Sustainable Farming Fulbright in Nicaragua

Here is my running list of Nicaraguan food and fruits that you might not have ever had…I am probably spelling some of them wrong, if you notice, let me know. Also, not all of these are strictly Nicaraguan, you can probably find some of them in other Latin American countries.

Tibuilote berries in late August

Tibuilote – Part of my quest to learn all the fruit from the famous song Nicaragua Nicaraguita. Tibuilote is a berry, small and sweet with a good taste but also seriously slimy.  I gagged.  Apparently an excellent remedy for intestinal parasites.  I suppose without any other option I would find a way to choke them down and clear my system out.

Breadfruit tree's dramatic foliage.

Breadfruit – an Atlantic coast fruit.  I’ve only eaten it fried like french fries.  Starchy and tasty, an excellent carb to accompany a dinner of fish and vegetables. It’s giant, the size of a small watermelon, and the trees are beautiful.

Guanabana – Soursop in English.  Creamy white sweet and tangy fruit with lots of black pits, in a Dr. Seuss-ish bright green spiky peel.

Pijibay for sale on Corn Island

Pijibay – a starchy palm fruit that is cooked and peeled like a potato.  I think they taste like artichoke hearts, and consider them a big treat.  They only grow on the Atlantic coast.  I’m considering starting a commercialization project to transport them to the Pacific coast to satisfy this new craving.

The electric color of Pitaya is impressive

Pitaya- All of the passion of Nicaragua in a fruit!  Called Dragonfruit in english, I am blown away by the color and flavor of the hot pink kohlrabi shaped fruit.  “Imagine a pineapple on acid”, says my friend Sarah.

Güirila- A large grilled pancake made from cooked corn that is then ground and patted flat like a tortilla.  It´s warm, sweet, and deliciously filling, usually served with soft creamy cuajada.

Garroba- Iguana.  The environmentalist in me is not proud of eating this rapidly disappearing animal, but I couldn´t refuse the woman at the farm coaxing me to try a little piece.  She cooked it with achiote and lime, and it was definitely tasty.

Ubre – Udder.  Part of assimilation here is transcending our strange habits of eating some parts of animals while finding other parts disgusting.  Udder is pretty much what I expected it to be, spongy texture and not too much flavor.  That was a stretch for me, I’m definitely going to draw the line before balls come in the picture (or rather on the plate)…

Cusuco – Armadillo.  I’ll admit I did not understand what animal I was eating when I tried this.  It’s tasty, a texture kind of like chicken but a gamier flavor.  The traditional way to eat it is sauteed with onions and peppers, with fresh bitter orange squeezed on it and a tortilla.

Albondigo – a round dumpling made from corn masa and served in chicken soup.  They remind me of matza balls.

Dulce – literally translated dulce just means sweet, but here it refers to unrefined cane sugar.  Dulce is sold in bricks in the markets, and used in place of refined sugar in many candies and sweets.  It’s the same product that I learned as panela in Ecuador.

Gofio – A candy made from pinol, which is fine corn flour, and dulce.  It’s a little dry but not overly sweet, and I like it a lot.  It’s like a small diamond shaped very soft cookie.

Achiote - A spice grown here in abundance, used to color meat red.  In English it is known as annato.  Achiote are the seeds that fall out of a woody pod when the plant is dried.

Vigarón – pork, sauteed in spices and achiote, served over a mountain of yucca with salad on top.  Never imagined I would enjoy this, but it is soooo flavorful and there is a little stand in the street near my house where they serve it hot on a platter of banana leaves, with chili sauce that is actually really spicy.  From here on is where my pants start to become too small.

Salpicón – ground beef, cooked, and mixed with minced sweet peppers and lots of lime.  Eaten as a platter with rice, maduros or tostones, tortillas.  It’s dry but tasty.  The lime gives it a unique fresh and light flavor that I’m not used to in meat dishes.

Leche Burra – toffee candy made from milk.  It tastes like it has molasses in it.  For me they are tasty little morsels remeniscent of gingerbread, just 5 cents each.

Cajeta de Coco – soft candies made from shredded coconut and yucca.  Some of them are dyed bright pink.

Collolitos – soft ball of tamarind and banana rolled in sugar.  I think there might be cinnamon in them too; they are very sweet, very flavourful and very filling.

Empanada de platanos – yummy little dumpling made from platanos maduros and filled with cheese and then fried.  I am seriously going to get a platanos belly here, there are various ways to cook them, but most of the vaiations are still fried.

Caimito – another fruit in the same family as the nisporo and sapote. It is dark purple on the outside and absolutely brillian magenta inside, fantastically beautiful.

Tajadas – lenthwise strips of plantain, fried in oil like potato chips, and eaten out of a bag on the street with a small handfull of salad (shredded cabbage in a light vineagrette) and chili if you want.

Nisporo, small brown fruit with a think leathery skin, soft dark golden flesh, and two beautiful black almond shaped seeds inside. It is so sweet I almost gagged when I ate it.

Sapote, another fruit, this one about the size of an avocado but round, with similar brown leathery skin. It has one big pit inside, and the flesh is dark, smooth, with a rich earthy and also incredibly sweet flavour.

Maduros Hornado con Cuajada, ripe plantains broiled in an oven with no extra oil (so they say), sold in the market with a small pat of salty soft cheese called cuajada and wrapped in a young plantain leaf. I am obessed with maduros, asados or hornados, no me importa!

Tiste- very finely ground corn mixed with cocoa powder into a paste. You can buy little logs of them from corner stores, and mix it with sugar, water or milk, and ice. It´s a little bit grainy becuase the corn flour never completely disolves, but I find it very satisfying.

Chicha- Red corn, ground and cooked and then fermented for a few days. The pulpy mush is sold in bags at the market, or in the morning also as a finished drink. To make the drink, you mix the pulp with water, sugar, and ice. It tastes sweet and slightly fermented, kind of like kefir, but I don´t like it too much.

Hocotes- Small fruits slightly smaller than a plum. The ripe ones are golden in color. They are honestly 90% pit, 2% skin (which you can definitely eat, it´s slightly bitter and a little tough but not bad), and the rest is good, yellow fleshy fruit also not unlike a plum, but not quite as juicy.

Nacatamales – similar to Mexican tamale, but larger, usually made with pork, and if they are all like the one I had last night, saltier. Soft cornflour dough around rice, pork, and vegetables, beautifully wrapped in a banana leaf and tied with string, then boiled. Traditionally eaten with coffee and a bun.

Tostones – double-fried green plantains. Plantains are cut into chunks, fried, then smashed flat and fried again. Greasy, and good. An excellent substitute for french fries.

Chia con Tamarindo – Chia suspended in Tamarind Juice, served cold like lemonade. Chia are seeds of Salvia Hispanica, a plant in the mint family. They are tiny little seeds that become mucilagenous when soaked, not unlike flax seeds. They are super high in omega 3 fatty acids. And, apparently in Mexico they eat them sprouted, and someone started selling little ceramic animals so the sprouts stood up like hairs on their backs. Which inspired…chia pets!

Gallo Pinto – literally, speckled rooster. Actually, red beans and rice.

Cojolitos – little fruits, similar to cherries, that have very think tough skins and are super sour, like eating fresh raw cranberries. People eat them with salt!!