Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Y'all, mondongo is tripe. Michael found out first. He saw it in the supermarket and couldn't wait to tell me. And then later I saw it for myself, just as white and innard-y as can be. Tripe, for those who don't know, is "the first or second stomach of a cow or other ruminant used as food." (We asked the waitress what mondongo was before ordering and never once heard the word "stomach.")

While I'm not at all a fan of eating innards, if I'd liked the mondongo, the news would not have stopped me from going back for more. It's very popular here, and easy to get. But since I found it repugnant, I was that much more repugged by knowing what it really was. Oh well. At least it wasn't the third or fourth stomach, right?

We had street food for dinner last night. I'm usually a huge fan, but last night didn't really work out too well. First of all, we got way too much food. We don't seem to be very good at communicating what we want to street food vendors.

For one, we're never really quite sure what's on offer. Sure we can point to something that looks good, but we don't always know how it all fits together, so sometimes we get some extra thing we didn't expect. Or we say what we want but it's unthinkably wrong and they give us the right thing, whether we want it or not. Or sometimes they're just really busy and make a mistake. Or something. Whatever the case, we usually walk away with a surprise. Sometimes it works out fine; you can't go wrong at that blue corn taco stand in Mexico City for example. Last night it didn't work out fine.

I'm posting a photo. What you see is: chorizo on a stick, with a small boiled potato and one of those small, cold, dry arepas. On the left is a bowl of "papitas," tiny yellow-fleshed potatoes, with some rogue fries mixed in, topped by a mystery part of grilled chicken and a miniature hard-boiled egg. On the left is another bowl of papitas topped by a different kind of chorizo, which as you can see is charmingly sliced, and another tiny egg. In the foreground is a massive slice of fried plaintain topped by a slab of "white cheese" and some kind of sweet ketchup/mayo style secret sauce. I'm dying to know where they got the giant plantains (special slicing?) and tiny eggs.

The corner across the street from us is a popular dumping spot for bags of garbage, and though trucks come by regularly to pick it all up, there's always more. And always lots of people who stir through it looking for food. It's really horrifying to me. When we'd eaten as much of the street food as we could, Michael brought the leftovers downstairs and gave them away. Better for someone to get them now than have to dig them out of the trash later. At least I don't have to feel guilty about wasting food, though there's plenty of other stuff to feel guilty about when you sit in your nice room and watch people eat garbage.

Normally I love trying new things. I was feeling a bit more cautious (and hungry) this morning after having been burned so much recently, but we took a very minor chance and ordered the "desayuno completo con carne" for breakfast. We know what carne is (meat/beef) but had to hope that the rest of what constitutes a complete breakfast in Colombia did not include any numbered organs.

Our venture back into new things was rewarded by fresh rolls with butter and orange marmalade, coffee and hot milk served do-it-yourself in little pots, and giant slabs of carne garnished with lettuce and tomato. The coffee was real and very, very strong. Michael was thrilled. I had heart palpitations and felt lightheaded. I miss Nescafe. But I'm not complaining.

 

Post a comment:

Name:
Email:
URL:
A duck says:
Comment: (HTML is allowed)

Emergency re-shoeing for a police horse, Medellin.

Another cell phone call vendor, Medellin.

Street food and Coke.

Eating food from the trash. View from Hotel Plaza, Medellin.