Panama
A two-ocean crossroads on a plate — hen stew, Afro-Caribbean coconut rice and the world's priciest coffee.
Panama's food is a crossroads, exactly like the country. The national dish is sancocho de gallina, a restorative hen stew loud with culantro, served with yuca and plantain; alongside it the everyday pantry runs on corn, rice, beans and plantain fried twice into patacones. But layered over the Spanish-and-indigenous base is a strong Afro-Antillean thread, carried by the Caribbean workers who built the railway and canal — coconut rice, and the fiery ají chombo chilli — plus a Chinese imprint you taste in every corner grocery-diner.
Flanked by two oceans, this is a seafood country: head to Panama City's Mercado de Mariscos for cheap, fresh ceviche of corvina eaten standing up. And up in the Boquete highlands grows Geisha coffee, whose floral, tea-like cups keep smashing world auction records. Eat cheap at a family fonda, and you've understood the place.
- Sancocho de gallina (hen-and-culantro stew)
- Arroz con pollo
- Hojaldre (fried breakfast bread)
- Carimañola (stuffed yuca fritter)
- Patacones (twice-fried plantain)
- Ceviche de corvina (sea-bass ceviche)
- Geisha coffee
