Heart of Palm Sunday (part 3)

All this shopping always gets me thirsty and it is near noon. The temperature right now must be about 33 degrees Celsius, that is 93,1 degrees Fahrenheit. To me, that means only one thing. It's time for my next refreshment. At times in these markets, you'd feel plagued by the continuous noise of a machine working non-stop. I've been hearing it near the last row of stalls and there's where I'm headed right now. But, lo behold! A delightful distraction catches my eye on the left. A man is skillfully cutting something up with a short blade. Why do I keep getting interested in men holding knives? A topic for my shrink, nevermind. Let's say it was the strange-looking small pile of logs beside him what kind of threw me. What were those?

This man is extracting the freshest heart of palm for his customers. Very interesting to watch, very fitting for Palm Sunday. And there's a reason why I didn't recognize the little buggers. In Turrialba, my hometown, I remember seeing these stems in the market being handled with extreme caution. They are usually covered with vicious thorns. 

I continue on my way with my roomy by my side and we come to the source of all the racket. It's the sugar cane press that roars on as it squeezes out the delicious juice. People are milling around the stall to get a dixie cup full of fruit juice. You can take your pick. There's freshly squeezed orange juice, pineapple juice, passion fruit, sour sop, sugar cane, horchata, carrot, you name it. A large cup of this nectar will run you 450 colones, about 50 cents of a dollar.

So, belly full and cart full, we head back to the car. One more indispensable stop before we leave. For us, no visit to the market would be complete without a quick look in the prepared food sector. Many treats are on offer here: home-made breads, baked corn goods such as tamal asado and tamal de maiz dulce, crunchy bread rings with that bright red sugar coating I love, fried plantain chips, potato chips, the works. Real nice but that's not what we're here for.

Tortillas de Queso Las Cervantenas are quite an institution in San Jose markets. They rotate between the Zapote and the Plaza Viquez market and today, as usual, the stall is packed with customers. The cheesy smell is intoxicating as you approach and the sizzling tortillas on the grill look always nice golden. The wisdom on these ladies' hands consistently creates flawlessly crunchy edges and soft corn dough, loaded with tender Turrialba cheese. These tortillas are just perfection. As the lady hands me the bag, I know one of these babies won't make it home.

And so ends our market day. The only thing I need to always remember is to wash my hands thoroughly before I dig into my warm tortilla goodness on my way home. Once again, the understated magic of the Zapote market has captured me. I am convinced it is one of the places where Ticos are ourselves, soft-spoken and easygoing. This is a place where we caress the essence of our identity in the products of the earth, where we don't pose. This is who we are. Just Ticos in our natural habitat.

Remember to wash your hands!

Heart of Palm Sunday (part 2)

We kept walking, my roommate and I, looking at the striking colors, my head filling with ideas that my limited cooking skills would never ever be able to make true... Cruel world. 

Suddenly, the unexpected smell of fresh seafood: various kinds of fish fillets, octopus, a tray full of fish heads and more importantly, ugly rock-hard blocks of salted Norwegian cod fish. It is Holy Week and for most Costa Ricans that means a few dietary restrictions. Honestly, more than restrictions, they're chances for some traditional Tico cuisine, for example the unjustly infamous cod fish soup.

Personally, I wait all year for this stuff, but looking at these fishy looking bricks, I can't blame people for being intimidated. When prepared properly, cod fish has a delicate flavor, enhanced to perfection by its aggressive smell and the vegetables in the soup. However, to take full advantage of it, the devoted cook needs to soak it in cold water for at least 6 hours, changing the water every two, more or less. After that, they need to take the pieces of this very strong smelling fish and take them apart with their bare hands to remove the skin and bones. People will smell it on you for the next couple of days. I myself think it's more than worth the effort, especially since it's not me making that effort. I love you, mom.

