*Buen Provecho: Eat Well*

It’s Thanksgiving, so your mind is probably on which silverware to use, who is going to win the game, and whether or not you have enough flour for the thrice rising rolls and your grandmother’s pumpkin clove pie. After all, what is Thanksgiving about, except for food? You can trace ancestors back to the Mayflower, and say ‘’I’m thankful for…’’ all you want, but in the end, it’s all based around the table. Today the exchange students are recreating our own little Thanksgiving feast, which, if I’m not mistaken, will have all the edible necessities, plus a few innovations. I’m thinking mango pie. In memory of this great holiday, I’m going to give you a different perspective on food: the Cruceño viewpoint, menu, and general flavors I’ve come to associate with Santa Cruz.
Let’s begin with breakfast. In my home, it’s always the same. My mother has papaya with puffed quinoa (say keen-wa. It’s a native grain, popular in soups, salads, or puffed with sweetening.) It’s all drizzled over in honey. My father was quite the advocate for salteñas, but for health reasons has had to give them up. Poor man. Salteñas are delicious. They’re similar to chicken or beef pot pies, but are cooked in a crescent shaped pastry crust. My brother goes for Corn Flakes, but mixes Nestle chocolate mix into the milk. I’ll eat just about anything, but prefer some fresh fruit with French bread or a cheese empanada. Empanadas are similar to salteñas, but are more typically filled with cheese, corn, or meat. ‘’Pizza’’ empanadas have a tomato sauce, cheese, meat, and spice filling. Only once have I had eggs for breakfast, and my family laughs at me when I make pancakes. As a general rule, breakfast is light, simple, and short.
Lunch, in comparison, is the big meal of the day. Papi comes home from work, Eduardo and I are picked up from school, and the whole family gathers around the table for our noon meal. There is always a variety of food for lunch, but I can almost always predict the meal. It’s simple: there will always be rice, some kind of meat, usually a salad, and another form of carbohydrates. In fact, it’s not unusual to have rice, pasta, and yuca (a fibrous root that often takes the place of potatoes) in the same meal. When I first arrived, most of the food struck me as bland, but overly salted. There is never pepper or hot sauce on the table, but always plenty of salt. It took a very long time to get used to seasoning a salad with olive oil and salt. In the last few weeks I’ve grown accustomed to the salt, and even enjoy it. Because of the heat, I’m always a bit…dewy with sweat, so the salt is good to balance out my insides. Thankfully, lunch is almost always accompanied with fresh fruit juice.
Around five o’clock, we have tea. This is not a family affair, nor absolutely necessary, but it’s very common all the same. We break out the traditional empanadas, cuñapes (almost like a cheese roll, but better,) and the ever present French bread. I’m not sure if the love of pan Frances is a Bolivian thing, or just my family. My parents are big instant coffee drinkers, though my mom is quick to interchange that with Trimate: a tea made of chamomile, coca, and anis. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, the drinking of hot beverages when it’s ninety degrees out, but it works for them. When with my grandmother, I’ll take a hot chocolate when they take their coffees, and it’s not quite as horrible as it sounds.
Dinner is usually an informal occasion. You pretty much show up when you want to, eat what you want to, and then clear your place. It’s usually very light: rice with a salad for example, though we have gone out for burgers or fried chicken.
As you can see, the diet is pretty monotonous. I love it, but there is little day to day variety. Still, food is such a broad topic, I’m sure you’re going to see more entries on it. Really, I usually adore every bite, and hope you can taste a little just in my words.