Granny's fonda tipica, urban-style
by Eric Jackson
Think of Panamanian fondas, and if you're familiar with the concept you think
of a little bohio along the road in the Interior, in front of somebody's home;
and you think of the informal economy. You think of inexpensive traditional
Panamanian cuisine.
But over the past generation Panama has been transformed from a mostly rural
to a mostly urban society, and economic institutions that used to be totally
informal have become subject to certain government regulations. And so we have
seen the rise of the urban fondas, like their rural progenitors little family-run
bastions of comida tipica. Their prices and cultural orientation aim at the
huge market of working people who fled hunger in the countryside for jobs in
the city. Typically, those who own and run these businesses live on top of or
in back of them. By law, the fondas are excluded from the requirements to honor
retiree discounts that apply to most other restaurants, but they get no special
breaks from the public health inspectors. By custom, these places serve up most
of their meals in the forms of breakfast or lunch.
One good representative of the urban fonda genre is found on Perejil's Calle
Tercera, at the bottom of the hill after one makes the perpendicular turn toward
Via España. On any given day Corazoncitas de Abuela (Grandma's Little
Hearts, if you must attempt a translation into English) serves a small crowd
that's likely to include people who work at the nearby chemical warehouse, who
teach or study up the hill at Colegio Javier, who change tires a block and one-half
away at Bridgestone, or who work at one of the government offices five or six
blocks away near Parque Porras.
One of the things that you will notice if you have been raised in the gringo
culture and take up the fonda habit is the difference is what is considered
breakfast food. Surely you will know that the tortilla and the carimiñola
don't exist in American Standard Breakfast. (Let's understand, however, that
the United States is the world's fifth most populous Spanish-speaking country,
a place in which many breakfast tortillas are in fact consumed.) On the other
hand, liver with onions is known in the mainstream US diet, but the dish is
generally not served for breakfast.
At Corazoncitas de Abuela, the handful of offerings change from day to day,
but there's always a good possibility that they'll be serving liver and onions
for breakfast. It's very good. An ample breakfast of liver and onions, with
patacones (that's fried plaintain for those of you who really don't know our
cuisine) and cafe con leche will cost you just a dollar and a quarter at this
fonda.
Of course, you may want something cheaper, or something that's not liver,
for your morning meal. Corazoncitas de Abuela always has breakfast tortillas,
milk and a selection of juices, and usually offers fried chorizos, hard-boiled
eggs and fried tasajo.
A couple of other options that I have tried include the churrasco (tough thin
steaks, braised to tenderness and topped with tomato slices) and the mollejas
(sliced chicken gizzards, stewed until they are tender in tomato and culantro
sauce). One recent morning a breakfast of mollejas and boiled yucca filled me
up for 60".
For lunch and dinner, you will find the sorts of things that are typically
served over rice in Panama - ropa vieja and the like. For dessert or snacks,
Corazoncitas de Abuela does duros, too, at a quarter apiece. These are not your
middle class popsickles made with American koolade, but rather frozen treats
with more natural and Panamanian flavors like tamarind, nance, pineapple, papaya
and melon.
Corazoncitas de Abuela does take-out, delivery and catering orders. To arrange
the latter services, call them at 225-9342.
So how "tipica" is Corazoncitas de Abuela? Probably not enough for
those Americanized Panamanian cultural nationalists who sneer at salsa as something
foreign and affect a "you wouldn't understand, it's an Interior thing"
attitude. People like that go to McDonald's for their desayunos tipicos. In
multi-ethnic, working class Perejil - where it's not unusual to see a Santeño
cab driver working on his car, playing Bob Marley tunes on his boom box while
doing so - the locals know better. Corazoncitas de Abuela means comida tipica
at reasonable prices, and you don't have to be a cholo to appreciate it.
