Villa Lupita: Food, Friends & ‘Fishing’

Things didn’t improve immediately at Villa Lupita. On the Saturday after we’d arrived I set about butchering and cooking the chicken that I’d managed to buy. We had a barbecue by the front patio and plenty of wood so I spent a few hours building up a good bed of hot coals ready to cook the different cuts. It started well but the wood was fast burning and I was caught off guard when suddenly the coals had all but disappeared and the chicken was only half cooked! Frustrated and hungry we put lunch to one side and went to play in the stream at the bottom of the garden – I’d resume cooking in a better mood after a bit of family fun.

We had a great time! Down by the stream we put together a game where we were putting items in at the top of the ‘waterfall’ with the girls waiting downstream to catch them. We found some great little salmon-pink flowers around the stream which we would throw in at the top. To begin with the girls were missing each one as it whizzed by in the frothy water but after about 15 minutes or so they were accomplished at plucking each one from the water. There was a beautiful pile of our ‘fish’ gathered on the rocks at the side of the water. It was a game and it was a really good one but it also struck me what precious learning was taking place at the same time. The girls really were honing the skills that they would also need to use should they ever have to try and catch fish in a similar stream in the future. This nexus between play and learning is always interesting territory.

We returned to the house and I resumed the cooking of the chicken. It’s not a good idea to part cook chicken and then resume after an hour but it was well-cooked over the fire (second time round) and we all survived without incident. As always the bones were used for stock which would feed us again in the coming days. Early in the morning on that Saturday the gardeners had come to cut back some of the vegetation around the house. They started very early at 6am before the heat set in and by early-to-mid afternoon they were finishing up. Whilst clearing the area they had also found a number of edible roots which they had dug up and sorted for us. At the time I didn’t remember the names of everything but over the next few days we managed to identify them as yuca, ñampi and tiquisque. Now this was really what we had been waiting for – finally some fresh local ingredients and what could be better than them coming out of the ground around the house we were staying in? We were both really excited to start using some new ingredients and set about reading up on what to do with them.

The first experiment was to try and make some chips with the yuca as Rachael had found a few good recipes for that and it seemed a good way to try and sneak them into the children at the same time. For a first attempt with a new ingredient it actually went very well and we did manage to get a few of them into the girls but they came out a little dryer and more flaky than would have been ideal. Nevertheless, we were beginning to use new ingredients which was really fun! This was really a bit of a turning point and perhaps also because the ingredients hadn’t come from any shop at all but came to us by a happy coincidence; all of which was far removed from our experiences up until that point.

On the Sunday evening things took yet another turn for the better. We’d been in contact with Ligia & Andres to ask about visiting a waterfall in the area. They had offered to put us in touch with someone nearby who could take us to one. Later on Sunday evening we heard someone approaching the house and calling out: in the middle of nowhere and very cut off I was at first a little worried but went outside to find a couple standing on the driveway. They introduced themselves as Roberto and Lucia and they had a waterfall on their land. They had come to ask if we would like to spend a day visiting. They would pick us up, take us to the waterfall, give us a tour of their land including their coffee farm and cook a typical Costa Rican lunch for us. I was instantly won over by their sweet and very kind nature and explained how much we would love to do that not least of all because we had found it so hard to come by good food! We set upon Tuesday for the visit.

On Tuesday morning we were ready and collected at 10am by Roberto. He was such a warm and friendly personality – saying not very much but smiling a lot and eagerly nodding along with a warm grin. We arrived at the farm and set off for the first part with his wife Lucia and their son Matteo who took us first along the river to see some stones that had been discovered on their land. The stones were from the original inhabitants of that area (pre-colonisation) and the largest one had a map of the area engraved upon it. We then made our way back along the river towards the waterfall. We stopped at the first small one where there was a good pool to have a swim with the girls. After a swim there we carried on up to the larger waterfall on their land.

We enjoyed another little dip there and then settled down for the lunch which Lucia had prepared. It was simple but delicious! Chicken, rice, plantain & beans cooked with plenty of garlic and wrapped in a banana leaf. After our struggles to find really good food plus the wonderful setting that we were in, it really couldn’t have tasted better. We were also treated to an impressive show from some of the local kids who (still on their school holidays) were jumping into the pool from the top of the waterfall and then scaling the wet rocks, barefoot to make their way back up for another go.

