Lychee, Zapote, Guisquil, and Pitaya: Fruit and Vegetables Introduced to me in Guatemala

There are four types of fruit or vegetable that I was introduced to in Guatemala: Lychee, Zapote, Guisquil, and Pitaya. Because I learned of them in Guatemala, I know them by their Guatemalan names; with the exception of lychee... I'm not sure what it's called in Spanish since a fellow expat introduced it to me. So let's start with that one:

Lychee: a colorful, reddish fruit on the outside with a grape-like inside surrounding a seed, is quite sweet! You just peel off the red part, eat the white and spit out the seed. I think the flavor is similar to that of a grape as well.

Image: piyato / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Zapote: From the outside, I think this looks like a sweet potato or tuber but it is actually considered a fruit. It has thick brown skin on the outside with an orange flesh surrounding a large dark brown seed. I wasn't impressed with the mild, slightly sweet flavor, but I figure it's something one must develop a taste for. (Image from A.M. Costa Rica)

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Guisquil: Known in English as "chayote," this light green squash-like vegetable has a white meat and an interesting juice. When we cut it, if it got on our hands it made them feel like the skin was drawn up very tight, like something you'd expect a fancy spa to put on your face to make you look younger. ;) (If you try that, let me know if it works. That'd be a great natural alternative to Botox for interested people!) In Guatemala we would peel, cut into large round slices and boil the guisquil. Then, we would coat it in the same egg mixture used to make envueltos de ejote, (green bean wraps) and fry in olive oil. It was very tasty this way or boiled like any vegetable in a soup or stew.

Image: anankkml / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Pitaya: Known as "dragon fruit" in English, what points this exotic fruit gains in appearance, it loses in flavor. It's bright magenta skin with green-spiked leaves are peeled away to expose a white or magenta flesh filled with little black seeds. The flavor is not sweet, and reminds me of a raw potato. It is sometimes made into chips or cut up raw and added to other fruit mixtures or covered with sugar to give it some flavor. There should be a proverb about the pitaya... something like, "Though it looks as exciting as a pitaya, it is as flavorless." (Maybe you can come up with a better one. ;))

Image: Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you tried any of these fruits or vegetables? Did you like them? Where were you introduced to them?

Champurradas, a Guatemalan "pan dulce" to eat with your hot chocolate or "champurrado"

Pan dulce, (translated literally "sweet bread,") is traditionally eaten with hot chocolate and is a dense, cake-like bread with a sweet topping. These are common throughout the year, and are served at breakfast and dinner with coffee. If you visit a Guatemalan throughout the day, chances are you’ll be served a plate with pan dulce on it. There are several types of pan dulce and one of these is the champurrada.

For more Guatemalan recipes and traditions, check out the ebook here.

While I haven't seen many of varieties of cookies in Guatemala, one that is present in almost every situation is the champurrada. These were at staff meetings at the school, classroom parties, parent conferences and just about any other occasion you could think of. They are traditionally a crunchier version of what I'd call a sugar cookie, sometimes sprinkled with sesame seeds or made with corn flour.

You can make your own at home with the recipe below:


5 ounces of shortening
5 ounces of sugar
A handful of soft flour (not the normal gold medal kind)
Sesame seeds
Mix the first three ingredients, make a ball and flatten the ball to the size and thickness you want the champurrada to be. Sprinkle with sesame seed.
Bake for 25 minutes at 350F. This recipe courtesy of GuatemalanGenes.com

Another blogger: breadcrumbed.wordpress.com  has another recipe using the corn and healthier coconut oil option:

Yield: 3 dozen cookies
3 tablespoons ground flax seeds
¾ cup coconut oil, softened but not melted
1 cup unrefined cane sugar
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup masa harina (corn flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
½ cup brown sesame seeds

Macadamia Nut Farms and How They Benefit Guatemala

Guatemala is mainly known for its coffee farms, but I had heard of many macadamia farms around Antigua and decided to do more research.

