I is for... it's actually H!

I is for… it’s actually H!

Once again reader, I apologise for my unbelievable tardiness of late but [insert excuse here]. No, I have actually been spending my time productively eating all the trdelnik the beautiful city of Prague has to offer (I cannot even describe the glory of that food – you gotta look it up) and throwing some very important shapes on the dancefloor at a friend’s wedding. Sorry. But also, not really that sorry at all.

As you may well remember, the last post I did was for the letter ‘I’. Turns out, ‘I’ is not the letter that follows ‘G’. If you are over 2 years of age, you will know that actually, it should have been ‘H’. So here we are, arriving at ‘H’ with joy, excitement and yes, a hint of embarrassment that I messed up something so simple. But what countries, pray tell, begin with ‘H’? Anything springing to mind? No? Good, ‘cos it took me a while too. Well, for this letter, I had three options: Haiti, Hungary and Honduras. Not exactly setting the world alight in culinary terms, eh? To be fair to Hungary, goulash is one tasty little number, but I felt like I wanted to venture a bit further than Europe, given that I’d already hung around there for ‘F’ and ‘G’. The question was: Haiti or Honduras? I have approximately zero connection to either, so this time, I just went for what I fancied. And this week, I fancied some Latino flavaaaaaa. That’s mainly because Enrique Iglesias has featured quite prominently on the soundtrack to my kitchen recently – and I’m not even ashamed to admit it. Bailamos indeed.

Honduras is quite a petite country squished between Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, waaaaaaay over there in Central America. It’s a tricksy little blighter, to say the least. It gained independence from the Spanish in 1821 in the hope of being able to sort itself out without those pesky Europeans interfering, but sadly suffers from a whole lot of social problems and a very shaky political scene. It also has the extremely dubious accolade of having the world’s highest murder rate. On the plus side, it has a bounty of natural resources: minerals, coffee, sugar cane and an array of beautiful fruits. Hoorah for nature!

But what of the cuisine? Mexican food – or a disappointingly insipid Western take on Mexican food – has long been the most famous cuisine of Central America. God only knows we’ve all fallen victim to a woefully soggy burrito and radioactive, yet curiously tasteless, guacamole before (I’m looking at you, Chiquitos). Indeed, Mexico’s dominance has rather overshadowed its smaller cousins to the south. However, that is by no means an indication of the inferiority of other Central American gastronomical offerings, and for its part, Honduras is secretly cooking up a storm. Honduran food reflects the cultural mish-mash of its past and its geographical situation, bringing together elements of Spanish, Caribbean (try spelling that right first time!) and African cuisine. How did African food get involved? Well, turns out silver mining was pretty high on the Spanish list of priorities back in the day, and they needed someone to do their dirty work for them. They started off condemning locals to the graft, then moved on to slaves from other Central American countries. However, at the end of the 16^th century, local slave trading stopped, so the head honchos began bringing in slaves from Africa, predominantly from Angola. Though undoubtedly subject to truly horrendous conditions, there was little in the way to prevent them from bringing with them their own culture and traditions over, including, of course, food. As with many other countries the world over, indigenous food – in this case Lenca cuisine – also plays a significant role in what you can expect to find on your plate in Honduras.

Upon googling Honduran cuisine, I noticed that the guys and gals over there seem to enjoy a good bowl of soup, whether it’s a sopa de frijoles (black bean soup with green peppers, pork rib and onions), sopa de caracol (conch soup, which features the conch meat cooked in coconut milk with a bunch of spices and green banana) or, my personal fave, sopa de mondongo (tripe soup, featuring a generous POUND of tripe for 6 people). As much as I desperately wanted to make a soup with the lining of a cow’s stomach, I thought the envy would simply be too much for any reader to bear, so I dutifully opted for something a little less, errrrr, exotic. And so, out of consideration and love for YOU, I chose to make baleadas. You’re welcome.

Baleadas, friends, are the Honduran street snack par excellence. Word is that you can fill your boots with these bad boys on almost any street up and down the country, and they are especially enjoyed at breakfast time, like most good things in life. It’s simple: get yourself a Honduran tortilla, slap a load of refried beans on it, some queso duro (hard white cheese) and sour cream. Then go NUTS. You want a fried egg? Sure, chuck it on there. How about some avocado? I was just thinking the same thing! Want to make sure your vegetarian friend doesn’t get their greasy mitts on it? Throw on half a pig! The possibilities are endless – like recycling, but more delicious (sorry if you’re not from the UK and don’t get that GREAT reference). In actual cooking terms, baleadas are a cinch to make. The tortilla is a bit special in that it uses peanut oil in the dough, giving it a slightly earthy flavour, but other than that, most of the ingredients are stuff that’s just knocking around in the fridge. I kept mine veggie by topping them with feta, tomato salsa, egg, avocado and a generous splash of lime juice and HOLY GUACAMOLE they were good. I decided to forego cutlery and consequently ended up with an arm covered in egg yolk and tomato juice, but I live alone, so quite frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

 Honduras, troubled you may be, but you sure know how to make a greedy little piglet in Germany happy - muchas gracias. Hasta la proxima, amigos!