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The Guatemalan Shuco Hot Dog

The Guatemalan shuco hot dog comes with guacamol (avocado sauce), boiled cabbage, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, mustard, hot sauce, and one or more …

Guatemalan Escabeche

These also make Guatemalans hot! 😉 In Guatemala there are at least two words you can use when referring to pickled foods: …

Traditional Guatemalan Christmas Food: Dobladas

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).

Traditional Guatemalan Christmas Food: Fried Plantains

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.

Guatemalan Fair: The Charcoal-broiled Meat Booth

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.

Guatemalan Textiles at La Fuente

On the weekends the center garden around the fountain in La Fuente strip mall and restaurant is carpeted by Guatemalan textiles on …

We’re Hombres de Maíz

As I have mentioned before, it is impossible to think of the Guatemalan, Mexican and Mesoamerican diet without maize. From the Popul …

Fiambre For the Dead by Rudy Giron - www.rudygiron.com

Who knows what the dead want?

Well, it looks like the Guatemalan fiambre is taking off as it’s being covered by publications abroad such as Saveur Magazine. Here’s …

We’re Women of Maize

As I said before, it is impossible to think of the Guatemalan, Mexican and Mesoamerican diet without maize. From the Popul Vuh …

Restaurant & Food Overview

RWOrange put together a very comprehensive list of the restaurants and food I have covered in AntiguaDailyPhoto in Chowhound. Here’s the list …

Antigua’s Antique Bicycles

This how imagine a parking lot looked like at the beginning of the 20th Century in La Antigua Guatemala. Nowadays, however, I …

The Procession Season Is Officially Open

This entry should be called “ephemerides updates” because there several events that happened this week. On Tuesday, kids everywhere celebrated carnaval, carnival, …

Feria Food: Manzanas encarameladas

These caramelized apples are a good example of the syncretism found in the Guatemalan gastronomy. As Pascu mentioned yesterday, “I find Guatemalan …

We’re Men of Maize

It is impossible to think of the Guatemalan, Mexican and Mesoamerican diet without maize. From the Popul Vuh (Popol Wuj in modern …

Colorful Guatemala

Colorful Guatemala, I tell you, colorful Guatemala! Si ni los mismos guatemaltecos logramos entender la complejidad cultural en la que vivimos… —Ale …

La Casa de las Mixtas Sign

I really like the naí¯f aspects of this sign. I like how the composition is trying very hard to include all the …

The Rellenito Transaction

Last time I showed rellenitos here, was a photograph taken at home with control conditions of light and presentation. The photo was …

The Best Fiambre in the World

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.

Transnational: Eat fresh

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

rusted plant pot, originally uploaded by rudygiron. On the opposite wall, the plant has taken over the whole wall. I do not …

Antigua’s color palette: red

Antigua’s red, originally uploaded by rudygiron. The restaurant La Fonda de la Calle Real is another of Antigua’s landmarks. You can find …

Lunch With a View

How was it, a room with a view or a lunch with a view? Well, here it was lunch with a panoramic …

Theme Day: Color Green

As every fist of the month, the Daily Photo community has a theme day and the color green is what was chosen …

Architectonic Baroque Details

La Antigua Guatemala is full of hidden treasures which are visible at plain view. One must be ready to look for them …

Ubi’s Ceviche

Last week Jonathan Gold from LA Weekly and Evan Kleinman host of KCRW’s Good Food program did a review of La Cevicheria, …

Red Lantern District

Not a farol left over from last year’s posadas. Nor indeed a house of ill repute, except perhaps with regards to the …

Enchiladas-R-Us

Oh the photos look so much better with people in them, especially if they are smiling. 😉 If tostadas had a kingdom, …

First Güisquil from Orchard

I present to you the first güisquil, also known as chayote or perulero, from our back yard orchard. Güisquiles are such an …

Churros, Anyone, Anyone?

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.

Preparing the Flowers for the Dead

By moving from one section of the mercado to another, we find that las floristerí­as (flower shops) are preparing the flower arrangements …

On the Way to the Maize Mill

The Guatemalan way of life is rapidly disappearing right in front of our eyes. Today’s entry is such a case, as the …

Paternas or Cushines

Once again here is a picture by request. See, Edgar got jealous because Carmen obtained a couple photos of rellenitos as requested, …

I’m Ready to Fly!

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

Antigüeño Breakfast at Rainbow Cafe

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.

Coffee Table in La Antigua Guatemala

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.

Theme Day: Typical Breakfast

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.

Tortas Locas Hipocampo in La Antigua Guatemala

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.

Making Tortillas in Guatemala

Yesterday I mentioned that the traditional baked-clay comales are disappearing in Guatemala in favor of the metal comal; heated through gas. All …

Fair Food

With the season’s celebrations comes the ever-present traditional fair food. Here we have a shot of Guatemalan mole and buñuelos in the …

Backpacking in Antigua

Antigua is the tourism capital of Guatemala. Almost all the tourists flee away from Guatemala City as soon as their airplane lands …