Simple Food for a Simple Life

Shadow or no shadow, it’s the dead of winter. In our Idaho climate and latitude, historically we’d be eating stewed squash, onions, and potatoes, the last of fall’s tomatoes (red but no longer tasty), and jerky. We’d be fattening up on bread, dried fruits, pickled foods, and preserves.

But we don’t eat seasonally because we have every imaginable food at our fingertips – papaya, bananas, avocado, coffee, cacao… Even strawberries (to dip in chocolate, in February).

While writing this article, I’m in the tropics on a much-needed adventure. Here, the aforementioned foods are ripe, local, and in season. I’m reveling in them, simultaneously noticing how much I rely on high capitalism and globalization to make even my simple meals in Costa Rica from scratch. And certainly back home.

At first, I missed eating kale, Brussels sprouts, shrooms, and other foods I associate with cold-weather winter. My dietary and energetic rhythms were interrupted by two days of traveling, and snack-y, well-balanced meals my mom and I had prepared in advance. From dry-cold to hot-humid, from sterile airports to narrow, rental car navigation, within a few hours in-country I flipped a U-turn to re-set at the roadside fruit stand. Gabriella guided us to the best sapote, demonstrated how to eat uchuva, and offered tastes of pejibaye caliente dipped in mayonnaise. While my kids remarked at the plethora of galletas and other sweets, I took a moment to pause and listen to my body’s needs.  

We bought the unfamiliar fruit, plus pineapple, papaya, watermelon, and cantaloupe, a couple bottles of “egg nog” (spiked with cane sugar alcohol, we later learned) and a solid stick of what looked like “pulled sugar” and turned out to be just that, plus peanut butter and vanilla. We bought raw honey straight off the truck. We were exploding with goodies ! Yet, when we arrived a few hours later at the AirBnB with perfect views of the volcano, I fumbled around the kitchen with no idea what to cook. Fruit and dulce for dinner?

The next day, even my morning coffee ritual was unfamiliar, despite having purchased rainforest conscious coffee and a can of coconut cream - the only brand I could find without preservatives or sugar.

On our first tour we sampled candied plantains, homemade corn tortillas, and sugarcane water – the ideal chaser for 120-proof sugarcane alcohol. We bought local cheese and organic chocolate made locally, though avoided the bananas wrapped in blue plastic (to contain pesticides and harm wildlife slightly less).

That evening stopped at the MegaSuper grocery to buy ingredients for upcoming meals. Balking at aisles of bagged rice, pinkish meat in all shapes and sizes, 25 flavors of Tang, and magnanimous bottles of soda, I clung to the outer edges, navigating the produce section – yuca, chayote, plantains, avocado, tomatoes, lettuce. In dairy country, I wrongly assumed yogurt would be common, but only Yoplait (with added sugars) was available.

My sister and her family had been there for two weeks already, so she had a pulse on food availability and understocked kitchens. I was happy to let her take the lead on brined chicken, potatoes, and salad. Though we were staying at “La Granja” - the farm - I dared not ask where she bough the chicken, and also curbed my disappointment that local eggs were unavailable.

Other conundrums arose: locating condiments, yogurt, and juice without additives; olive oil; sustainable meat that doesn’t resemble bologna; cake mix (to celebrate my daughter’s birthday). I never saw a farmers’ market (though I’d read about one), a butcher, or a tortilleria, let alone a bakery selling bread with flavor (and I don’t mean dulce de leche).

In the mountain village, I was overjoyed to find a tiny health food store with homemade seed and apricot cookies, toothpaste that wasn’t dyed blue, and dried fruit without sugar. And kefir water. Those few items helped me feel rejuvenated, despite my obsession with modern world food luxuries like preservative-free food.

A week into our trip, we landed at the beach house, where we met up with more family and I continued to go with the flow. My uncle and brother-in-law harvested lobster (to which I’m allergic) for tonight’s dinner. My aunt and cousin ordered a plethora of fresh fruits from the cart vendor, who will deliver by week’s end. The rest of us bought necessary extras at the nearest grocery – mayo for fish salads, jalapenos for pico de gallo, coconut cream for my coffee, and bread for the kids’ PBJ’s. With no shortage of cooks in the kitchen, we all pitched in to make sauces for stir fry, roasted carrots and potatoes for beer-battered fish night, and (yes!) a birthday cake with sugary-coconut icing.

Letting others take the lead with food, I was happy keeping it simple while in the land of pura vida. Because, there, simple still can be delicious, fresh, and (as my nephew described) loco.