Back to poverty rations

When compared to our Central American neighbors, Panama is a rich country. Next to the United States, we look desperately poor. When you then consider the income distribution here --- Raúl Leis aptly described Panama as two countries, one that lives like Switzerland and the other like Somalia --- there comes the realization that a lot of Panamanians feed themselves on very little.

I could stand to miss about 60 or 80 pounds worth of meals. But some days I find myself having to choose between developing film or spending money that I need to spend at the Internet cafe and eating a reasonably proper diet.

Rarely do I really have to make that choice, because you can get by on very little in this country. That's one of the reasons why so many gringos look upon Panama as a retirement Mecca. Yes, there are people paying something close to California real estate prices for certain beachfront or mountain properties, roaring around in their brand-new SUVs and maintaining second residences in the ritzier parts of the capital. But many a retiree comes here because his or her income buys a tea, toast and cat food diet up there but a far more dignified lifestyle here.

So anyway, one recent day the choices I make with my life left me with some coffee, tea or powdered soup stock to brew, plenty of fresh garlic, about a quarter of a stick of butter and some condiments in the larder, but otherwise one dollar ($1, un balboa) for the daily food budget.

It did not force me to hunt one of the neighborhood's stray cats in order to make Chinese food.

This is how I spent my day's budget:

• 25¢ at a fruit vendor's stand for three large, sweet, grapefruit;

• 25¢ at a nearby vegetable stand for a small head of cabbage;

• 25¢ to a particular pushcart vendor on Via España whom I know to be a purveyor of good empanadas, in this case a chicken one; and

• 25¢ to another street vendor for three large steamed piva (or piba, pixbae or peach palm, depending on you want to style it) nuts.

Breakfast was a pot of tea with the juice of one grapefruit squeezed into it, plus the empanada.

Lunch centered around the piva nuts. I minced a garlic clove and nuked it in the microwave with about half of my butter and used that for a dip. I quartered and ate another grapefruit.

For dinner I chopped up a bunch of garlic and the head of cabbage and boiled them together with about a half-gallon of water, three packages of chicken broth mix, a tad of Chinese mushroom soy sauce and a bit of hot sauce.

I had soup and a grapefruit for leftovers.

Now if you're are going to eat exactly like this every day you will get bored and you may come down with a nutritional deficiency disease. But on the same budget the next day you could do something completely different, and so on for weeks without repeating yourself, picking up the nutrients you may have missed one day with the following day's selections. Living in the tropics gives you a good selection of cheap fruits and vegetables, and you can vary your starches not only around the rice, potato, bread and noodle options that prevail across most of the world, but also local tubers like ñame, ñampi, or otoes, corn meal bollos, various types of tortillas and of course piva nuts. There are some very inexpensive seafood, meat and poultry possibilities as well as legumes to put some protein in your diet.

Being a multicultural, experimental eater is a survival skill whenever you're feeding yourself on scant resource, but especially so here. An appreciation for the ways that different cultures get down to culinary basics makes a life on poverty rations much healthier an interesting when you live here at The Crossroads of the World, where so many of those cultures meet.

dining

Another day on short rations