair is not a fair without the churros. A churreria is the place where they make churros; [CHOOR-roh] Similiar to a cruller, this Spanish, Mexican and Guatemalan specialty consists of a sweet-dough spiral that is deep-fried and eaten like a doughnut. Churros are usually coated with a mixture of cinnamon and confectioners’ (or granulated) sugar (source Answers.com). Just about now after looking the Guatemalan churrerí­a, I got the cravings for a cinnamon-covered bag of churros, would you like an order too? If you don’t have a sweet tooth, you can always have plataninas, poporopos, chicharrines, and anillos frescos y calientes; your choice.

Guatemalan Fair: The Typical Booth

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We continue the photographic tour of a Guatemalan town fair with a typical booth. Since the inflated toys and balloons are very obvious, we will play the game of naming everything else that you see on the table. I will get you started with the bags of peanuts on the left. Now it is your turn, name as many things as you can recognize. Let the game begin!

Guatemalan Cuisine: Revolcado de Panza

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Traditional Guatemalan cuisine refuses to be phased out in favor of international fast food like hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs and chinese food. Even though foreign fast food is convenient, it lacks the complexity in flavors that Guatemalan dishes have. Even a simple dish like Revolcado de Panza, a sort of tomato-based curry with spices and cow’s underbelly brings forth an avalanche of flavors, textures and feelings to the taste buds.

Traditional Guatemalan dishes take a long time to be prepared, sometimes even weeks like the Fiambre (a cold-cuts salad), so they can not compete with fast food junk food in the time of preparation. But who says they have to be prepared the moment you show up to order it? That is fine for sandwiches, but Guatemalan traditional meals are sold by having a ready-made buffet where one can go and just order portions.

The Guatemalan Chevere Hot Dog Cart

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“Chevere” is a Venezuelan Spanish word which means cool, fine, excelent, okay, just to mention a few of its meaning. Well, about the origin of the chevere word, I don’t know; perhaps it is not even Venezuelan. Nonetheless, the word is understood and used in Central America.

In Guatemala, a company of hot dogs decided to use as its name in the late seventies or early eighties. The company did things right and it was a total hit and the Chevere brand became almost as omnipresent as Coca Cola, Pepsi and the Gallo Beer. It was everywhere.

Guatemalan Sweet Bread Sampler – One Year Anniversary

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What about the Guatemalan Sweet Bread?
Oh yeah, I am rambling again. In the photo above you see one of things Guatemalans abroad miss the most: Sweet Guatemalan Bread. I have talked about cutting a cake for this anniversary, but then I decided to shared the poor Guatemalans alternative: La Torta, this huge sweet bread, takes the place of the cake for many Guatemalan families. Also, as suggested by some friends, I decided to include other pieces of the Guatemalan sweet bread repertoire for all those chapines abroad. In Guatemala, we dip the bread in the coffee, as described by Manolo in LD’s entry about Miss Manners International. Since Manolo can not find champurradas (the flat tortilla-like bread in the picture) in Toronto, he dips his cookies in the coffee. I hope you don’t get grossed out by my dipping the bread in the coffee; I am doing it for the full impact on those Guatemalans who live abroad and visit this site infrequently.

The sweet Guatemalan bread in this picture comes from a very popular bakery in La Antigua Guatemala by the name of San Antonio, which stills uses brick ovens and wooden logs. The bread is baked freshly twice a day and with the best recipes from La Antigua Guatemala, the culinary capital of Guatemala. Sweet bread dipped in a cup of the best coffee in the world (from Antigua, of course), what else can you ask from life?

Name All the Tropical Fruits

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One of the things I like best about La Antigua Guatemala is its location. One hour or less from Guatemala City and the Pacific Ocean, about two hours or less from the most beautiful lake in the world: Lake Atitlán (according to Alexander von Humboldt). A little under three hours from Quetzaltenango or Xela like … Read more

Guatemalan Cuisine Sampler

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Nowhere is Guatemala’s syncretism more evident than in its food. Here you have a sampler of what is considered authentic traditional Guatemalan dishes, yet you can see Chinese fried rice and chow mein, French roll sandwiches fill with Spanish-style pierna (leg), Russian potato salad, buche and tomato salad, revolcado Guatemalan curry, Guatemalan tacos (fried flautas), … Read more

Guatemalan Jars at the Artisans Fair

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One of the things that caught by viewfinder at the artisans fair was sweets and pickles in the jars. Although this photo is not as colorful as Olivia’s Pickels from Istanbul Daily Photo, it shows some of the fruits and vegetables very popular in Guatemala like Nisperos (the yellow fruit jars also known as Loquat), … Read more

Guatemalan Cuisine: Pepian

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Yesterday I talked about meeting people and having lunch at La Fuente Restaurant, which is a restaurant I visit often because of their economic daily menu. La Fuente Restaurant is next door to Doña Luisa Xicotencatl, one of Antigua’s landmark. La Fuente’s menu is basically a mixture between Tex-Mex and Italian foods, but for their … Read more

Ice Cream Handcarts around Parque Central

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Blame it on the weather. Ice cream handcarts have appeared, like mushrooms, around Parque Central in Antigua. There are all kinds ice cream carts. Here you see the two handcarts for one of Guatemala’s national ice cream chain. Countdown side note: Today’s entry is number 292 so far and we continue with a countdown to … Read more

Wok’n Roll Chinese delivery

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Chinese food is one of those things one can find anywhere in the world, yet it is never the same. Here you can see a Moo Goo Gai Pan combo with an egg roll and fried rice. I hope, one day, to have ‘Real’ Chinese Food in Hong Kong or Shanghai while visiting Lisi or … Read more