After the waterfalls, spotting the smallest frogs we’ve ever seen (1cm) and the trek back up to the farm the girls were a little tired and so we shortened the coffee tour to just a short stint of myself and Roberto going into the fields to pick some beans. I had been explaining to him some of the work that I had done back home and that as such I was used to gathering fruits. Nevertheless, the speed at which he was able to collect compared to me was impressive. The size of the baskets that a picker needs to fill (holds 13kg of beans) and the low price that is paid for them was all food for thought. It’s all too easy for all of us to enjoy a cup of coffee with no connection to the work that goes into getting that cup into our hands.

Next they very kindly invited us up to their house to enjoy a cup of fresh coffee! We were sat under a lovely little pergola which they had built themselves which was all full of benches that they had built together as a family as well. Roberto set about enthusiastically showing us his own coffee preparations; explaining the irony that he couldn’t really afford to buy coffee from the shops at the price that they charge. Consequently he had set up his own little domestic operation just to keep himself supplied. They had a small polytunnel where the beans were dried, a roasting machine which he had built himself (roasting over an open fire) plus the best electric coffee grinder I’ve ever seen made from a bike wheel, grinder and washing machine motor! Watch the video to see it in action:

After we’d had a little coffee and a snack Roberto gave us a lift back home. We’d had such a great day. It felt really good to spend the day with another family and to suddenly feel like we’d moved from outsiders to having at least some connection with the community where we were staying. To make matters even better Roberto and Lucia had invited us to go and prepare a traditional food called bizcocho with them and their family on Thursday evening. Such a kind offer and one that we were quick to accept!

When Thursday came around Rosa was a little tired and so it ended up just myself and Zia heading off that evening. Once again it can be easy to overlook how it must have been very tiring to go through and process such big changes for a 4 year old; as it happened we were quite late returning and it definitely would have been a very long night if she had come.

We were taken on a ride of about half an hour or so along some extremely bumpy roads and then arrived at Lucia’s sisters house. I think that it was a bit of a shock for Zia and she clung to me for the first part. Entirely understandable – nobody there could speak any English and so she was really thrown in at the deep end! Lucia’s sister was in charge of what turned out to be a very involved cooking process. There were quite a few people there and it was fun because rather than turn up and have a whole bunch of introductions all in one go there were family members who seemed to keep emerging from the house one by one! In the end there were probably about 12 people there plus a couple of dogs and a few chickens.

Making bizcocho was definitely a team effort. To begin with we had to grind the maize which was done by hand in an old tabletop mill. Next there was a coconut which had to have the white flesh scraped out of it by hand and that involved everyone having a go as well. Whilst Zia and I were involved in these first two processes there were other things being taken care of by Lucia, her sister and her daughters. A few different ingredients would be getting cooked or grated or cut all at once and then they would get combined. In the end I would guess that there were about a dozen or so processes and ingredients involved just to get the basic two mixes put together. The final stage was now to make those into bizcocho and then get it into the earthen oven which had been heated up over the past few hours.

The two basic mixes were one that was a kind of pastry and the other was a kind of cheese sauce mix. The first was put onto a sheet of plastic and made into a round before receiving some of the cheese mix and then getting folded in half. These were lined up on banana leaves and then put into the oven to cook.

While we waited for these to cook we ate a little soup with vegetables, chicken and rice. The soup contained some of the vegetables that our gardeners had left for us – yuca and ñampi. The ñampi in particular I thought was delicious and we have continued to cook this quite regularly ourselves. It’s somewhere between a perfectly cooked potato, a firm dumpling and a kind of ball of mashed potato. I love it. I was also really impressed with Zia who has broadened her culinary horizons immensely and happily sat down with a bowl of the same and made a good effort at eating it all. She also had good fun in the end playing with some of the other children there. The language barrier seems to stand in the way of some of the introductions that children would usually make but after a short while they settle into ways of being with one another that don’t need such formalities.

In the end we made the journey back home. It was dark and just as bumpy as the ride there. It was a quiet journey too as we were quite tired.

The really interesting thing with this whole experience was that it revealed a new layer to the food system here in Costa Rica. As I’d written about in the previous post there seem to be layers upon layers of culture and there is a kind of local food system which is not immediately apparent. What is immediately apparent here is that which has made itself most obvious. It’s the supermarkets with huge colourful name signs outside their enormous buildings along the sides of the main roads and in the centre of town. I feel like we were very lucky to find ourselves given sudden exclusive access to this other far more intimate and less obvious local food network. From our own experience we know all too well that finding these kind of food connections can take many years and a generous helping of good luck.

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