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The Food and Drink of Costa Rica |
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| On my trip to Costa Rica in the spring of 2009 was a cultural lesson in all types of customs and foods that will never leave me. Though I could babble on about the amazing differences in government, the lack of an army, or the almost laid back pace of most Costa Ricans, I wish to share with you one of my favorite differences; the food.
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| The food in Costa Rica can best be
described as having a very home-cooked feel. This is usually because the
meals are home-cooked. Where I ate, mostly, in Costa Rica was in
various family oriented restaurants called sodas. These sodas serve a wide
variety of foods but always include one thing; gallo pinto. Gallo pinto is
simply rice and black beans mixed together with a slightly spicy sauce
called Lizano Salsa. Gallo pinto is known widely as the 'national dish' of
Costa Rica and is always included, in some form or another, with any type of
meal.
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| Gallo Pinto con Carne |
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| The first meal of the day in Costa Rica was never disappointing. For breakfast, when I wasn't being served 'American' style food on purpose by the hotels, I usually had eggs mixed with ham, fresh fruit such as mango, pineapple, watermelon, and papaya, and gallo pinto. To drink, I had the choice of freshly squeezed orange juice, mango juice, papaya juice, pineapple juice, water, and of course, the famous Costa Rican coffee. The juices were very fresh and flavorful (except the papaya, which was too strong in flavor for my taste) and were very easy to enjoy. Though the above breakfast was perfect by itself, I personally enjoy ketchup on my eggs. This was my only area of disappointment in Costa Rica. The ketchup that was given to me was extremely sweet and tasted, well, like tomatoes. It was watery and had way too much sugar. But other than the ketchup fiasco, all of my breakfasts were quite enjoyable.
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| The next meal of the day is lunch. Most lunches were lighter than most meals, consisting of gallo pinto, a small serving of meat, and fresh fruit. All of the meats were beautifully seasoned and pan-fried in a heavy oil. The use of spices and sauces was not very common, except for the presence of Lizano salsa. The typical lunch in Costa Rica is the casado. A casado is a meal consisting of all of the above for a very, very reasonable price. Every single restaurant that we visited, the casado was right at the top of the list. |
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| This is a casado con bistek, or in other words, a small piece of beef. The texture of the beef reminded me of cube steak in the U.S. only a little tougher.
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 The
final meal of the day is dinner. Dinner in Costa Rica were very much the
same as the
lunches that precede them, only bigger, and usually more heavily spiced. The
dinners always included gallo pinto, along with fresh fruit, a large serving
of meat, and sometimes fish. I did enjoy a beautifully prepared piece of
fish called tilapia, which was extremely delicious. I later discovered that
fish is not commonly eaten my the locals because almost all of the fish
taken out of the oceans around Costa Rica are exported, making fish very
expensive in Costa Rica.Here is a serving of beef with an excellent sauce.
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| This is a traditional fruit smoothie from Costa Rica. Served everywhere, these 'refrescos' are extremely delicious and very, very refreshing. The above refresco was made with fresh strawberries. | |
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