On the Menu

You might be interested in seeing the food we ate in Puerto Rico. These are all pretty common dishes, and are quite exotic to our Stateside palates. But Sam grew up with his mother making several of these quite often. He felt right at home and I loved the food. Except....no vegetables! These (above) are called tostones. The Puerto Ricans drop the first s and say something that sounds like "to-tone-es." They are plantains that you hit with a hammer to flatten. Then they are fried and sprinkled with salt. Very starchy, very good.

This was what our Titi ordered: seafood salad. It had octopus, squid, and I'm not sure what else. It didn't look appealing, but it is typical seafood. Interesting, since Puerto Rico is an island, that there is lots of seafood. You can see that the tomatoes are served as pale pink and unripe. It doesn't seem that anyone grows vegetables on the island--tomatoes, etc. But there are lots of places in the island where you could easily grow them and have gardens. There are tons of banana groves and mango trees, but no tomatoes that I could see anywhere. Hmmmm...maybe if we ever live there I will try to have a huge garden with these veggies in it.

This vile looking concoction (above) is sliced, candied papaya con queso--with cheese. Not sure what the call for cheese is, but this is a common native desert.

This is red snapper that we ate on Isla de Cabras (Island of the Goats) where we had a wonderful view of El Morro.

More tostones. They are everywhere! Some are better than others: these were wonderful.

Here is more fish, from a meal at La Parguera--over on the West Coast of the island. It was a fishing village where the specialty is red snapper or cod. I never could get past the eye looking up at me. So I always ordered breaded fish and tried not to look over at Sam's plate!

We were introduced to these little fried breads by Titi Cuchi. They were wonderful, fattening little things that we slathered with some kind of sauce from a bottle (tasted like Russian dressing). I can't remember the name of them, but they were very tasty.

This is my favorite dish in Puerto Rico: Mofongo. It is made from pressed plantain with garlic, onions, and I'm not sure what else. Inside is the most tender chicken I've ever had. You can see that these tomatoes were more red. Not bad for imported tomatoes! We were treated to this lovely meal by Sam's cousin, Pachito.

Thought the food pics would be interesting. I came back about 6 lbs. heavier. Although the food was great, I missed my vegetables and fruit.