Comida Boliviana

 Hello, we decided it was about time to share some of the food we been "experiencing" here in Bolivia (especially since we complained to many of you about it!). Everyone here claims that Bolivian food is the best in the world but we'll leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions after you see the pictures.

First off is chicken Milanesa. They serve this everywhere and it basically consists of chicken that has been squished to death until its almost paper thin and then breaded and baked (we are not big fans, its pretty flavorless and the texture is weird).

This is the dessert that came with the chicken above. They don't eat dinner here, only lunch so the lunch portions are huge and usually three or four courses (including a soup, main dish, dessert, and sometimes an another dish to start) and all of that will generally cost about 25 Bolivianos (about $3.50 and that's for the more expensive places that we trust their standards of cleanliness).

This was the pile of meat that we are pretty sure is responsible for my bout of food poisoning. I can't even describe it other than a bunch of various pieces of animal over corn. The white thing on top is just a layer of fat we pushed off to the side. Needless to say we wont be going back (especially after seeing the kitchen when we were done!).

This is another example of a main course during a lunch, meat and a beet salad.

Here is Bolivian soup that comes with lunch all the time. Its usually just a meat broth with veggies. Its not bad but we can't figure out how they eat so much soup when its hot outside.

Another example of lunch, noodles, potatoes, and meatballs. They are definitely a meat and potatoes type of people, not many veggies and not much flavor so we mostly cook (or attempt it). 

This is a salteña. We love them!! They have entire restaurants devoted to selling these everywhere. They are basically like a pot pie, they have a filling which is basically a chicken or meat stew and the bread is really sweet and delicious. Sometimes they have weird stuff in them though, like raisins, chunks of hard boiled eggs or olives with the pit. We eat them a lot; they are warm and filling. Apparently they are hard to master but a sister here is going to teach us how to make them so hopefully we can share when we come back.

This is one of the desserts we got with lunch. It was a mint jello, weird no? I couldn't eat it without laughing, it was just so jiggly and green and minty-a strange combination.

One thing they are great at here is ice cream of all kinds. This particular dessert is coffee, honey, ice cream, and of course, sprinkles. Its a good thing we walk as much as we do because we eat so much ice cream here.

More ice cream....

 We also are pretty familiar with almost every pasteleria (bakery) in Sucre. They always have something covered in sugar or filled with dulce de leche or both. We usually reward ourselves with a treat after a day a long service.

This is fresh fruit juice. There are women with fruit stands and blenders and you can choose any fruit you want and they will whip you up something delicious for somewhere around 50 cents. This one is maracuya, a sweet yellow fruit they have here. If you want it to go you get a plastic bag and a straw. They drink lots of stuff out of bags here like milk or servings of yogurt.

Wow! That was longer than I expected, sorry. Anyway, to everyone in Pullman, it was nice getting to see you all last night and we really do miss you guys (almost as much as food!) and we enjoyed getting to catch up with everyone a little. Well, its time for a siesta before service in the evening so more later.