So recently, I had someone reach out to me and ask about groceries and food products here. And I thought that might make for a good series in the blog. I figure if this was a question that she had, maybe others did too. Today, we dive into the first of I don't know how many, maybe 3 blog posts on cost and variety of the food here on the Caribbean coast.
The first thing to know is that there are no superstores here. I know they have Walmart and Pricesmart (think a Costa Rican Costco) in the capital city and its' surrounding areas. I have even heard that there are some areas on the west coast that Western type big box stores exist. But in my mind, that consumerism and concrete with planned landscaping was part of what I was escaping from.
Marketing is a multiday, or several day a week process here. There is no way around it. This holds true for us and those I know here whose living circumstances I'm familiar with. Western refrigerators, ie. big ones that you see in America are uncommon here. Most are much smaller. And stand alone freezers are mostly seen in restaurants, never in a house. We don't have the space for big shopping and because it is so hot here, food just doesn't last long, even in the fridge. That coupled with the jungle critters that come into the house, and the constant humidity, we tend not to buy in bulk because it spoils.
Because we don't have big box stores, there is no one place where I can get everything. We do have two western style grocery stores that are newer to our area. They sit right next to each other, and have about 15 parking spaces each-- Super Cocles and Super Negro. We can talk about those in another post. Today is about my fruit guy.
So fruit is best either bought off the side of the road at a stand, and we have several, or out of one of the trucks that comes around in the mornings. Armando comes into my compound three mornings a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, somewhere between 8 -10:30. He texts me that he is here, and if for some reason, I miss it, he will call. I am a consistent customer, so it works.
He drives a pick up truck, as most of them do, with an awning over his fruit so it doesn't spoil in the sun. His choicest picks, his special items, and the soft items that are easily damaged go in the cab of the truck with him. For example. watermelons are in the bed, but the largest, sweetest among them go into the cab for those of us that ask for them. Avocado as well as clamshells of berries will also go in. I ask consistently for some special items that he doesn't carry regularly like maracuya (passionfruit), limes, limon mandarinas, plantains both verde and maduro-- and those are always in the back of his cab to ensure no one else takes them.
So he is a cash purchase, either in dollars or colones, and we pay each time, but others on my compound run a tab and pay at the end of each week. As you walk up, he is either helping someone else, or he will pop out of the cab with a cheerful 'Buenos Dias' and set up his scale and calculator. We spend more on fruit and veg here than almost anything else in the food bill except for food and litter for the cats.
On an average week, we spend somewhere between $60 and $100 dollars on fruit and veg. If Armando doesn't have it, or it doesn't look good, then we'll stop somewhere else for it. But, this encompasses our fruit juices that we make almost every day, the pico de gallo, and guacamole that we keep fresh in the fridge. We drink fruit juice with at least one meal a day and it is made about 4 times a week. We have salads for dinner about twice a week and often times plantain is served fried as a patacone with pico and guac for lunch or an afterschool snack. It can also be served as a plantano maduro, which is overly ripe and sweet and on many traditional dishes here. We eat root vegetables in soups, stews and many traditional plates here. Tubers like camote, cassava and tisqisque are common, cheap, and grow locally. Coconuts (the green ones) that you can drink are everywhere, from the local bodegas to the bigger western style grocery stores, to stands on the side of the road and are somewhere between 300 and 500 colones. When you buy them, they will open them for you if you want right there, and they are always ice cold.
Current juices in my fridge are a pineapple and strawberry, and a maracuya with pineapple.
We tend to stay away from the produce not produced here unless we really have a hankering for it- lemon, asparagus, stone fruits, even apples, are all very pricey. Where a mango is about $3.00 a kilo (2.2 pounds), an asparagus bunch is $9 or $10 dollars. Rambutan (close relative of lychee) is 1500 colones a kilo (about $3 dollars), peaches or plums can be $8-$12 a kilo. Grapes when they are reasonable ($3 a clamshell) are a great pick up, but, all red ones have seeds here so we usually stick to the green ones. As a weird one, carrots are reasonable and we buy them singly. They are much fatter here, and a single one is usually good enough for a dish. They do not keep well, so we buy as needed. Celery on the other hand, is always expensive. Prohibitively so, and ALWAYS wilted, even at restaurants. Its difficult to keep here becuase of the humidity. But the good news is, they also sell that by the stalk, so you do not have to buy a bunch, use two stalks and have the rest go bad.
Rambutan, none are my pics.
Not my pics, from the left- cassava, camote, tisqisque
So, that's what I have for this part. I hope it was helpful, maybe helped explain a little bit of how some of it works here. The next one I will do is on the meat market, and bakery. And then I'll do one for the grocery store. If you have any specific questions about how any of it works, let me know. I'll be happy to answer in my next post.
Thanks and happy reading!
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