Another seasonal delicacy that can surprise you here is the beautiful Flor de Itabo. This is a lovely bunch of white flowers you'll see hanging from the stalls during the months of March and April. My mom's Peruvian neighbor used to put them on a vase, God bless her. Their softly bitter taste will always say Holy Week to me. They're a must have if you're visiting around this time. 

Tico readers, if you weren't lucky enough to have a grandmother or a mother who cooked this dish, please let me know and I'll try my best to get you to taste them. It's a true Costa Rican delicacy if you ask me.

Finally, another specialty of Holy Week, chiverre, as seen gloriously above. I guess the first person who accomplished the miracle of getting something edible out of this cement-hard pumpkin must have been either seriously starving, or his or her head was simply as hard as this freaking thing. It needs to be roasted, burned, beaten to a pulp (literally) and sometimes sun-dried before you even start the process of turning into the magical dessert that it can be. As a cook, taking on this titanic task is a real Holy Week sacrifice. As you might have concluded, this treat is rare nowadays. But I digress...

We rented a supermarket cart (C1000 with the nice lady at the entrance, C500 are deposit, that's just under $2, $1 deposit) and we went crazy and stacked up on the veggies. Basics: onions, garlic, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and other beauties. For fruit, we got pineapple, of course, watermelon and honeydew which we also got to taste from the hands of the growers themselves, limes, bananas, beautiful papayas, strawberries, juicy and sour Tico apples and suddenly, I saw one of my favorite market refreshments: pipas frias.

Again, I must face a man with a knife to get my desired treat. This time, a chatty youngster with an iPhone attached to his belt and a gigantic rusty machete in his hand. He's conversing loudly with his pal who runs the tomato stall next to his. When someone stands before him, holding money in his hand, he greets using traditional Tico chat. If you're a man, you'll be macho, bother, mop, compa or master. If you're a woman, you'll be reinita, mami, negrita, machita,or princesa. Please, don't be offended. I've explained before, it's like a reflex, he doesn't mean anything by it.

He dipped his hand in a tub of ice water to pull out a cold green coconut. Then, he patted it affectionately, placed it in the right position on his hand and started hacking away with his machete, making bits of the hard surface fly in all directions. Mind your eyes, people. Then, when he had uncovered the tender white interior layer, he pierced it with the tip of the machete and stuck a straw in it. Done. Refreshing, delicious and an excellent source of vitamins and minerals. Fabulous for hangovers, believe you me.

We continued on our way and picked up a few indulgent items: sexy-looking eggplants, squash, yucca, corn on the cob with leaves and hair and the whole shebang, miniature veggies, green and ripe plantains, ginger, honey, Cala lilies for decoration, eggs, fish, Turrialba cheese both tender and smoked, fish, chicken and beef.This is most of the produce my roommate and I can consume in fifteen to twenty days, with the valued help of our occasional guest. The total came to about $60. Not bad at all.

 

Chek out part 3 of this post!

Heart of Palm Sunday (part 1)

Us Ticos have a romantic relationship with produce. It's been barely two or three generations since we've traded our colorful "carretas" and machetes for mass transit and computers. Let's not forget that until recently Costa Rica was one big farm. Tourism, conservation, higher education available and foreign investment changed all that but, truly, it hasn't been long enough for most Ticos to forget their "roots", pun totally intended.

The place where I most often see evidence of this is in the Zapote farmer's market. The little farm girl in me gets all excited when I prep : I get my bags ready, put on my most comfortable shoes, stop by the ATM to have enough cash to get my fruit and vegetables and I skip all the way from the car to the stalls. I'm sure that most people, in their hearts, do too. I just do it literally.

The farmer's market in Zapote is probably the second largest in SJ, second only to the Municipal Market, which is frequented by restaurateurs at ungodly hours, it's like these guys enjoy conducting their business in the dark. That's another good feature in the Zapote Market. You don't need to get up obscenely early on Sunday morning to get your hands on some grade A food.

