Guatemala is the country of tamales, there are regular tamales made out of corn "masa" with either meat, chicken, turkey or pork filling and tomato, and sometimes "chile". "Black tamales" are similar to the former ones but are sweet, "paches" are tamales made out of potatos, "tamales de cambray" are small sweet "masa" balls", tamales de "chipilin", and many others; rellenitos (sweet fried bean-stuffed banana bonbons) are a tasty dessert sold on streetcorners. Black beans are the main staple after corn of course. There is a variety of soups ("caldos"). Guatemalan cuisine is a mixture of Mayan and Spanish dishes.
Gallo pinto is a mixture of rice and beans with a little cilantro or onion thrown in, it is the national dish of Nicaragua and Costa Rica This mixture is called Casamiento ("marriage")in El Salvador and Guatemala. And on the north coast of Honduras, casamiento is made with coconut milk.
Pupusas and "chicharron con yuca" (pork skin & yucca) are very popular dishes originated in El Salvador.
Nacatamales, which are big tamales containing pork, potato, rice, chile, tomato, and masa is steamed in platano leaves, they originate from Nicaragua and can be bought in the colonial city of Granada.
Oven tamales, wraped with platano leaves, are very good in Costa Rica.
Grilled octopus is a very tasty dish in Panama.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Central America
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Central America - updated Apr 2024
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Central America Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
