Exploring Costa Rica: Pura Vida! Part IV

Recap: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Day 2 in Costa Rica we woke up to a very rainy day. We began to believe that the stories about a volcano were mere rumors, made up by drunken tourists. The tree frogs we could believe, since we could hear them. But the volcano?

It must exist since it tweeted back at me when I posted this picture via Instagr.am. That's proof, people. And this picture? Clearly steam rising from the volcano, covering it in a spooky mist.

Breakfast was delightful. Eggs, bacon, fresh fruit, sausage, toast, more plantains. And gallo pinto! We hadn't seen it on the menu where we ate our first meat-heavy meal, and it wasn't on the restaurant menu the night before. I'd asked our bartender and he assured me it would be available at breakfast. Seems I didn't really do my research before going. Gallo pinto is morning dish.

Oh.

But then there it was, it all its painted glory, next to my fried egg. It tasted exactly like mine. Seems like I nailed it on my first try. Yay me.

And this is where we first had our taste of Salsa Lizano, which is the brown sauce above, on the egg. It's the Costa Rican equivalent of American ketchup, not in flavor but in ubiquity. This salsa is sweet (sugar is the second ingredient) and tangy, kind of similar to Worcestershire sauce. My father and I are currently trying to figure out the breakdown of spices. I'm convinced there's a good deal of cumin in it.

You can put this on anything, and are so encouraged. It was a tad too sweet for my egg, but I ended up putting it on just about everything else I ate the rest of the trip.

And bringing  home an unopened bottle of it too, of course. What's a vacation without souvenirs?

Gallo Pinto

I grew tired of pizza. That's an utter lie, but I'm trying to make myself believe it because my trainer had me cut all those delicious unncessary white flour foods out of my diet. So, now what?

Instead, I'm concentrating on my upcoming jaunt to Costa Rica! I haven't been out of the country in several years, and this trip came up at just the right time. I've been suffering from wanderlust, and now I get to feed it!

And my belly. Because there are plenty of flourless foods that are still delicious (like scotch...and cheese!). But what better way to prep for international delights than to sample the cuisine? I know nothing of Costa Rican food, so I figured I'd try my hand at some simple dishes before leaving, and see how closely I came to approximating them once I get to eat the real thing.

To start, I Googled Costa Rican Food. Immediately you get 80 million hits for something called gallo pinto. Gallo in Spanish (pronounced ga-yo) is a rooster, so you might have assumed this was some combination of chicken and pinto beans. But knowing that pico de gallo in Mexico is a salad of chopped fruits and veggies (not the tomato/onion mixture we know it as here), I imagined there was more than meets the eye here.

Turns out there are neither fowl nor pinto beans in this dish. Pinto means painted, and when this dish of cooked rice and black beans comes together, the rice takes on a little color from the beans (I cheated a bit by using brown rice since I didn't have white rice). A full understanding of the use of the phrase would require a broader understanding of Latin American culture, but Wikipedia gives one explanation.

There are 80 million variations of this dish, based solely on the Google results. This one had cumin and coriander in it, two spices I'm quite familiar with. But also some powdered ginger. That was a new spice combo to me. I love ginger, but have never had it with the other two.

I served this to my family (since I'm technically not supposed to have rice either...). My dad wanted more spice in it, but he can't eat anything without dousing it with some sort of pique (aka, hot sauce). The ladies liked it, though we all admitted that adding green salsa on top really was delicious (dad's bad influence!). My nephew, at the tender age of four, has become quite accustomed to the way Puerto Ricans eat beans (a post for another time), and asked for those beans instead.

I'm sure when I finally get to eat the real thing, it'll be something completely different from what I'm expecting. And that will be awesome.

The Gallo Pinto recipe I followed can be found here.