Food in Cuerpo de Paz

Eating beans and eggs every day for weeks? Or how about being served a meal with potatoes, rice, spaghetti and endless tortillas? Here’s another one, in the middle of your cooking session your gas runs out or the power goes out. Oh wait, and every volunteer knows this story, you’re invited to someone’s house and share a meal with them only to find yourself scrambling to the nearest bathroom to well, you know, I’ll save you the details. There are numerous reasons why food in the Peace Corps can be a bit of a personal challenge. Last week my host mom told me that she will no longer be able to cook lunches for me anymore (lunch is the big meal of the day and when I eat meat) so it suddenly dawned on me how differently I think about food here than I did in the US.

During training all of my meals were provided by my host family, sometimes it was delicious and sometimes it was a bit strange (spaghetti with hot dogs, ketchup and tortillas). Either way, during training I never had to worry about grocery shopping or how to prepare my next meal, it just sort of appeared. Upon arriving in site, I had to figure out a way to set up a kitchen in a limited space with limited materials. Thank goodness I replaced someone (thanks Cali!) and inherited a stove top and some necessary cooking materials. Thus, I have the necessities but I could certainly use more Tupperware and pots and pans (my spaghetti pot, is my sauce pan, and disinfecting bowl). Anyway, I thought it may be fun to go through how I have to prepare a meal here in site.

Market here is Saturday and usually on Friday nights you get a sneak peak and can buy most of what you need ahead of time. Market days are kind of a big deal, some people even get dressed up for them! I guess it’s when you run into community members and chit chat while also picking up what you need for the week. I prefer shopping on Friday nights in order to avoid the heat and get first dibs on veggies. I usually buy: bell peppers, carrots, pineapple, strawberries, onions, beets, jalapeños, green beans, avocadoes and sometimes broccoli. That usually holds me for the week (well at least it used to because I never had to worry about lunch). I don’t cook meat here. If someone else prepares it, that’s fine, or if we kill the chicken ourselves then obviously I’ll eat that too (ever tried killing a chicken with a dull kitchen knife?…I have! I totally apologized to the chicken god for it taking a little while!) I just don’t want to deal with meat here, where to get it, how long it has been sitting out in the market, the smell, storage, etc.

Access to food here is limited. If I have a craving for something in the middle of the week and I didn’t plan for it…guess what, not happening. Also the types of veggies here is limited, in Antigua or sometimes even in the department capital (2 hours away) you can find mushrooms, eggplant, mac and cheese, wheat bread and other oh so delicious awesomeness. There is no grocery store here; instead there are lots of little tiendas where you can usually find spaghetti, basic spice mixes, rice and white bread.

For breakfast I usually make smoothies: either strawberry-banana or pineapple, carrot and beet (it’s yummy for real, try it!) with a scoop of protein powder. Dinners are pretty small for me because lunch is so big. When I had protein bars from the States I would eat one of those, beans and egg, soup, and there have even been times when I have peanut butter from Antigua that I have literally just taken a spoon full of peanut butter and dipped it into honey or home-made strawberry jam (who needs bread when you have spoons!)

So now my challenge to you all is: what can I cook for lunch!? I’d love your vegetarian recipes! Remember, nothing too complicated and I’d prefer for it to not include the use of an oven because I don’t own an oven. Either send them to my email (ckent0601@gmail.com) or just post them as a comment. Thanks!!

Oh and here are some fun food pics from the past several months!