Part of cultural adjustment is getting used to new flavors. After almost ten months of being outside of the country, there are new habits formed, and yet some tastes that I still desire (and may or may not do whatever I can to have them here).
1. Peanut butter. This is on my "please send me" lists for a reason. We don't have the same flavor here. I have bought manteca de mani, as it's called, but it is nothing close to the taste you can find in Jif or Skippy. I've given some of my friends a taste of the classic PB, but they all wince in disgust. They tell me about the pb they do like, called Mantecol. Which is good, but is a much, much sweeter flavor than you get in the States.
Once I even played a game with my teenagers involving eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and no one could fathom more than one bite of it. No one.
2. Dulce de leche. The typical sweet addition to everything, well, sweet, that you can buy. And it's no surprise considering "sweet" is in the title. It's sort of your caramel sauce, but.. well.. different. There are ddls specific to cooking, various brands to which we have already become loyal to a certain one, and as previously mentioned, almost any tasty treat you buy here at a local panaderia will have ddl included.
3. Water. I've talked about the water from the faucet before. How my sinuses can't seem to handle it, so we buy South American style Sparkletts to get by. In addition however, the drink of choice at the dinner table is not water. It's Coca Cola, Sprite, Pritty, or Tang. Thank you moon landing. I get weird looks when I ask for just water, but I've been so accustomed to just drinking water (well, and the fact that I don't like paying for drinks when I go out to eat) that it's hard for me to change.
I will say that the up side is CC and Sprite are much more delicious. There's something about the use of real sugar that brings out the flavor.
4. Empanadas. It's essentially stuffed bread, but the bread is suuuuuper thin. And they're filled with ground beef and veggies, or ham and cheese, or chicken, or tuna, or pretty much whatever you want to put in there. Every restaurant is bound to sell them--the hamburger of Argentina. But as I told my friends the other day over a round of maté, I'm in an empanada slump. For some strange reason, my little heart is perfectly content if she doesn't eat them again. How do I change back to desiring them?
Side note: in the previous paragraph I had to fix my English several times because I've lost a lot of it. They're. Their. There...
5. Mayonnaise. I'll keep this one simple. Basically, I'm the ketchup fiend of the house. The other pounds of mayo in the fridge are for the rest of our Argentine friends.
Why put electronic pen to electronic paper? The personal challenge as of late has been to allow God to open my eyes to the culture even more; broaden the perspective to see how I can better relate to the people here. It's a process. One that requires not only taking note, but aligning myself to the changes. The final step in the process is to adhere to the cultural differences, AND enjoy them. That takes prayer and trust, and it's a lot easier to start with the food than the other habits that require more internal transformation. You catch my drift?
Chau.
P.S. Had a very successful phone conversation, in Spanish, today. SO encouraging!
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