Almuerzo - More on Eating!

There are so many fascinating things you can learn about when you speak Spanish. Food is definitely one of them.

You might be wondering why I’m talking so much about food on a Spanish blog. Well, there are several very good reasons.

First of all, the countries in Latin America haven’t been spoiled by processed food and eating in restaurants. In fact, in many Latin American countries eating in restaurants is like playing Russian roulette since you aren’t so certain about the hygiene the cooks used to prepare the food. People tend to go out to have coffee or alcoholic beverages, but eating is something done in the home.

One of the interesting things about my time living in Peru was the fact that the biggest traffic jam would happen at 1:00 in the afternoon because that’s when everyone was in a hurry to get home. And there was a really big reason to go home for; because at home was a three-course meal waiting.

Regardless of the socio-economic class of the family there was a scrumptious meal, on the scale of a Thanksgiving feast. And every day it’s completely different. Usually it starts out with a soup as an appetizer, then the main course comes out that consists of rice, salad or vegetable, and a meat that is usually covered in some type of sauce or gravy. And often there's a dessert (but it's usually not nearly as sweet as it is here in America).

But it’s more than that. It’s the time of the day the entire family sits together to eat. Most people live with their families even when they’re married and have children so eating is a big part of their day-to-day living.

Read about the foods of:

• Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic
• Panama and Venezuela

Stay tuned though because the best is yet to come because next week, I’ll be writing about the foods of Central America.