¡día de las culturas!

It was cultural day at language school today and it was so much fun!  Instead of having regular class, the teachers held workshops for us regarding various aspects of culture.  There were classes on cooking, dancing, children’s games, home remedies, and tropical fruits just to name a few!  I am so grateful for the teachers’ willingness to share their culture with us!  They were visibly excited for this day (and had been talking it up for awhile!)!

I attended a workshop on tropical fruits and another on cooking.  In the fruits class, we learned about and tried several local fruits like cas, guanaba, guanabana, maracuya.  They are grow really well here and are all super sour.  Usually, they’re made into refrescos here to cut the super sour/acidic flavor.

The teachers also led us through making a traditional Tico fruit salad.  It had pineapple, papaya, banana, strawberries, and cantaloupe in it.  they chop the fruit really small for their fruit salad, and add sirope (syrup; usually combined with water/milk to drink) and some orange juice.  They serve the fruit salad with a scoop of jello and ICE CREAM!!!  Yes, ice cream!  That made my day at 8:30am!  It was delicious!

Then I went to the workshop on cooking.  We made chorreadas, which are kind of like corn pancakes.  They’re really good.  My Tica mom makes them occasionally and it’s always a treat.  We also got a recipe for gallo pinto, the traditional Costa Rican breakfast dish of rice and beans, that I can’t wait to try!