Pejibaye, a weird fruit from a plant related to the coconut, which has a unique almost nutty flavor
There's a food fight brewing
in Nicaragua.
Every few months, stores,
called pulperias, pop up on the front of houses like mushrooms,
overflowing with colorful snack bags. Yet another person has started a store.
The cycle is at once aspirational and predatory; upon seeing the success of
some store owners, people decide to start selling themselves to get some
income, especially after encouraging salespeople make their rounds. It strikes
me as the developing world equivalent of subprime home loan lending: starting
businesses that could never hope to be profitable.
The packaged snack onslaught
is mainly spearheaded by Yummies, a subsidiary of a Honduran company that sells snacks all over Central America. Students
are the main consumers, scarfing down processed
Ranchitas (like Nicaraguan Doritos), fried plaintain chips, taquitos,
lollipops, and God- only knows what other forms of empty calories to supplement
the often insufficient diet of rice and beans they receive at home or at their
school snack, in the case of the primary school students. Soda is also a
problem, but to a slightly lesser extent, because it's relatively expensive.
Local soda brands such Rojita are a common treat although Coca Cola and
Fanta brand sodas are more often reserved for birthday parties because of their
higher cost. The junk food leaves a mess in its wake: garbage on the ground and
in students mouths: teeth can only bath in sugary goodness for so long before
they develop numerous cavities. Research shows that oral health in Central
American children is actually declining, despite advances in other measures of
health access.
On the other side of the
snack wars, are the homemade traditional snacks, mainly sold by women or
children, which date back to Precolombian or Colonial times- rosquillas,
empanadas, tamales, guirilas, fried plaintains, atol,
rice pudding and many other immortalized in the song "Hijos de Maiz."
Mainly corn based, although not exclusively, and somewhat healthier, these
snacks provide income directly to their producers, however slim the profit
margins. However, they face the difficult challenge of competing with changing
taste buds and don't have the constant supply that packaged snacks do. While
they have the appeal of tradition and their own unique flavor, I often wonder
if these traditional foods will be able to hold on for future generations.
Reading Jaime Wheelock
Roman's "La Comida Nicaraguense" gave me some perspective for all the
challenges that Nicaraguan cuisine has faced in its development and the threats
it faces nowadays from corporate, globalized food. Nicaraguan cuisine is a
hybrid, combining traditional elements from pre-Colombian times such as corn
and beans, with Spanish additions such as rice, pork, beef and oil. The book
traces a sad history: one in which the average Nicaraguan has had a less and
less access to a healthy and satisfactory diet in the centuries since the
Conquest. Nevertheless, it highlights the mainly dishes which are the pride and
joy of Nicaraguan cuisine and represent the continuity of culture and
resistance.
Wheelock remains optomistic
about the strength of cultural traditions:
"To our benefit,
Nicaraguans continue to eat tortillas and plantains instead of wheat bread, and
drink pinolillo and tiste or corn chica when others have
succumbed to Coca Cola. No pancake has been able to take the custom of a Sunday
morning nacatamal away from us, and we continue preparing our criollo
dishes with the flavors characteristic of the Nicaraguas, the indispensible
triad of achiote, tomato and pepper."
Let's hope that Wheelock is
right and that Nicaraguans can resist the global assalt on its culinary
traditions, and continue to eat, to paraphrase food writer Michael Pollan, mostly the foods their grandmothers would recognize.
No comments:
Post a Comment