So. I got up at 9 last Sunday, had a very light breakfast, put on my most comfortable shoes, picked up my bags and I went out with my roommate. And, mind you, I said light breakfast because I always like to go to the market when I am slightly hungry. It makes everything look more appetizing. That's just the kind of indulgent kid I am I guess.

Going to the market in Costa Rica when you're hungry is not really a problem. In fact, I guarantee you won't be hungry for long. For instance, when my roommate and I were just entering the market site on our first reconnaissance (another useful tip: take quick walk around the market to check out what's on offer and to get ideas on what to make for lunch), and a loud bellow forced me to turn my head. It was a gentleman farmer promoting his goods: pineapples. He was carving one right on his hand, oblivious to the stream of juice dripping down to his sleeve. As I turned to look, he chopped a piece, picked it up with the end of the knife and help it up to my face, to my surprise. It was like he was making me try his fruit at knife point. A little scary, I know, but I had to take the bright yellow triangle and have a taste. Deliciously fresh, strong perfume invading your nostrils, juice dribbling down your chin. THIS is paradise.

And before I forget, if that happens to you, as it surely will, take the piece of fruit CAREFULLY.

 

Check out part 2 & 3!

IS CR PI?

No one, and I mean NO ONE ever thinks their usual way to do things can be weird. I’m sure many polygamists wonder how Westerns manage having just one wife, as we wonder how European girls can live with hairy armpits and I’m positive many Japanese people are constantly defending chopsticks as the most practical eating utensil. That’s just the way it is. For the most part, we don’t even think about these peculiarities unless an outsider points it out or makes a face. Being Costa Ricans as “normal” as they come, I never thought that would happen to me. Until it did.

Last February, a friend of my boyfriend’s came to visit from Toronto. More than visiting, he came escaping from the cold, poor bastard. Anyway, he stayed with us for a couple of weeks. As we got to know each other, we kept finding points of coincidence, we agreed on many things and we discovered we had a similar way of seeing the world. Neat, right? What a nice guy! What a cool chick! I like to think we became good friends, Alex and I.

It just so happens we’re all hanging out at my place one night: my boyfriend and I, our newly found friend and my roommate, you know, laughing and having a couple of drinks. So, I get this call from a dear old friend. He was in the neighborhood, so he dropped in for a visit. When he came in, of course, I gave him a hug and a kiss and introduced him to Alex. He sat in the living room and I went back to the kitchen. They were chatting and my friend happened to remember something he wanted to tell me and yelled out: NEGRA!

I popped my head out of the kitchen to see what he wanted and I caught a glimpse of Alex’s face. He looked absolutely shocked and a little pale, as if he were expecting a violent reaction from me. I decided to ignore it for the moment and ask him more privately later.

After a while, we sat outside and I asked him what was up. He told me that he would never use that word to get someone’s attention. You know, call someone THAT, and to their face, no less. I was gobsmacked. Does he think I should be insulted by somebody calling me black? Is he a racist? Of course not. The thing is you are not supposed to call a person something that is related to how they look, not even your closest friends. Goddamn! I had no idea you couldn’t do that… Here’s what I concluded.

Ticos don’t have any inhibitions about referring to someone by their most evident physical characteristics. If someone is dark-skinned, black or not, they might be given the nickname “Negro” (before you get your feathers all ruffled, no, that word doesn’t have the same negative connotation as it does in English), people with slanted eyes will be christened “Chino” although our native people also share this feature with Asians, or an overweight guy can be called fat, “Gordo” without anyone having a reason to blush. “Gorda”, the female version of fat, is a term of endearment reserved for the tenderest stages of your relationship.

Of course, when I explained all this to Alex, thinking it would put him at ease, I just made things worse. I told him my friend had called me that for 20 years, that I was known as “La Negra” all through highschool and that my mom would always called me “negrita”. I explained to him that here we know these names are not meant to give offense, on the contrary, that they indicate a level of closeness and intimacy that is special. He nearly lost it, he was speechless.

