Guatemalan Flavors in a Jar: Jocón
The problem with many authentic Guatemalan dishes is that they are not very portable or sometimes the recipes are so complex and …
The problem with many authentic Guatemalan dishes is that they are not very portable or sometimes the recipes are so complex and …
The Guatemalan shuco hot dog comes with guacamol (avocado sauce), boiled cabbage, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, mustard, hot sauce, and one or more …
These also make Guatemalans hot! 😉 In Guatemala there are at least two words you can use when referring to pickled foods: …
Right at midnight on December 24th/25th, baby Jesus is put in the Nacimiento scene set up on December 8th (do you remember?). …
We’re Hombres de Maíz. Follow the white rabbit and you’ll know why! Corderos (lambs) made from tusa (dried corn husk) are very …
Dobladas (turned over) is our last meal at the Virgen of Guadalupe Celebrations. Dobladas are made from nixtamalized masa (maize dough) like tortillas, but other ingredients are added before the masa dish is folded over itself and cooked. The ingredients that are added to the doblada are normally ground pork rinds, cheese, mashed potatoes, whole beans, et-cetera, but could be anything really. For instance I would like to find dobladas with cheese and loroco flowers; that would be very tasteful. Dobladas are normally fried or cooked over a comal (griddle made from cooked clay); just like tortillas. Dobladas are very similar to pupusas, except they are turned over. Check out the giant pupusas or Mayan pizza photos. Once dobladas ared cooked they are top with repollo salad (cabbage salad or coleslaw), tomato sauce and/or chile sauce (hot and spicy sauce).
Well, chiles rellenos are not just a Christmas seasonal food since they are available everyday, 24×7 in Guatemala. Last year I described Guatemalan chiles rellenos like this:
But like in anything else in life, something good emerged from such a tragic history. Fried plantains, rellenitos (fried plantain mass filled with black beans), atol de platano (plantain-based hot and thick drink) and even the wrappings of traditional Guatemalan tamal came from the banana trees. Man, I could on and on talking about bananas recipes and dishes in Guatemala like Bubba did in Forest Gump about shrimp.
I begun photographing Guatemalan dishes especially for those S&M Guatemalans who live abroad and for those people interested in a Latin American …
The charcoal-grilled meat stall has gotten so hip that you now find it not only in fairs, but around La Antigua Guatemala in parks, markets and sidewalks. Back in February 20th, 2007, I showed you an extremely popular stall of grilled meats in Tanque de la Unión park from a bird’s eye point of view. In the picture above, chicken and beef steak were being offered along broiled potatoes. Q10 ($1.25) for a portion of the meat of your choice, chirmol (read the side note), guacamol and potatoes; definitely, not too bad of a deal.
On the weekends the center garden around the fountain in La Fuente strip mall and restaurant is carpeted by Guatemalan textiles on …
A few Guatemalans living abroad asked for photos of tamales colorado (red) and negro (black) made especially for Christmas Eve and Christmas …
Chipilín is this Guatemalan herb with a very unique flavor and aroma. In the Guatemalan cuisine, one finds in all kind dishes, …
What came first, pacayas or pacaya volcano? Right now, pacayas are in season and found in the mercados through of Guatemala. In …
At lunch time one can find stands of food vendors pop up at street corners or around parks in Antigua Guatemala. These …
Here’s your Mayan word of the day: Ik or hot, spicy, or picante in Spanish. You find the word Ik at the …
As I have mentioned before, it is impossible to think of the Guatemalan, Mexican and Mesoamerican diet without maize. From the Popul …
The question should be, when was the last time you visited San Juan del Obispo? If the answer is not recently or …
Okay everyone, let start 2014 with new goals for AntiguaDailyPhoto, more series, more people, more #RealGuatemala [let’s create a hashtag and category …
Black beans are such a staple of the Guatemalan cuisine that a cook or chef only needs to add them to a …
Well, it looks like the Guatemalan fiambre is taking off as it’s being covered by publications abroad such as Saveur Magazine. Here’s …
As I explained before, carnitas is the Guatemalan Spanish word for deep-fried chunks of pork meat. Chicharrones is the word for pork …
As I said before, it is impossible to think of the Guatemalan, Mexican and Mesoamerican diet without maize. From the Popul Vuh …
RWOrange put together a very comprehensive list of the restaurants and food I have covered in AntiguaDailyPhoto in Chowhound. Here’s the list …
This how imagine a parking lot looked like at the beginning of the 20th Century in La Antigua Guatemala. Nowadays, however, I …
This entry should be called “ephemerides updates” because there several events that happened this week. On Tuesday, kids everywhere celebrated carnaval, carnival, …
Gringas are tacos made with flour tortillas and cheese. For some unknown reason, gringas are very popular in Guatemala. Believe it or …
For three years I have focused on world-famous and omnipresent dish of Fiambre as the main food served for Day of the …
These caramelized apples are a good example of the syncretism found in the Guatemalan gastronomy. As Pascu mentioned yesterday, “I find Guatemalan …
It is impossible to think of the Guatemalan, Mexican and Mesoamerican diet without maize. From the Popul Vuh (Popol Wuj in modern …
Colorful Guatemala, I tell you, colorful Guatemala! Si ni los mismos guatemaltecos logramos entender la complejidad cultural en la que vivimos… —Ale …
Carnita is the Guatemalan Spanish word for chunks of meat from pork. Chicharrón is the word for pork rinds or deep-fried pork …
You can tell Ceviche is my favorite Guatemalan Cuisine dish if you search for the word ceviche or just browse the five …
I really like the naí¯f aspects of this sign. I like how the composition is trying very hard to include all the …
Nachos is what happens when you build upon the concept of the simple Guatemalan tostada de guacamol. Nachos are not a native …
Last time I showed rellenitos here, was a photograph taken at home with control conditions of light and presentation. The photo was …
I don’t know why the word salad brings all kinds of vegetables to mind. Fiambre is a salad, but it mostly has meats, all kinds: sausages, hams, chicken, sea food, meats pork and beef. It is Domino’s or Pizza Hut that has a meat lover’s pizza with a mere 5 meat. Move over meat lover’s pizza; fiambre has over 25 meats.