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Eco-Friendly Macadamia Nut Farm

Apparently, the people who founded the Valhalla Macadamia farm, (close to the Panajachel outside of Antigua) have a wider vision for the macadamia than just exportation. Here is a quote that states their vision better than I could ever paraphrase:
 "The potential of the Macadamia tree as an environmentally friendly alternative to slash and burn agriculture is incredible. For example, if you compare the Macadamia tree with a pine tree, the tree most often used in reforestation projects in Guatemala, you will see that the Macadamia tree, thanks to its broad leaves, has the capacity to convert more carbon dioxide to oxygen than the pine needles can. For every pound of nut meats we take one pound of carbon out of the air. The Macadamia tree converts sixty three cubic feet of carbon dioxide and releases 55 gallons of water vapor into the atmosphere every day. Most importantly, the Macadamia tree is an economically favorable tree, a food source, and firewood for cooking. It is environmentally friendly, but it can also provide the indigenous communities an income."

Macadamia Oil Deep Repair Mask, 8.5 ounces Jar
This farm mainly uses macadamia nuts for the oils to create cosmetics: lotions, soaps, oils, and some edible products as well. I found macadamia nut butter for sale from this farm. Many people who have visited have commented on their sustainable and non-toxic farming methods. Erica from Travelpod says: "The farm grows completely organic macadamia nuts.  We saw the plants they grow to make natural pesticides, boil in water, which is then used to spray the trees and keeps insects from feeding on." 

 And others comment on their commitment to use the macadamia trees to improve the lives of people in Guatemala. According to one of the farm's tourists at virtualtourist.com:
"Valhalla gives baby trees away to indigenous farmers, 100 trees per family because that is how many one family can care for A tree matures in 8 years, but it will produce some nuts before that. One tree produces 150 lb. of nuts per year, but ¾ of the weight is shells. They could eventually get $1000 per year in income from them."

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Eco-Friendly Macadamia Nut Farm

Next up: I want to take a tour of this farm! I would love to eventually have the land to plant some macadamia trees, though maybe not 100. Also, I want to try macadamia butter.

I appreciate the way these people have found a solution to several problems at once; slash-and-burn farming, income for Guatemalan families, non-toxic pest solutions and of course, the delicious and useful products from the nuts themselves.

Cinnamon Rolls with a Guatemalan Twist

While at the store, we always keep our eyes open for things that are solely Guatemalan. When I saw "Jalea de Cafe" or coffee jelly manufactured here, I thought it looked really interesting. So we bought some. Ben wasn't super impressed with it on toast, and I immediately thought it would be great in a cinnamon roll. Sweet with a coffee flavor in a pastry sounded good to me!


First I had to find a good recipe. Since The Pioneer Woman is known for her good cooking, I looked for her recipe and found it here. (Follow the link for step-by-step instructions with pictures by PW.)


"1 quart Whole Milk
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Sugar
2 packages Active Dry Yeast, 0.25 Ounce Packets
8 cups (Plus 1 Cup Extra, Separated) All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon (heaping) Baking Powder
1 teaspoon (scant) Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon (heaping) Salt
Plenty Of Melted Butter
2 cups Sugar
Generous Sprinkling Of Cinnamon"


Of course, my filling included this one, very Guatemalan ingredient:
coffee jelly.



PW also includes a frosting recipe with her cinnamon rolls that I did not use. The rolls tend to be sweet as they are, and the Mr. isn't fond of super-sugary treats. (That's why we get along so well.) Instead I just melted a little butter with brown sugar for the glaze.


When finished, I packed them into the only baking dish I had and baked them. PW recommends baking at 400 degrees 15-18 minutes, but here in the mountains of Guatemala City, I definitely needed to bake double that amount of time. It could also have something to do with the glass baking dish.





When they were finished, they were delicious! (Though really strange looking since they were all squished together and rose into interesting designs.) Not too sweet, but very tasty with a definite hint of coffee in the sweet insides.



There are also mango, strawberry, pineapple and other jellies made by this brand. Coffee seemed to be a good one for this filling, but I can think of a million other ways to use them.

Have you ever adapted a cinnamon roll recipe that you would like to share?

Arroz con Leche

Before moving to Guatemala, all I knew about "arroz con leche" was that it meant "rice with milk" and that I had heard this song in Spanish class.

