Sunday, March 02, 2008

Name that food

Seafood is a big part of the Lima identity. Consequently, every restaurant (except McDonald's) sells "mariscos" (i.e., sea food). The interesting thing about the phrase "sea food" is that it doesn't tell you what kind of food--only that it comes from the sea. There are a lot of edible things that you can hoist out of the great deep. In Lima, they like to combine them in various, nondescript forms for your dining pleasure. Knowing this, I decided to dive in and order "Arroz con mariscos" (sea food with rice). It was fabulous! I could eat it every day. I suspect that the samples below are octopus or squid. I've eaten both before. I like squid best when it's battered and fried. Octopus is, in my opinion, tasteless. Both are like eating industrial rubber bands. The bottom picture is how the meal looks with the identifiable stuff removed for inspection. After taking the picture, I dutifully ate the evidence and went back for more.



2 comments:

the brannans said...

Sounds like you all are having a great time. I'm impressed with your taste-testing verve. Praise God for the STL van!

Deb said...

In Ukraine and Kazakhstan they don't have "seafood", but they do have "meat". It was a little unnerving because we were told it wasn't poultry, wasn't pork, wasn't beef and we weren't near a seaport, so what was left? I didn't get the nerve to try it until our last trip. It tasted like meatloaf.