Honduran Food

Honduran food is yummy. My host mom is a good cook. In Honduras, everything is fried. Tortillas, cheese, eggs, beans, meat, plantains, bananas… It’s all delicious, BUT it’s all fried. Nothing seems to escape the 2 inches of deep frying oil (at least they use vegetable oil). Ok, so the oatmeal and pancakes escape this fate. I’m not complaining. My host mom cooks these great fried tortillas with melted quesillo (this really good stretchy, salty cheese similar to Mexican Oaxaca cheese) in the middle and Pico de Gallo on top. She makes great enchiladas (Honduran enchiladas are fried tortillas with everything on top of it (with great guacamole). She makes this great dish with fried plantains, pico de gallo, hamburger meat and barbeque sauce. And her Baleadas are amazing! Baleadas are thick pancakey tortillas filled with eggs, beans, cheese and sometimes pico de gallo or meat or avocado. They are delicious!

The Plato tipico contains: red beans, rice, queso fresco, huevo and usually a little avocado. And tortillas on the side. However, they don’t make tacos with their food, like in Mexico. Instead they roll them up and put them in their left hand and occasionally eat take a bite of them while they eat. (Personally, I prefer the Mexican way. It’s just easier to stomach corn tortillas when they are filled with stuff.)

So today I went to Teguz with my host mom and my uncle. We went to this big market with lots of fruit and vegetables. Thankfully, my mom likes to give me fruit and vegetables for lunch! We also stopped at a supermarket where I bought 3 jars of peanut butter (2 for my PC friends and one for my host family). My family likes peanut butter, but it is too hard to find and expensive for them to buy. It costs like $4/jar! Everything Americanesque is more expensive in the Supermarket. For example, my favorite cereal, Smart Start costs almost $6/box here (I didn’t buy it.) I also bought some brownie mix, chocolate chips and Dove dark chocolate bars.

Today, my host mom and I made brownies. It was like the second time that they had ever used their oven! It’s just that in Honduras, no one knows how to use ovens. My family really liked the brownies, so maybe I can start cooking with them a lot and show them how to use the oven more. However, they thought it was strange that I would drink milk plain (ie: not in coffee or oatmeal). I told them that milk went well with chocolate. Maybe this is just an American culture thing. They just laughed and drank Pepsi or banana soda with their brownies. I brought a Velveeta shells macaroni and cheese box. So that’s next on my cooking agenda. I gave my mom a Betty Crocker cookbook when I first arrived in Honduras. She’s super excited about it. So maybe I can cook some of the recipes with her and show her how to use the oven.