According to suite101.com "The “arroz con leche” or “rice with milk” has a long history. You can taste this dessert in different Spanish speaking countries: Spain, Peru or Costa Rica, for example. It is basically a Latin dessert. Spaniards brought this recipe to America some centuries ago, but the origin of this dessert is not the land we call these days Spain; Moors, when conquering the South of the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain nowadays) brought their recipe and the art of mixing the basic ingredients with different spices."

Because refrigeration did not exist and people wanted to use their leftovers instead of wasting food, leftover rice was turned into this sweet dessert by ingenious and thrifty Moorish cooks.

Blanca showed me how to make it the other evening, so I now have a flavor to associate with those words.

We started with uncooked rice, of course, and added a stick of cinnamon, about a teaspoon of nutmeg, (optional) a teaspoon of salt and a cup of sugar.



Then we added water and cooked as usual.


When the rice had finished cooking, reaching its normal consistency, we added a box of milk. (For people who live where boxed milk is uncommon, that's about 4 cups.)



When the rice had cooked a little longer in the milk absorbing it and turning into a pudding-like consistency, we added about a cup of raisins and half a stick of real butter.


When the butter melted and the raisins plumped up by absorbing the liquid around them, we mixed it one more time and it was ready to serve! We put it in a bowl and sprinkled some cinnamon and honey on top. It was delicious. Some of my students have said they eat it cold, but I certainly prefer it warm.


This is a basic "arroz con leche" recipe, but there are several ways it is personalized. Some people may add some raisins, clove, butter or vanilla,lemon or orange zest to the final product. These additions are not very common in Spain. The Mexican recipe includes eggs and the Andalucia one adds some "agua de rosas" On the other had, another Spanish region, Asturias, includes some liqueur and yolks. Ehow.com states another variation: "A Chilean version adds two eggs toward the end of cooking; as the hot mixture cooks the eggs, the final product is more like a custard than arroz con leche made with milk alone." Play with what sounds good to you to find the right combination for your taste buds.


Most Guatemalans make their "arroz con leche" much thinner than this, almost thin enough to be a drink. Oatmeal is also treated this way. However, I like both of those dishes very thick; enough to feel that I'm eating them, not drinking them; so this recipe is a variation of the "Chapin." It's easy to customize, though. You just let it reduce less time or add more liquid if you would like it to be thinner.

Canning Tomato Sauce

Last weekend I learned how to can tomato sauce the real way! By real, I mean, with my own jars sealing and able to be unrefrigerated afterwards. In the past we made it and then just put it into recycled glass jars and then to the fridge.

Tomatoes are in season in Guatemala right now and we were able to get a 50 pound box for Q75, or about $9.50.

First we scrubbed all of the produce, which included tomatoes, red peppers, and onions and put it into big pots to simmer down and reduce into a pulpy, red deliciousness.


We cooked it with sea salt, thyme and laurel, and one batch with cilantro. The point was to have a tomato sauce base that could then be turned into spaghetti sauce, salsa or any other tomato based sauce.

When it was ready, we put it all in the blender for a nice, even consistency and then back in the pot to simmer a little longer. When it was perfect, (sampling was a fun part of this phase!) We began filling the (heated) jars.



When we finished we had 22 large jars of tomato sauce! Since there were three of us doing it together, that was 7-8 apiece. When we worked out the price, (with the jars included which will make it even cheaper next time since we'll already have them,) each jar of tomato sauce was about Q10 or $1.25. At the store a jar of that size is around Q40 or about $5. So, it was 1/4 of the store price and, in my opinion, a lot tastier too! Next time it will be closer to 1/8 of the price since the jars are already purchased. We each took our individual 8 or 7 home and boiled them there for the sealing phase.



So far we've added miltomate to part of one jar to make a delicious Salsa Ranchera to eat with our eggs in the morning and used the other part of the jar to make some amazing spaghetti marinara sauce!

