Panamanian Food

Since my community does a lot of subsistence agriculture, a lot of the food is seasonal and fresh (though not really organic, but definitely local).  This is a collection of the different foods I have encountered.

One of those seasonal items for Semana Santa (Holy Week) is miel de caña, or molasses.  the other day I went to one man’s farm a grind sugar cane (moler caña – I don’t know how to phrase a lot of things in English anymore).  He used a machine that was run by a horse and pushed the sugar cane through twice to squeeze out all the juice, or guarapo.  You can either drink it fresh or cold (which I did – it was really sweet), but he then boils it down for 24 hours to make molasses, or miel

They then use the miel to cook a lot of different goodies for Semana Santa.  One of which, is dulce de mango (mango is also starting to be in season).  Dulce de mango is basically really sweet apple sauce, but with greem mangos instead of apples and a whole lot of molasses.  They add cinnamon and cloves, and they cook it down until it ends up being almost like jelly.  I’m a huge fan.

They also make pan de maiz, which is ground corn mixed with molasses, packed into small little lumps, wrapped in banana leaves and grilled on a cast iron skillet.  They are really heavy and I can normally only eat half of one, but they love them here and make them in huge batches.  They also say that the older they get, the better they taste.

They also make chicha de maiz tostado.  First they toast the corn until it’s black, and then they boil it with ginger root and add cinnamon and cloves.  They then grind the mixture (shown below), mix the paste with water, and strain it.  It’s pretty delicious and really refreshing.

 

For birthday parties, the typical meal is arroz con pollo (rice stir-fried with carrots, onions, sweet pepper, and chicken) and ensalada de papa (potato salad – potatoes, beets, carrots and mayonnaise).  At my host dad’s birthday party they also made tamales (wrapped in aluminum foil), and fried pork.

 

Güacho is a really heavy stew that has a lot of rice, yams, yucca and meat.  Good for working in the field, but, as my host dad says, it fills you up really fast but then you’re hungry really soon, too.

 

For spices, they use a lot of garlic and culantro (a wild plant that tastes like cilantro).  They also really like achiote, which according to everyone I ask only adds color and no flavor.  I’m not convinced though – everything that has achiote tastes distinctly Panamanian to me, from hot dogs to arroz con pollo.

 

They also make sancocho de pollo, which is basically chicken soup with yam, carrots, and yucca.  Since I live in a town with a bunch of chickens, the chicken is normally made with gallina de patio, or backyard chicken.  For really big events, they use big pots and put them on three stones with a fire underneath.

 

Ciruelas – plums.  They eat them before they get ripe because the birds and bugs get to them.  I really like them when they are half ripe, so they are sweet, but they don’t stick to the seed.