30 October 05
So the week was an interesting one.
I always find myself writing about food (anyone know of a newspaper that needs a street-vendor food critic?), but this week was special by all accounts. Not because of the restaurants we tried, but for the food we ate at home.
Dona Anamaria fixed a chicken creole cacciatora that was divine. In a pretty typical middle class move, we feel uncomfortable with the concept of servants, so we fix our meals, wash our clothes, make our beds, and pretty much leave Dona Ana with little to do, except hang out with us and try to intercept trips to the laundry room. But Kathe decided that we needed to try some true Chapin Cuisine, and so asked Dona Anamaria to prepare some dishes for us. Antigua's restaurants are wonderful, but reflect a more international than traditional fare.
What she fixed was a tomato/tomatillo based chicken estafado, served with rice, tortillas, and a fiery repollo (a cole-slaw like mixture made of cabbage, peppers, carrot slices and onion) that left us gasping for breath. Yes, even me - after a couple of bites, I found myself reaching for the tortillas. That stuff was just hot.
I also tried my hand at making tortillas. It seems so easy: you pat a ball of cornmeal dough until it is flat. But it also involves thinning out the dough evenly (and making a round, flat object). It is much easier with a tortilla press, but the results do not taste as good.
They do, however, cut the blaze from a good fiery repollo equally well.
Friday night, emboldened by my attempt at making tortillas, I decided to expand my repertoir and I tried my hand at making ceviche. As I mentioned before, I have a little bit of reluctance in terms of eating raw shellfish quite so far from the ocean. It is close, but not quite close enough to a natural source of shellfish to make me comfortable. But the ceviche I have tried here in Guate has been pretty good, so I tried my hand at making it myself.
First, we stopped by the store and got all the other ingredients (tomatoes, spring onions, jalepenos - limes and cilantro grow at the house), then stopped by the seafood place to get the shrimp, taking the opportunity to sing with/to Coco the dog.
Yes, O Best Beloved, the dog loves opera. He will sing along with you as you belt out something from Die Zauberflote or Carmen. He prefers mezzo sopranos, though, not baritones. And, also sings along with ambulance sirens, so there is no claim that he has an ear for quality music... but he does sing along.
After preparing the ceviche, I have to brag a little. All hands are still accounted for. No evidence of bodies left in the wake of the ceviche tasting. And it tasted good, so I consider it a success. The thing that surprised me most was how quickly the shrimp "cooked" in the lime juice. It only took 15 minutes before they were all a perfect shade of pink.
On the lithic front, Matt took the Peten director of the department of monuments out to the lithic site I am hoping to excavate next month. It is an amazing site, with more than a meter of debitage on top of a platform. By all standards, this is an impressive deposit of lithic material.
The director admitted that it certainly seemed like a lot of chipped stone debris, and that it was probably worth undertaking. And he confirmed something that we had heard - the owner of the site works for him. So all of the negotiating and explaining that we did to try and get permission to do salvage excavations on his land was unnecessary - he knew why we wanted to do it, since his job is archaeology related. He just did not want us to take his land from him, or report him to his boss for not taking care of the site.
So the excavations are likely to happen, and happen soon. Not certain, but likely.
Final story. Kathe and I were walking around Atigua, clearing our heads from too much time spent inside. We were talking to a couple of people along the walk, and I was reminded of a story told by David Dodge in How Lost was my Weekend (1949). After spending a year in Guatemala, Elva (his wife) had heard of a fertility cloth that was becoming hard to find. It depicted a very natural act between a bull and a cow, in beautiful embroidery. But all of the examples she came across were "cleaned up" for the more puritanical tourists. So she began to argue with the vendors (the following is a paraphrase from my memory of the story).
"But this is what you asked for"
"No, it is not. It lacks the thing which makes it a bull, and not a steer."
"How about this one?"
And so on, until a properly unmodified improper textile was brought out, bartered for, and traded hands. The entire anecdote was intended to demonstrate how completely a part of Guatemala the family had become. The final bit had the vendor bidding adieu to the gringo couple with "Adios, chapines".
Dodge was thrilled; they had been accepted by a Guatemalan as a part of the local scenery.
Nice story. Nobody yet has called me a chapin, nor are they likely to. But Kathe and I are becoming very comfortable with the rhythms and mannerisms here, and in a strange way, we feel at home.
But the story continues. The walk we were taking wound its way around, and we poked around a jewelry store, when framed on the wall, I saw the textile referred to in the book. And suffice it to say, the bull could be proud of its depiction.
So we are now keeping a half an eye out for a similar textile. It would look so good next to the bar in the house....
Hope you all are well. Many people I know are beginning to filter back into New Orleans, and are facing the difficult process of cleaning up destroyed houses. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
Best,
Crorey
So the week was an interesting one.
