Iguanas and Caribbean marmitako
While paddling, Rony resopla, "It is not true that pure taste like chicken iguana, is chicken that tastes like pure iguana. She came 1 million years before…”
Costa Rica is two countries in one. On the one hand there is the "white Costa Rica", in the Central Valley and the Pacific Coast. It is mixed, Catholic, speaking and Latin roots. Gastronomically is very American, based on the "Gallo Pinto", the pot of meat, tamales, married and everything related to corn, Potatoes, rice and beans. The "other" Costa Rica is on the Caribbean coast and is anglocaribeña culture. It seems that after crossing an imaginary border is entered in another country. The faces are obscured, the culture is different, will stop listening to Latin rhythms give way to Calypso and Bob Marley, and people is expressed in "patois" a mix of Jamaican English, Spanish and French.
The first Afro-Caribbean settlers arrived in the seventeenth century to work on cocoa, followed turtle fishermen, and, finally, Jamaican workers
The first Afro-Caribbean settlers arrived in the seventeenth century to work on cocoa, followed turtle fishermen, and, finally, Jamaican workers in the banana. The ancient people, Bri Bri and Cabecar, were pushed into the mountains of Talamanca and left free coasts newcomers. Thus was born a new culture, isolated from the rest of the country and unable by law to emigrate to the Central Valley.
Also the food is also different. Is Caribbean, with African roots, Spanish and English, and similar to that of neighboring Jamaica, from coconut, bananas and tubers, and any product that the sea and the mountain were offered.
I'm in Puerto Viejo, in the southern Caribbean, almost glued to Panama Stripe. Here Caribbean cuisine survives mainly in small sodas and homes of anonymous, so I walk around the back of the village, where the streets are still dirt, and I'm eating and asking people for their stories. I take a good beer with Belisario, I count as, years, when I was in school, waves left sand beach full of large lobsters. "No one would eat, was food of pigs…”
The waves left sand beach full of large lobsters. "No one would eat, was food of pigs…”
In Shakina served one of the best of the people married. Tengo much heat detengo me to take a drink of "water toad" home. Emeritus, the cook, tell me, "If I'm honest it has lost a lot of tradition"… while I served a plate full of "rice & beans”, Caribbean chicken and fried plantain pisao… But, como dice Wilson, "Home is where the traditional cuisine retains". Be glad of the time talking to me every week he ate "wand pat", a stew with rice, tail bristles, Chinese sausage and dried shrimp, the "cooked" the people. After reciting his litany continues dishes, vegetable brains, Pattie, "Black Bread", plantintá, “stew beans”…
But I came here to eat rondón and learn how to cook. The "Rondon" is the quintessential dish of Costa Rican Caribbean, a 'marmitako Caribbean "tropical ingredients. Traditionally fishermen prepared him with what they had at hand. Tubers such as cassava, sweetpotato, ñampí the tiquizque, besides bananas. And always some fish or seafood, snappers, macarelas, mackerel, langostas o Jaibas. All stewed in coconut milk and seasoned with peppers Panamanians, the world's hottest.
"The best is the turtle rondón or iguana. ”, Miguel says. His grandparents came to the coast in the years 40 to work in the timber
"The best is the turtle rondón or iguana. ”, Miguel says. His grandparents came to the coast in the years 40 to work in the timber. "In those days all the meat they ate came from the forest. Peccaries, tepezcuintle, tortoise, tapir… Today is no longer allowed… So now prepare one called "half-life" with shrimp, crab and fish ". However many coastal residents still consider the best rondón is prepared with iguana, "Chicken stick" as they call.
Randy is a great cook. He learned his trade in the "Maxi" Manzanillo, and in the backyard shows me how to cook a rondón. "The most important is the coconut milk", Randy said while sweating pulp grating 6 coconuts. Grate and then dip them in warm water to which, the squeeze, loose all their milk greasy and tasty.
"I can not cook without beer", says, so I leave the CORRIE for a "six pack" of Pilsen, beer that best suits her Caribbean heat. And while drinking ritual begins. In a large pot heat the coconut milk while start adding onion, chopped celery and sweet pepper. And, essentially, 3 the 4 Panamanian peppers. "The most important thing is not to break…”. In a plastic bucket and mackerel are sliced pieces of snapper and crab macerating in a blend of spices. Tubers and bananas are in another bowl. Randy rushes another beer while adding the vegetables and season with thyme and pepper stew which is starting to boil.
I had to go back to for more Pilsen. When returning the dish is almost finished and the whole yard smells like coconut and chilli. At the last moment add the fish and crabs and rectify the seasoning. A moment more and the pot is ready. "And with iguana, Randy, as was the rondón with iguana…"Y Randy, nostalgic, takes a swig of beer, and, squinting, casts a long, deep sigh.