 Are we really that inappropriate? Well, yes and no. Yes, maybe using someone’s looks to create cute nicknames is not the most sensible thing to do but I can’t help but think that maybe people take their political correctness too far at times. And by “people”, I don’t mean Costa Ricans, I think you’ve figured out we are PI by nature.

If we’re pondering how to be more politically correct, maybe we can start with the word “American”. Am I the only one who’s bothered about how incredibly incorrect that is? So, if you’re from the north of America or from Germany, Sweden or someplace like that, you’d better get used to the name “blondie”. Here in CR, you’ll be “machito” or “machita”. Learn to love it and own it. Welcome to the land of political incorrectness. Let’s all get over ourselves.

Magical Mystery Chinese Joint

So, it's Tuesday night and there's no food in the house. My roommate and I have been cooking almost every night but tonight there's really no will to start up the old stove and fire up some comfort food. And we need it. Bad.

So, what are we to do? It's a Wong's night.

If you've never been there, you'll just walk right by it. The filthy-looking fish tank full of nearly catatonic fish is hardly a welcome sign on an already uninviting storefront. If your trusted foodie friend insists on taking you there, as was my case, and you trust this person enough to allow yourself to be taken past the mysterious screen that obscures the passerby's occasional glance, you'll have a great reward for your bravery.

Wong's is a huge joint. Two dinning rooms on two levels, both about the same size. On the first floor, you'll see your typical Chinese eatery: fluorescent lights, T.V. in the back and forever turned on to the Chinese channel, round tables and booths covered with green or red tablecloths almost turned to lace with cigarette burns, busy waiters and clearly Asian waitresses and the patient shadow of the family cat gliding under the table.

Look behind the counter, over the cooling chambers and, sure enough, there's the huge golden cat, comforting spirit of prosperity, permanently waving its arm and staring with massive green enamel eyes. Find the cashier and you'll see the proud owner: a venerable-looking man of undefinable age, cigarette always hanging from the corner of his lip, burning away. When he barks an order or a greeting (hard to tell which is which), the precarious column of ash barely moves, evidence of the level of expertise he's reached.
Sometimes, you'll see a quiet figure at the cash register. You'll probably just see the top of her head from your seat, bobbing up and down as she tirelessly crunches page after page of numbers. She's the matriarch and she'll surely be heard once or twice during the evening. She'll burst out a shrill demand (or expression of joy, I can't tell) to a nearby unlucky waitress. Family matters, no doubt,

On the second floor, a somber venue reserved mostly for private parties. For us, poor non-Asians, these solemnities are absolutely incomprehensible. The room is packed will large groups composed of 3 or 4 generations, high-pitch musical sounds, karaoke and a never-ending line of waiters carrying dish after dish. What do they commemorate with their graceful giggle, their delicate silk dresses and with the ceremonious way of seating their elders at the main table? Sadly but truly, I'll never know.

The patrons are the mos remarkable characteristic of Wong's. Take a look around and you might see an exhausted security guard getting a cheap and satisfying meal after his shift is over, a table-full of hippy-looking university students, young couples with their first child, stylish girls, emos, actors and dancers showing off after their shows, bikers, the punk Elvis Presley, the occasional trannie, a small group of techies, bodybuilders and, of course, many Chinese families. And among all of them, the Chinese Mafia and the Godmother, a modest lady with bright red hair who walks in surrounded by a shady entourage.


Imagine, and all this, before you even order your meal. The waiter spots me and my roommate, and he immediately turns back behind the counter. I'm not alarmed. He knows his trade. He returns, bearing the essentials: an aluminum container with hot water where he sticks chopsticks and forks, an old rickety pot of jasmine tea, my bottle of Imperial with a chilled glass, my ashtray, our two menus and the dim sum sheet. He never walks away without asking me with a wink if I'll have the usual. And yes, I'll have the usual.

