GST Week 2

It's week two for the GST blog  and this weeks questions, answers and a video are as follows:

What foods are Native to Costa Rica?

In a conversation with my Tica mom there were several foods that are native to Costa Rica. According to her, food combinations like Gallo Pinto (rice and beans) or Picadillo (chayote and onions) are native to Costa Rica. Also used a lot according to my Tica mom is the amount of fruit with the meals such as breakfast. Costa Rica has many fruits such as bananas pineapples, cas fruits and more. In keeping with this most mornings there is pineapple available, and if not then there is fresh cas juice or a citrus based juice. Also according to my host mom, coffee use at just about every meal is pretty Costa Rican. I have observed that for every meal, my host family drinks a cup of coffee, even if it is with a glass of juice. 

What are some customs related to Costa Rican food?

I asked this question to my mom during breakfast so this question focuses primarily on breakfast foods. The biggest thing she said was that it is pretty Costa Rican to eat a big breakfast, middle sized lunch and then a medium or small dinner. My family definitely holds this to be true because that morning I was offered a several cheese tortillas, a cup of coffee, a glass of citrus fruit juice, and a special type of bread with ham. According to my mom, in general people sit down and eat meals together. Whether it is the whole family or just two or three members, no one eats alone. According to my host mom, this is because Costa Rican society is family centered and therefore people like to share their things, primarily food. Meals are also very important social times for the families when they can talk to each other and catch up on important details in each persons life. In my family, I have observed that the main meals are served on plates by the mom, but then there is generally a side dish that you take as much of as desirable. This is generally the case with fruit for breakfast, coffee, tortillas, salad and bread from time to time. Also in a conversation with my sister, dinner in Costa Rica is much smaller.Typically they would eat like a sandwich or even some cornflakes. This changed from day to day depending on what activities occur but generally dinner is the smallest meal. 

Reflection:

In the video there are few foods that I ate one  morning for breakfast including coffee, cheese tortillas, bread, fruit juice and many other things. This clearly a big breakfast and it is significant, because for my family it is the most important meal of the day. My family generally wakes up at around 5 or 5:30 am to start preparing breakfast and the lunches that they take to work. These lunches are pretty big and require a lot of time to prepare. There is a greater value placed on a big breakfast here in Costa Rica than in the United States because it is seen as the fuel at the start of the day, and days in Costa Rica start much earlier than in the US. As a result there is more time in between lunch and breakfast, so lunch is pretty large after that. After lunch, dinner is small because the nights end earlier and there isn't time to fully digest a large dinner meal. In the US, breakfasts are not as large because the days do not start as early as in Costa Rica. Since there is not such a long time before lunch as a result of the day starting later, breakfasts do not need to be large, and at the same time lunches also do not need to be as large. Everything waits in the United States until dinner which comes at the end.
Although the case is not the same for me (as they feed me American sized portions for dinner), my family eats a small dinner. At the last few dinners with my family, my portion of food has been between 2-3 times larger than what they eat, because my body was still used to the American way of eating foods. This is beginning to change as I am losing my appetite for large dinners and I tend to favor a larger breakfast.