I think this Subway franchise will have to use its second slogan: The Way A Sandwich Should Be because the Eat fresh may not work in a place like Antigua Guatemala, where most places serve REAL fresh food. With all of these transnational fast-food restaurants in La Antigua Guatemala, we still have to make a run for the border or drive to Guatemala City if we’d like to think outside the bun while enjoying a bean and cheese burrito.
rusted plant pot, originally uploaded by rudygiron. On the opposite wall, the plant has taken over the whole wall. I do not …
Antigua’s red, originally uploaded by rudygiron. The restaurant La Fonda de la Calle Real is another of Antigua’s landmarks. You can find …
How was it, a room with a view or a lunch with a view? Well, here it was lunch with a panoramic …
As I have mentioned a few times before, Guatemalan food is so rich with stews. If the stews are watery we call …
Quite possibly the Maya have been eating avocado toasts for millennia or at least as long as they had realized that spreading …
27 Adentro Restaurant is serving up an exotic and delicious Costilla de cerdo en barbacoa con coco or pork’s barbecue ribs with coconut sauce slowly …
Some people erroneously believe that pupusas are only a dish from El Salvador. In one way or another the food known as …
I should say Garifuna style coconut bread, really, since that’s what this bread is. We could argue, of course, that Garifuna people …
I don’t remember if I have mentioned it before, but Guatemala has to be the worst place to try Mexican food. You …
I present to you the the güisquil root, a Guatemalan seasonal delicacy. The güisquil, Sechium educe, is usually the dark green pear …
One of the benefits of having a Banana Republic (not the clothing store, but the real thing!) is the tremendous amount of …
Panes con pollo, chevere hot dogs and shuco hot dogs are the sandwiches that are present at every town fair and velación, …
To the uneducated eye the Guatemalan Chevere and Shuco hotdogs are just exotic hotdogs, but to the Guatemalans these two hotdogs are …
Back on August I shared with you the presentation of Caldo de Gallina Criolla from Sabe Rico Restaurant in Antigua Guatemala. Criollo …
As every fist of the month, the Daily Photo community has a theme day and the color green is what was chosen …
La Antigua Guatemala is full of hidden treasures which are visible at plain view. One must be ready to look for them …
Can you picture yourself having a Sunday breakfast or brunch with a pot of hot coffee from La Antigua Guatemala and your …
The gourmet pizzas below are the creations of excutive chef of Santo Domingo restaurants Mario Enrique Campollo who is famous for creating …
Last week Jonathan Gold from LA Weekly and Evan Kleinman host of KCRW’s Good Food program did a review of La Cevicheria, …
Not a farol left over from last year’s posadas. Nor indeed a house of ill repute, except perhaps with regards to the …
Oh the photos look so much better with people in them, especially if they are smiling. 😉 If tostadas had a kingdom, …
I present to you the first güisquil, also known as chayote or perulero, from our back yard orchard. Güisquiles are such an …
Every once in a while you reach certain marks in your life and in your projects and they serve to mull over …
It just occurred to me that the United States is one of the largest Spanish-speaking countries since it has one of the largest populations of Spanish speakers. Spanish has been spoken in the U.S. from a time before its independence. And at the rate at which the Spanish-speaking population grows, faster than any other, you may have to hablar español sooner or después. Remember that you can always come to La Antigua Guatemala to take Spanish classes in the more than 65 Spanish Schools available in this tiny colonial town.
