Please don't misunderstand me, the food in Lima is delicious and plentiful and my host mom makes it just like my grandmother used to cook, especially heavy on meat and potatoes and rice. Except my grandmother didn't heap ridiculous portions of food on my plate.
Breakfast: Let's consider the first (and most important) meal of the day. For Peruvians, it definitely takes a backseat to lunch and dinner. Most often I get a cup of watery oatmeal and a roll with jam, or sometimes with salty cheese or avacado.
Lunch: It's the biggest meal of the day. And by biggest, let me tell you what I barely managed to get down my gullet (after begging my host mom to put less food on each plate):
--Large bowl of chicken noodle soup
--Full plate of chopped tomatoes and cucumbers
--1/4 Chicken
--Grilled onions
--Sweet potatoes
--Heapting pile of rice
Dinner: Will probably the same food leftover from lunch, in the same portions.
After downing all that food for lunch, I am in a serious food coma. (Especially after eating fried plantains, fried sweet potatoes, bread, tamale and a papaya smoothie for breakfast this morning).
And I'm completely confounded by the double-down on the carbs -- rice AND potatoes? It seems like carb overkill if we aren't out plowing the fields every day. Why aren't there more obese people in Peru??
What is really odd is that I eat MUCH less than most people eat here. I always ask for less food, but my host mom makes so much fun of me for it -- "Karen eats like a little kitty-cat! She eats like a tiny doll! Oh, here is her little teacup!" [host mom dancing around the table with a toy teacup]. Apparently she thinks that she can shame me into stuffing myself silly, but she doesn't realize that she's dealing with a New Yorker. ;-)
(Photo of fried plantains)
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