Honduras
Baleadas morning to night, Garífuna coconut seafood on the coast, and world-class Copán coffee.
The Honduran day runs on baleadas — a thick flour tortilla folded warm around refried beans, salty white cheese and a tangy cream, upgraded 'super' with egg, avocado and meat. They're sold from stands and comedores from breakfast to late night, and they're the country's edible signature. Mainland cooking rests on a Spanish-Lenca-Maya base of tortillas, beans and grilled meat, piled into the plato típico with fried plantain tajadas and chimol salsa.
Then the coast changes the accent entirely. Along the Caribbean and out to the Bay Islands, the Garífuna cook with coconut milk and the day's catch — sopa de caracol, a conch soup, and machuca, mashed plantain with a coconut seafood broth. Up in the Copán highlands grows some of the world's most prized coffee. Eat at the roadside, and Honduras opens right up.
- Baleada (folded bean-and-cheese tortilla)
- Plato típico (grilled-meat plate)
- Sopa de caracol (Garífuna conch soup)
- Machuca (mashed plantain with coconut seafood)
- Tajadas (fried plantain)
- Nacatamales (banana-leaf tamales)
- Enchiladas hondureñas (topped fried tortillas)