If you're out on a Tuesday night, yearning for a bowl of liquid comfort, the number is 38. Humongous bowl of aromatic beef broth spiced with ginger, star anise and hundreds of secret Asian spices, loaded with thin rice noodles, bok-choy and an obcene amount of beef chunks beautifully lined with fat. And I always say I won't be able to finish it all. And I always do.

My roomie loves their dim-sum and so do I. The table gets gradually filled with small bamboo steamers, each one a case for their delicious gems: dumplings. Shrimp with chives, shrimp and bamboo shoots, pork, ground beef with peanuts, vegetable, deep-fried taro root squares, sigh....

This surprising meal is definitely the reason why people keep coming back to this weird magical land. Great food, stimulating atmosphere, a small bill. Oh, yeah, I forgot. There's a procedure for the bill. Every time the waiter brings one more piece of goodness to the table, he picks up a green card in which he'll proceed to write strange symbols. I don't know what they mean, but you have to retrieve said card and hand it over at the cash register. The owner will snatch it from your hand and calculate your bill. For me and my roommate, the usual bill is around 12 thousand colones, which comes to about $10 US per person.

So, it's Tuesday night and I have a belly full of my favorite cheap comfort food and all is right with the world. I don't see how a visit to San Jose can be complete without an evening at this magical mystery land. Next time, fried pepper shrimp and hot-sour soup. Oh, and don't bother with desserts.

Este es el asunto

Soy una tica (gentilicio cariñoso de los costarricenses, por si nunca lo habían escuchado) de 29 años y vivo en San José, la capital del país, desde 1990.

La conexión de mi adorable compañera de casa a Couchsurfing y mis amigos extranjeros me han hecho ver recientemente que la opinión de la gente que visita Costa Rica acerca de San José está algo sesgada.

San José es considerada aburrida, peligrosa y no les provoca mucha curiosidad. Viviendo acá, puedo entender porqué se pensaría eso pero San José es mi ciudad y yo sé que la gente, viéndola desde fuera, no le están haciendo justicia. Hay muchas cosas en San José de las que se están perdiendo por creer en cuentos.
Que no se entienda que son los extranjeros los que no aprecian San José. Muchos ticos tampoco lo hacen. Creo firmemente que para realmente entender y saborear una ciudad como esta, se necesita ser abierto y objetivo acerca de lo bueno, lo malo y lo feo. ¨Chepe¨ tiene mucho de las tres cosas.

Esta ciudad puede parecer acelerada, sucia, fea y enloquecedora pero San José es activa, moderna, progresiva, artística y con un estilo propio. Sólo hay que ver en los lugares correctos.

En resumen, sólo quiero mostrar lugares para ir, eventos en los que participar, información útil para sobrevivir acá y divertirse. Tan honestamente como lo veo. Espero contar con sus aportes, comentarios y preguntas.

Bienvenidos a San José Insider!

Now, this is the deal

I'm a 29-year old Costa Rican woman and I've been living in San Jose, the capital city, since 1990.

Recently, thanks to my roommate's connection to Couchsurfing, and my foreign friends, I've come to realize people who visit Costa Rica have a somewhat distorted idea about San Jose.

Visitors consider San Jose boring, unsafe and uninviting. It's easy to see why people would think that, but I can't help feeling they're missing out on so much of what San Jose has to offer by believing outsiders.

Don't get me wrong. It's not just foreign people who don't seem to appreciate San Jose. Many locals don't either. I bhttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6116881807248196009&postID=4876292830041694604elieve that to really "get" a city like this one and taste its flavor, you need to be open-minded and objective about the good, the bad and the ugly. And San Jose has lots of the three.

This city can be hectic, dirty, drab and vexing but San Jose is also active, artistic, edgy, stylish and avant-garde... Just look in the right places.

So, I want to simply show you places to visit, events to attend, bits of information to help you survive in it and to have fun here. Just as plainly as I see it. I hope to get your comments and questions regarding my insights.

Welcome to the San Jose Insider!