Food

Last night we received an unexpected visit from our local nun. She had heard we liked celery and brought us some from her garden, along with some beets with tops. This resulted in a late-night cooking event that inspired me to share with you all some food experiences from rural Bolivia.

If I´ve come to any conclusions about food in our short time here, one significant one is that I´m very disappointed in the nature of food laws in the U.S. They have kept me from experiencing so many types of food preparations, and from learning all sorts of ways of processing and enjoying food. As we sit enjoying the internet connection (which we trekked two hours on a motorcycle in the rain to get to), we are also sipping raw, room-temperature milk from the metal water bottle we carry with us. Women with 20-or-so-gallon jugs were selling it on the street for about 50 cents a liter. In other words, they milked their small herd this morning and brought the milk straight to town to sell, and so we have no fear that the milk is anything but safe (if you don´t believe me, read just about anything that talks about milk safety that´s not printed by the USDA, or ask your grandmother how they used to do it back in the day). The first few times I tried raw milk (all here in Bolivia), I had to adjust my expectations that milk should always be cold. Now I´m wishing there were more dairy cows around Moro Moro so that the good stuff could be a larger part of our diet. As it is, the only milk we consume regularly is either from powder or on a visit to the home of someone who happens to keep cows. Last week, for instance, we dropped in to talk to a family in the countryside, and got a bowl of curds and whey (the real thing!) in return.

We´ve also experienced ways of eating meat that are probably illegal in the U.S. We often see pork hanging on what look to us like clothes lines at people´s homes. The result of this drying process is called charque, and, when done right, is delicious. On the other hand, at times I appreciate that back home you can pretty much predict and understand what you´re eating. One day last week we were served a piping hot plate of fried egg (yum!), noodles and potatoes cooked in lard (also yum), and - "hey, what´s that?" - "ummm...is that skin?" Yes! It was pig skin, including a layer of fat and the little stubs of hairs that didn´t come out when they were butchering the animal. And guess what? I ate the whole thing!! Not bad, really, once I decided to ignore the hair.

In general, our food life is really not so adventurous. Several people in town make delicious bread (all the same kind more or less - flat rolls made by rolling a dough ball made of white flour inside a dough ball made from wheat flour), and we usually eat bread, fruit (so far usually papaya, plums, or watermelon whenever someone brings us one from the lowlands), and tea made by simply plopping a few mint leaves from our garden into a hot cup of water (thanks to whoever planted and cared for this extremely productive mint plant, by the way). If we´re at someone´s house in the campo around mid-morning, we are often fed then as well. Sometimes this is api (thick drink made from boiled purple corn), other times bread and plums, and sometimes people get really ambitious and serve us a whole plate of something (eggs, potatoes, noodles, perhaps). Lunch in the campo is often a similar type of plate or a soup of chicken and potatoes (noticed the potato theme yet?), always with a bowl of mote (boiled corn) on the side. If we eat at one of the restaurants in town, the plate always includes rice and "salad" (chopped tomatoes and onions), and the meat portion varies among pork, chicken, beef, and lentils cooked in various ways.

At home in the evenings we generally cook however we know how and with whatever we can find. A lot of things are the same as before. Onions, garlic, tomatoes, vegetable oil, margarine, flour, sugar, baking powder, and various other staples are readily available. Right now we have so much spinach in our garden that that has also become a staple. Cheese is available but quite different than what we´re used to. I love it, can´t resist cutting off a chunk and snacking every time I see it, and will probably miss it some day. Andy is undecided.

Most of the things we do without are treats. There´s no ice cream here (not enough milk production in the campo, and no refrigerated trucks to bring it in), and if we want a cookie or cake that tastes good to us, we usually have to make it ourselves. Other things that would have to be refrigerated are also unavailable, so no store-bought juice, sour cream, or yogurt that hasn´t been ultra ultra ultra pasteurized and mixed with equal parts sugar. There´s also no real butter, and a recent attempt to start using less vegetable oil and more of the real stuff (for various reasons that I will not explain here) has resulted in the purchase of a whole tub of pig lard. Mmmm. Considering the miles we walk in a week, I´m not too worried about vascular health either.

So, in other words, we really have nothing to complain about in terms of food. We are eating good stuff, and lots of it. We are also looking forward to learning how to do things like dry meat on our clothes line and somehow make pig skin edible, although we understand if none of you back home will ever be too excited about joining us for a meal of pig skin/hair and curds and whey. Blessings and peace to you all! For those of you in the frozen north, stay warm!