I always find myself writing about food (anyone know of a newspaper that needs a street-vendor food critic?), but this week was special by all accounts. Not because of the restaurants we tried, but for the food we ate at home.
Dona Anamaria fixed a chicken creole cacciatora that was divine. In a pretty typical middle class move, we feel uncomfortable with the concept of servants, so we fix our meals, wash our clothes, make our beds, and pretty much leave Dona Ana with little to do, except hang out with us and try to intercept trips to the laundry room. But Kathe decided that we needed to try some true Chapin Cuisine, and so asked Dona Anamaria to prepare some dishes for us. Antigua's restaurants are wonderful, but reflect a more international than traditional fare.
What she fixed was a tomato/tomatillo based chicken estafado, served with rice, tortillas, and a fiery repollo (a cole-slaw like mixture made of cabbage, peppers, carrot slices and onion) that left us gasping for breath. Yes, even me - after a couple of bites, I found myself reaching for the tortillas. That stuff was just hot.
I also tried my hand at making tortillas. It seems so easy: you pat a ball of cornmeal dough until it is flat. But it also involves thinning out the dough evenly (and making a round, flat object). It is much easier with a tortilla press, but the results do not taste as good.
They do, however, cut the blaze from a good fiery repollo equally well.
Friday night, emboldened by my attempt at making tortillas, I decided to expand my repertoir and I tried my hand at making ceviche. As I mentioned before, I have a little bit of reluctance in terms of eating raw shellfish quite so far from the ocean. It is close, but not quite close enough to a natural source of shellfish to make me comfortable. But the ceviche I have tried here in Guate has been pretty good, so I tried my hand at making it myself.
First, we stopped by the store and got all the other ingredients (tomatoes, spring onions, jalepenos - limes and cilantro grow at the house), then stopped by the seafood place to get the shrimp, taking the opportunity to sing with/to Coco the dog.
Yes, O Best Beloved, the dog loves opera. He will sing along with you as you belt out something from Die Zauberflote or Carmen. He prefers mezzo sopranos, though, not baritones. And, also sings along with ambulance sirens, so there is no claim that he has an ear for quality music... but he does sing along.
After preparing the ceviche, I have to brag a little. All hands are still accounted for. No evidence of bodies left in the wake of the ceviche tasting. And it tasted good, so I consider it a success. The thing that surprised me most was how quickly the shrimp "cooked" in the lime juice. It only took 15 minutes before they were all a perfect shade of pink.
On the lithic front, Matt took the Peten director of the department of monuments out to the lithic site I am hoping to excavate next month. It is an amazing site, with more than a meter of debitage on top of a platform. By all standards, this is an impressive deposit of lithic material.
The director admitted that it certainly seemed like a lot of chipped stone debris, and that it was probably worth undertaking. And he confirmed something that we had heard - the owner of the site works for him. So all of the negotiating and explaining that we did to try and get permission to do salvage excavations on his land was unnecessary - he knew why we wanted to do it, since his job is archaeology related. He just did not want us to take his land from him, or report him to his boss for not taking care of the site.
So the excavations are likely to happen, and happen soon. Not certain, but likely.
Final story. Kathe and I were walking around Atigua, clearing our heads from too much time spent inside. We were talking to a couple of people along the walk, and I was reminded of a story told by David Dodge in How Lost was my Weekend (1949). After spending a year in Guatemala, Elva (his wife) had heard of a fertility cloth that was becoming hard to find. It depicted a very natural act between a bull and a cow, in beautiful embroidery. But all of the examples she came across were "cleaned up" for the more puritanical tourists. So she began to argue with the vendors (the following is a paraphrase from my memory of the story).
"But this is what you asked for"
"No, it is not. It lacks the thing which makes it a bull, and not a steer."
"How about this one?"
And so on, until a properly unmodified improper textile was brought out, bartered for, and traded hands. The entire anecdote was intended to demonstrate how completely a part of Guatemala the family had become. The final bit had the vendor bidding adieu to the gringo couple with "Adios, chapines".
Dodge was thrilled; they had been accepted by a Guatemalan as a part of the local scenery.
Nice story. Nobody yet has called me a chapin, nor are they likely to. But Kathe and I are becoming very comfortable with the rhythms and mannerisms here, and in a strange way, we feel at home.
But the story continues. The walk we were taking wound its way around, and we poked around a jewelry store, when framed on the wall, I saw the textile referred to in the book. And suffice it to say, the bull could be proud of its depiction.
So we are now keeping a half an eye out for a similar textile. It would look so good next to the bar in the house....
Hope you all are well. Many people I know are beginning to filter back into New Orleans, and are facing the difficult process of cleaning up destroyed houses. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
Best,
Crorey
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