coffee, carbs, ceviche and a crazy old lady

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GAH! BIG NEWS EVERYONE!! today, i found GOOD COFFEE!!! this is kristina, btw, in case any of you were wondering. so as i was saying, as i sipped my cafe con leche and ate my crema voltada and gazed out over the jungle mountains, i began to think about the food here in peru. i usually think a lot about food, so i decided to create a blog entry just about that. feel free to skip this one if you dont share my passion for anything etible or sipable.
so to start off, lets talk about coffee. when i was preparing for this trip, i thought i was going to coffe heaven. i believe i once called it ¨kristinas coffee tour around south america¨. unfortunately, that didnt pan out, and all i could find for the first month or so was instant nescafe. apparently, peruvians grow, roast and prepare real coffee, but do not drink it. it was only after moving to the jungle that i found good coffee, in a tiny cafe by the center park (where i had my coffee today). on a side note, there are about 4 huge coffee roasters/ preparers within walking distance of where we live. im currently planning a massive heist wherein i steal as much coffee as i can possible hold on my person. wish me luck!
ok, so onto the food. can i say carbs?? rice, potatoes, yucca, bread, sometimes all of them in the same meal. and wholy chicken, these people love frying and deepfrying in batter. you will all have to meet us at the airport and roll us out of the airplane, providing we fit throught the door. one specific dish that i have come to love is ¨ärroz a la cubana¨which is a huge pile of rice covered by fried eggs with a side of delicious fried plantains.
i think that another dish, ceviche, deserves a paragraph for itself. imagine raw fish, ok? marrinade that in spices and lemon juice, add green onions, herbs and lots of rice and serve cold. no cooking, except for the rice. i once saw a street vendor who was serving ceviche, and i knew that if i ever wanted to be violently ill as soon and as violently as possible, that was the place.
speaking of street vendors (segway!!), you cant go anywhere near the center of town in peru without encountering a set of stalls devoted to the selling of fresh fruit or candy. the old women who operate such stalls will always peel an orange for you, and let you sample the other fruit if you stand there long enough. when i am traveling and poor, i plan on eating full meals this way. almost as plentiful are the icecream bicicles, which are consistantly disappointing due to their high prices and melty, melty icecream.
another unhelathy food staple here in the jungle is pasteries, bought from a little pastry shop by the center park. although there are many other small and enchanting-smelling pastry shops in la merced, we stick with ours because of 2 reasons. one, the delicious flaky oritos (little ears), and two, the crazy old lady who owns the place. this is how a general conversation with the crazy lady goes:
us: dos oritos, por favor
c.l.: blah blah mutter spanish mutter gringas blah no entiendo mutter
us:...
c.l.: (points to behind counter) grumble gringas mutter spanish spanish
us: oh, si, gracias. (we go behind the counter and get what 2 oritos)
c.l.: butter babble grumble grumble cackle gringas mutter (all in spanish, of course)
us: cuanto cuesta?
c.l.: mutter spanish 1 blah blah mutter spanish mutter
us: gracias! hasta manana! (thanks, see you tomorow!)
c.l.: (as we leave) mutter stupid gringas grumble spanish mutter
i love that place, and those pasteries, and epecially that crazy, senile old lady
lastly, andrea asked me to talk about lucuma. a lucuma itself is a smallish round green fruit with a bright orange inside. its dry and sticks to your tongue, so i would never really eat it by itself, although im sure some would. but much more popular than the fruit itself is lucuma as an icecream flavour. its more popular than strawberry, and shows up about as frequently as vanilla or chocolate. i think that its ok when combined with chocolate in some way (covered in a shell, or swirled with), but andrea despises it. i dont exactly know why, but if she accidentaly gets it, thinking it was vanilla or some other reasonable flavour, i hear about it, and sometimes have to eat it. not that i complain, though
and that concludes my essay on the crazyness of peruvian cuisine. as a final note, i was serious in my request for you all to roll me out of the plane although i dont think i will fit in my car...

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