Ampliar

Touching down on the Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, a traveler heads for the heart of town. On his way, a unique spectacle shows up before his very eyes: hundreds of stores and shops in a variety of sizes, and offering all kinds of products, are lined up in rows on both sides of the road. Mammoth shopping malls, sophisticated supermarkets, fancy restaurants… you name it! And next to them, a popular ambience, exhibition places, stores selling local handicrafts, fruit and vegetable outlets, traditional food joints in a many-colored, bustling and smell-packed world where flavors –believe me when I say so- is the name of the game in this narrow nation.

The Republic of Panama, the Bridge of the Americas as some people know it, is a nation blessed with a rich history that has managed to keep its customs and traditions intact, a resulting mosaic in which the blend of Amerindian, Spanish and African cultures is plain to a naked eye.

In that legacy of customs and traditions, Panama's cuisine has a seal of its own, based on richness, variety and genuineness. Weather conditions, soils and the surrounding waters (the country overlooks the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as the Caribbean Sea) are good advantages. They provide a magnificent assortment of meats, shellfish, fowls, fruits, vegetables and rice. However, the magical touch is in the hands of generations of Panamanians whose ingenuity and originality have made them knock down every single time barriers.

The list of ingredients and dishes, of foods and beverages, runs endlessly. Lobster, shrimps, codfish, mussels, marlin, sawfish, swordfish, tuna, pike and red snapper are used to cook rice combined with coconut, mussels, squids, prickled prawns, shrimps and corn-stuffed fish. Beef and pork meat, fowl (either hen or chicken) bring about exquisite and delicious dishes like meatballs a la wine, roast pork, Christmas pork loins, Creole guts and ragout.

A plate worth mentioning here in the Panamanian sancocho, a soup made of sweet potatoes, cassava, corn, garlic, coriander, pepper and marjoram accompanied by white rice and roast plantains.

Corn is the basis of countless dishes: Panamanian tamales made of fresh maize, corn tortillas (called changes) and buns. Cassava provides the perfect raw material for camariñolas and fritters. Soups have a special place and some peculiar names of their own, chiefly the gallo pinto made of beans, pork meat and cassava; the seren based on corn and pork meat, and Panamanian caldillo cooked with fish, crabs and shrimps. Salads of avocado, shrimps and cassava are great treats in this neck of the woods, as well as pastries filled with bananas, cassava and eggplants.

Desserts top it all off and variety is not a problem: stuffing of quince, coconut and fresh corn, mamellena (bread pudding), cake of avocado and cheese, cashew nut jam, cabanga (dried grated coconut and green papaya), suripico (milk sweet)¸alfajores (corn and sugarcane molasses), puddings, and fig jam.

Beverages are dominated by chicheme, based on corn, milk and sugar; rice and pineapple; corn chicha; loja chicha, and resbaladera.

There's no doubt that visiting Panama without giving a good shot at its traditional cuisine is almost impossible. They're part of that country's cultural heritage, as much as molas, polleras, montuno, tamborito, cumbia, atravesano and the Corpus Christi Party in Los Santos Village are.