Sometimes things are so obvious that one doesn’t mull over them; that’s the way things are and you accept it. While taking …
By moving from one section of the mercado to another, we find that las floristerías (flower shops) are preparing the flower arrangements …
… Where do they all come from? It’s 10 in the morning, perhaps, MO can explain to us what all these people …
A couple of weeks ago I showed the Beer and Hamburger Combo from Flan Antigüeño and I mentioned how Guatemalans have a …
Do you really want a long name, here’s one: “Parroquia San Pedro Apostol, San Juan Bautista of San Pedro Las Huertas, La …
The Guatemalan way of life is rapidly disappearing right in front of our eyes. Today’s entry is such a case, as the …
Guatemalans have a tendency to adopt foreign foods easily, but always adding the Guatemalan twist. That’s how you explain shucos from hot …
Since Manolo needs to improve his tortilla making skills, I am posting this image to help him in the process. Even Carmen …
Once again here is a picture by request. See, Edgar got jealous because Carmen obtained a couple photos of rellenitos as requested, …
Are pirujos and shucos sandwiches getting out of hand? Come on, who can eat a sandwich this big. Just to clarify, the …
With November come the strong winds (Vientos fuertes would say Miguel Ángel Asturias). With the strong winds come the kites. With the kites come the celebrations of the day of the dead and all saints day. With the day of the dead celebrations comes the fiambre, the food to share with our dead. Stay tune for background information on the kite flying rituals and its me
The Guatemalan Writers Side Note:
For being such a tiny banana/coffee writers republic, Guatemala does produce and export quite a few good writers. I have mentioned some of them in this site like Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Pepe Milla, Ronald Flores. But, I have not done enough to talk about the great Guatemalan Literature written by its many excellent writers. Thanks to a comment by Coltrane_Lives about the possibility of his adopted Guatemalan daughter becoming a writer, I can point out a great Guatemalan novel written in English by Francisco Goldman, a respected journalist whose work appears often in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books and Harper’s (source: literaturaguatemalteca.org [ES]). “Francisco Goldman won accolades and international recognition with his extraordinary first novel, The Long Night of White Chickens, the winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts… ” (source: amazon.com). Another great contemporary novel is Ruido de fondo (background noise) by my dear friend Javier Payeras. Javier Payeras is one of the clearest and loudest voices of this generation and his poetry and prose has won the recognition in and outside Guatemala. Ruido de fondo has been reissued by the Guatemala’s Government Editorial Cultura to be required reading for High School students in Guatemala. For those who are fluent in Spanish, I leave the link to one of my favorites poems by Payeras: Soledadbrother.
We are back to coffee beans, again, in the form of table available in the patio area of Fernando’s Kaffee. I believe La Antigua Guatemala is blessed because most days you can have your breakfast in the patio and most patios are so full of gorgeous and exotic (for the rest of the world) plants and flowers. I recommend that you have breakfast and a good cup of coffee at Fernando’s Kaffee if you come to La Antigua Guatemala. For those who only want to have access to this fabulous coffee, Fernando confided in me that very soon, in the next couple of weeks, he will begin exporting his in situs roasted selection of Guatemalan coffee beans. You will be able to order any amount of coffee (starting at 3 pounds, I believe); so keep an eye at coming-soon Fernando’s Kaffee web site.
Basically, the Guatemalan breakfast includes black beans, eggs, coffee and maize tortillas or bread; it may also include fried plantain, cream, creese and chirmol sauce. The black beans can be served parados or whole, revueltos or refried and licuados or liquified. The eggs can be served sunny side up like the picture above, boiled or scrambled.
Every day that passes by makes La Antigua Guatemala a more cosmopolitan place to live. Mexican tortas is one of the latest additions to the antigüeño menu and what better transnational than Tortas Locas Hipocampo.
I had the tortas from Hipocampo in Mexico and they are made to the highest standards and the quality of their ingredients is superb. So, it was a surprise to learn they had opened a franchise here in La Antigua Guatemala. I had to go and try them out. The verdict is that the Tortas Locas Hipocampo serves pretty good tortas, not as good as the Mexicans since the bread is not exactly torta bread and they serve their tortas with french fries; this must be a Guatemalan twist. But overall the quality of the tortas is pretty good. It is on the expensive side for lunch though.
Mother’s Day is celebrated in Guatemala on May 10th. Where do Guatemalans take their mom to dine on her day? But of …
Red is the most prominent color around Christmas time. You can see it in the many people who dress up like Santa …
Yesterday I mentioned that the traditional baked-clay comales are disappearing in Guatemala in favor of the metal comal; heated through gas. All …
With the season’s celebrations comes the ever-present traditional fair food. Here we have a shot of Guatemalan mole and buñuelos in the …
Antigua is the tourism capital of Guatemala. Almost all the tourists flee away from Guatemala City as soon as their airplane lands …