Guatemala
Maya maize and three great coloured stews — market-comedor cooking in the land of Tikal.
To eat in Guatemala is to eat maize, still treated as sacred: in the K'iche' Popol Vuh, humans were formed from corn, and nixtamalised masa ground fresh at the neighbourhood molino becomes the tortillas, tamales and atol at nearly every meal. The heart of the cooking is the recado, a sauce of roasted tomatoes, chiles and toasted pumpkin and sesame seeds — the pre-Hispanic ancestor of Mexico's moles.
From it come the country's three great coloured stews: red pepián, the national dish; green jocón; and the fiery Q'eqchi' turkey soup kak'ik from the Cobán highlands. Real eating happens at market comedores in Antigua and Chichicastenango, ladling stews and tamales over rice for a few quetzales. Down on the Caribbean coast, the Garífuna cook something else entirely — coconut-milk tapado seafood soup. Come hungry; the tortillas never stop coming.
- Pepián (roasted-seed meat stew)
- Kak'ik (Q'eqchi' turkey soup)
- Jocón (green chicken stew)
- Tamales colorados (red-recado tamales)
- Chuchitos (corn-husk masa parcels)
- Rellenitos (plantain-and-bean sweets)
- Tapado (Garífuna coconut seafood soup)
