Van Food

We had this idea that we would try to eat as local people eat while on this trip. And, to some extent, we do. But then, after a few days of meals consisting mainly of beans and cucumber/carrot salads, we inevitably lose our resolve and go to a restaurant. And I am nearly powerless to resist the occasional vegan-friendly place we come across. Still, we mostly do our own thing, food-wise, and we’ve developed a sort of routine.

Most of the shopping we do happens at whatever little open-air shack or, in larger towns, open-air market, is closest to where we’re camping. Even the smallest places (except in Belize) have at least cucumbers, carrots, onions, and bananas. Sometimes papayas and now, in late January, mangoes. At the larger markets, the produce can be almost as varied, and as high-quality, as that found at my beloved Hollywood farmer’s market.

The bananas we freeze for smoothies, and the cucumbers, carrots, and onions have replaced the normal lettuce salads we ate in the United States. Lettuce is hard to find, low-quality, and difficult to disinfect, so usually we skip it. (The exception is the rare occasion when there’s spinach. Spinach is worth it.) There are also certain things we brought from home. Fruit and nut snack bars, almond butter, fancypants vegan protein powder, fancypants chocolate, quinoa, wild rice, nutritional yeast, chia seeds, a rather vast assortment of silly and wonderful vinegars, and other high-maintenance things, a lot of which didn’t last long enough. And then there are the things we get from supermarkets when we find them: canned beans, soy milk, the occasional loaf of whole wheat bread. With these things, and thanks to the rattlevan’s fridge (whose only drawback is that it requires us, every three weeks or so, to go on truly epic propane-seeking missions) and stove, we’re good to go.

For breakfast, I cook oatmeal with bananas and peanut butter, or make almond- and soy-milk smoothies in a blender powered by the van’s inverter (so cool). Chuck almost invariably heats up tortillas – and oh, these tortillas! Homemade, thick, tasting strongly of corn, increasing in thickness the further we move toward the equator, and incredibly delicious – with little packets of refried black beans. “Hot sauce delivery mechanisms,” I call them.

Occasionally, we manage to get crazy-good fish right from the fishermen as they come ashore – huge shrimp that we sautéed with onions and tomatoes, fresh snapper and dorado for as cheap as $1, grilled or pan-seared with garlic and herbs.

More often, though, we eat a thing we call “van pasta,” which is really just whole wheat pasta with too much garlic (never) and lots of vegetables, topped with olive oil and nutritional yeast. It’s a lazy person’s dinner, because throwing the veggies in with the boiling pasta means we get to skip the disinfecting step. But it’s still delicious.

And then supplementing our rattlevan cooking is the wonderful street food always being offered up. Driving in Mexico and Central America (again, excluding Belize) is like food heaven. We can’t drive 50 kilometers without being offered something delicious from roadside vendors. Fresh pineapple, watermelon, mango, and cucumber with lime juice and chili; fresh coconut meat and water; popcorn, toasted spicy pepitas, and tamales. And all kinds of other lovely things.

There’s non-highway street food, too, if it’s usually more to Chuck’s liking than my own. Fried chicken, tacos, delicious empanadas filled with mystery and flavor, chuchitos of chicken, chile relleno with steak. And in El Salvador, now, there are pupusas filled with chicken, cheese, beans, or some combination of the three. 

Occasionally, Chuck’s quest for street food has unintended consequences, like the time we saw these little balls of something potentially delicious in a market and heard jamon (ham) when the woman selling them had actually said jabon (soap). Chuck tasted it before we realized our mistake.  Apparently it was not delicious.

Soap Eater

Best of all, there are cheap, delicious fruit and carrot juices, costing nothing. Downing orange juice squeezed on the spot and served formally in fancy glasses is a daily occurrence.

Gah!

Soap incidents aside, for the most part we're eating extraordinarily well (and cheaply).  And when I think of how difficult it would be eat this well on a road trip through the United States, I'm glad to be in Central America instead.