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>>Narrator: Last summer was the first time I have ever went on a trip to another country.
A group of college students and I from my church went to Costa Rica for a missions trip for about a week and a half.
The food there was a lot different than what I was used to here in America.
The food here is pretty greasy and unhealthy for you.
Costa Rica does have a McDonald’s, but their chicken nuggets are a whole lot healthier than our Chicken Nuggets.
I did not taste much grease in them at all.
I will discuss more about the Costa Rican food in a minute.
Here in America, some of the most popular foods we love to eat are hamburgers, apple pies, and potato chips.
It has been said, if you do not like apple pie, you must not be an American.
Funny thing is, I do not like apple pie. Grilling out is a favorite thing Americans love to do.
In fact, if it is meat, it is thought to need to be either fried, grilled, or somehow get the most grease into it as possible.
What the typical American eats usually depends on the region he or she grew up in.
For instance, here in Missouri, a popular food is cashew chicken. Specifically, Springfield Cashew Chicken.
Going back to my trip in Costa Rica, a very popular food there is called Los Casados.
Los Casados is a Spanish word that means “married”.
It consists of meat in a sauce, with rice, beans, plantains, and mashed potatoes.
Costa Ricans do not like spicy foods. They mostly like rice, beans, corn, meat, chicken, or fish.
Costa Ricans love beans and rice, which doesn’t suit me well, because I do not like rice and beans.
All of these foods are usually served with corn tortillas.
The typical breakfasts in Costa Rica usually contains a combination of black beans and rice, usually served with eggs, corn tortillas and sour cream.
I will now talk about Mexican food, since it is another Spanish country very close to us.
A lot of food that we think is Mexican is actually not truly authentic Mexican food. It is generally what we call “Tex-Mex”.
Mexican food is famous for its intense and varied flavors, colorful decorations, and variety of spices.
Much of today’s Mexican food is based on pre-Hispanic traditions,
including Aztec and Mayan, combined with the style of cooking introduced by Spanish colonists.
Mexican dishes vary from region to region because of differences in climate, geographic, ethnic, and Hispanic influences.
The northern part of Mexico is known for the production of beef and thus
stands for the meat-based dishes and brings out some of the reasons we have "Tex-Mex" foods.
The south part of Mexico is known for eating foods with spicy vegetables and chicken.
Not only does Mexican food sound really delicious in some regions, in other regions it also sounds very disgusting to most Americans.
Some areas in Mexico like to eat from exotic dishes, cooked in the Aztec or Mayan styles of the natives that used to live in Mexico.
Some of these dishes consist of iguanas, spider monkeys, and even some insects.
These dishes are usually known as “comida prehispanica” or pre-hispanic food, and although not very common, are relatively quite known.
Costa Rican food, and Mexican food, can both sound pretty interesting to many Americans.
These are the common foods of Costa Ricans, Mexicans, and Americans. Thanks for watching! :)
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