Eatin' Good in the [Guatemalan] Neighborhood

So it's been exactly a week since I got back from Guatemala, where I spent 10 days including xmas and New Year's--time to blog about it! I was staying with my good friend Rodrigo, whose family splits their time between Guatemala City and a SICK beach house in the south, very close to the border of El Salvador. The food they ate on xmas was very western-traditional though unusually abundant: turkey, ham, AND pork leg with stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc. It was pretty good but what really excited me was the traditional Guatemalan cuisine.

Highlights:

• Corn tamales, two types: one savory, seasoned with a tomato sauce and whole green olives, the other sweet, seasoned with some kind of chocolate sauce (sort of like mole but sweeter) and raisins. Both with a big chunk of delicious pork in the center.
  
• Chicharrines, or pork skins, fried into bubbly/crackly oblivion, accompanied by AMAZING refried black beans (no idea what they do to them), guacamole, tortillas, lime, Gallo beer (the national cerveza).
  
• Guatemalan fried chicken at Pollo Campero, the most popular (native) fast food chain, accompanied by french fries, coleslaw, full-calorie soda (they didn't have diet, which I thought was very interesting).
• Insanely fresh ceviche, on the beach: some kind of white fish, chunked (is that a verb?) and tossed in lemon juice, cilantro, chopped tomato, salt and pepper, and plenty of hot sauce for me. We had this every day as the first course of lunch--it was followed by fresh tortillas, guacamole, pickled cabbage, Guatemalan sausage.
• The same white fish, fried with very simple seasoning (a little paprika, maybe? something orangey and tasty), with potato salad and green salad.
• Rosa de jamaica--a very popular drink (all over the world, apparently) made by boiling hibiscus leaves in water and adding sugar to the liquid. Rodrigo's mom gave me a big package of the leaves to take home.

The beach house

Rodrigo and our friend Ashby, post-Pollo Campero

My trip was great for many reasons, but food figured prominently in the fun. In an ironic twist, I almost wasn't able to eat it--I got some kind of stomach bug the day after I arrived. Luckily, it is very easy to obtain drugs in Central America--almost everything is over the counter--and Rodrigo's mom's friend suggested some weird antibiotic I'd never heard of .... Hey, it did the trick! It probably took five years off my life, or something, but it was worth it.