I went to restaurants and cooked in exotic locales. Let me tell you some things.
1. FUCK YOU, GUATEMALA. For the love of God, don’t go to Guatemala anticipating a beautiful meal that tastes delicious. The local meats are no good, and cow doesn’t have ‘cuts’ so much as ‘parts that probably came off of a cow somewhere.’ The water is undrinkable, which means the salad is untrustworthy. The Spanish word for “hummus” is apparently “homma,” which sounds so damn different from “hummus” that if you order “hummus,” your Spanish-speaking waitress will not understand a damn thing you say. (This isn’t fair. My mom had a truly extraordinary shish kebob, which had onions and beef and eggplant, but the beef was nothing to write home about, and you have to work magic to make a shish kebob look beautiful enough to photograph.)
2. Fanta made with sucrose is the most delicious soda.
3. The national beer of Belize, Belikin, is truly delicious if you have spent all day baking in hot hot direct South American sunlight. It is kept in the thickest damn bottles I have ever seen, so much so that you can’t tell if you’ve finished your beer or not.
4. It is incredibly hard to cook spaghetti properly on a boat.
5. If a crazy tanned man ever hands you homemade mango vinegar, accept. I can guarantee you that it’s incredible, flavorful but still light, and emulsifies beautifully with a little mustard and olive oil for a simply perfect vinaigrette.
6. On the subject of mangos: DON’T TRUST CHILDREN. You think you have to pay one quetzale for a mango. In truth, you can get 10 mangos for 5 quetzales! According to this handy chart, I had common mangos. I could not shut up about mangos. Corellary to #1, you can go to Guatemala for the express purpose of eating mangos.
7. Allspice leaves smell just like allspice seeds, if not moreso.
8. Corellary to #6: If your boat’s bathroom decides to spontaneously break, then mangos are the worst food to have. Seriously. It’s like woo WOO, all aboard the express train to your worst goddamn nightmare.
9. Thanks to the Restaurant Villa del Chef in Flores, Guatemala (also home of the delicious shish kebob), I have discovered my new greatest hope for the Obama administration. I want him to mend ties with Cuba and stop making Cuban goods illegal, so I can have a Cuba Libre. It’s just a rum and coke with some lime, but godDAMN. The Cuban rum I had was the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted, and I can’t wait until that shit is legal stateside.
And finally, the most delicious food I had during my Spring Break:
10. A fucking ham and cheese sandwich. NOT KIDDING. We went on a five-hour hike through Tikal, Guatemala, which is the site of a very famous Mayan ruin. We had five minutes before our tour to eat, and half of the sandwich survived to be eaten after climbing 80,000 perilously stupid steps. It had thick-sliced white bread which was just a little crusty, and had a normal piece of American cheese and a normal slice of ham. But there was some spiced mayonnaise on it which I will endeavor to reproduce soon, which made the whole thing taste both fulling, aromatic and savory. My mom saved hers all the way to the last temple complex, and we were all really, really jealous.
And now, since I didn’t take any food pictures, Mayan ruins! Wooooo!