The price of produce

One of my absolute favorite things about shopping in Guatemala is the low prices for fresh produce. There are a myriad of markets, stores, and produce-wagon-pushers to choose from. Since we usually have time for shopping only on the weekends, and we usually need more than produce, we usually just go to Paiz, the Guatemalan version of WalMart. Though it may be a bit more expensive, the guarded parking lot and other safety features make up for the small difference in price. Last weekend we had a cart full of produce:

1 Honeydew Melon Q5.50
1 large bunch of bananas Q4.70
1lb. bag of tomatoes Q4.19
1 bag of fresh green beans Q4.40
3 big stalks of broccoli Q5.95
2 avocados Q8.85
1 large bag of shelled English peas Q8.80
5 imported oranges (seedless) Q21.75
1 (amazing) pineapple Q13.95
5lbs. potatoes Q25.65
5 gala apples Q14.77

Total: Q118.51

Divide that by 8 to get an estimate of the dollars and we bought a cart full of produce for about $14.81. I love it. It's so much easier to eat healthier when the fresh produce cost less than the canned and packaged options!

Cooking Adjustments in Guatemala Part 1

With a few exceptions, you can cook anything in Guatemala that you would cook in the U.S. However, sometimes there are little things that can throw you off track if you don't know where to look.

For the first year here, I couldn't find baking powder, here called "polvo para hornear" or "Royal" after the brand. This had an impact on biscuit making and other breads.

I also had a less difficult time finding baking soda, or "bicarbonato." Sometimes this is only found in pharmacies, but I have also found it in Paiz. What was confusing for me was that this was not located next to the baking powder.

Corn starch was also a challenge since I didn't know the word for it. I have since then learned that it is Maizena or "fécula o almidón de maíz." This was not only a lack in vocabulary on my part, but it also had a little bit to do with culture. In the U.S., from what I could remember, corn starch is usually found near spices or on the baking aisle with flour, sugar and cornmeal. Here it was found near the cereals and oatmeals. Blanca told me that many people use it as meals, perhaps to make some sort of thickened breakfast soup or drink? If you have more information, please let me know. I am curious to find out how it would be used differently here than in the U.S.

Another adjustment on my part came about when we bought a gas oven here in Guatemala. I have never owned a gas oven before, and wasn't sure what to expect. I have learned that I prefer a gas oven here where power outages usually happen around supper time. We have to be a bit more vigilant for safety reasons (such as when our daughter wants to "help cook") but overall it has been a positive thing. Except for the oven. I couldn't figure out why an oven would only go up to 250 degrees, but I attributed that to gas being harder to regulate... Of course, when I figured out that the oven was in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, that made me laugh at myself quite a bit! It also explained why things were burning on the bottom and not done on the top! I have found this conversion website helpful since most of my recipes are in Fahrenheit.

A spice that seems to be a Guatemalan staple, different from the seasoning salt at my house in the U.S., is some sort of chicken bouillon, or "consomé" this version at our house in Guatemala:

Something I found surprising was how difficult it is to find cardamom or "cardamomo" in the ground spice form, especially since cardamom is one of Guatemala's exports. I have heard that it is easy to find in markets, but I haven't had any luck with that yet. Cardamom comes from the Cardamom flower. The seeds look like this before they are ground. I believe they can be used green or roasted, if you have information on this, I would love to learn more about the process!
I especially like the unique flavor cardamom gives to fruit breads or challah. We like this recipe for the braided "challah" bread.


The things you just can not get seem to be things that are not grown in this region. For example, in Texas we had a yam-like sweet potato that I loved. They looked like this:
They have a smoother texture and creamy flavor that I find addicting. Something regular potatoes can not compare to! In fact, I used them exclusively- leaving the Irish white potatoes out of our diet while we were in Texas. We loved them mashed with butter and salt like regular mashed potatoes or baked... pretty much any way to cook them was great! The problem is that in Guatemala there is a completely different version of sweet potato that looks like this: These sweet potatoes have a grainier texture. They literally taste like sweet Irish white potatoes instead of the smooth buttery texture of the yam-like sweet potatoes of Texas. If you find out how to get the first version while in Guatemala, please let me know!

I'm sure there are many other things people have experienced that are different in the Guatemalan realm of cooking. I would love to hear about your experiences! What is something you had trouble finding or were excited to discover about cooking in Guatemala? Any recipes using the things I have mentioned? I am always looking for new things to do in the kitchen that have a Guatemalan influence.

Recently discovered in the Pais grocery store in Zona 15

Heard of chirmol? Now you've got chirmolito in a bottle. What's this, the new Guatemalan ketchup?