plataninas

Portraits of Street Vendors — Potato and Plantain Chips

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Here’s your illustrated Guatemalan Spanish word of the day: Plataninas for fried plantain chips. Papalinas, plataninas and yuquitas, potato chips, plantain chips and cassava chips respectively are among the most popular fried chips one can find in town fairs, convenience stores and, of course, with the ambulant vendors. ¡Buen provecho!

Lent Food: Plataninas

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Basically, plataninas are green platano/plantains chips. Plantains are like bananas, but much bigger and with a unique flavor. Guatemalans eat platanos in many forms, such as plataninas, rellenitos (deep-fried stuffed platains balls), fritos (fried), atol de platano, chairbroiled and baked; just to name a few. For this entire series, I decided to go as early … Read more

Feria Food: Plataninas

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Feria Food: Plataninas

If you want to know what plataninas, papalinas, poporopos and churros are, just follow the white rabbit!

Guatemala’s rich gastronomic heritage is “disappearing” right before our own very eyes. I try to capture and document some of it, but I am afraid I am doing it too slow.

Let me explain.

The other day I went to the tienda to buy some papalinas and I asked the girl at the counter for bag of papalinas. She looked dazed and confused and her hand kept on moving between the papalinas, plataninas and yuquitas. Finally, she admitted she did not know which was which. She solicited help to show her which was papalinas. She was about 18 years old so I inquired about her provenance; not willing to admit to myself that it was feasible for a Guatemalan teenager to not know what papalinas were.

In Guatemala, however, everyday the limits of what’s possible are pushed further out.

The tienda attendant was from a village not to far from La Antigua Guatemala.

Guatemala is certainly the land of “los desaparecidos (as).” 🙁

To counteract el olvido, here’s a dose of Sobrevivencia… A Guatemalan Mayan rock band. Enjoy and let me know if you need more doses of Sobrevivencia!

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Churros, Anyone, Anyone?

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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.

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.