This article is one of a series on life in the campo, or country living in Costa Rica, as my wife and I* experienced it on our visits and after moving to Costa Rica. Each is a sort of time capsule, the stories evolving with us as we have lived more experiences and delved deeper into the culture.

When we went to look for land for our reforestation project, Hector said that we could stay with some good friends of his, William and Lucy. They own a soda that is on route 4 between Monterrey and Jicarito. We stayed with them for a little more than a week, and they became very dear friends.

William owns a taller (garage) and lavado (car wash). Lucy runs the soda. Usually Lucy has two girls working for her in the soda. For 6 days a week, the soda opens about 6:00 am and closes about 7:00 pm which definitely makes for a long day. The soda functions like a cafeteria, with various dishes kept in heating pans for eating. One of the things I love about their soda is the fried chicken for breakfast!

Lucy will also cook up almost anything for you if you ask. Amy and I eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Normally, there is little fruit out displayed, but if you ask, they will prepare a wonderful fruit plate. Vegetables are harder to come by. Since we were staying with them, when the vegetable truck came by, Amy climbed into the truck and picked several kinds of vegetables for us for the next week. I think one of the reasons for a lack of fruit in the sodas is that fruit is virtually free. All you have to do it pick it off a nearby tree. If you ask for some fruit they are more than willing to provide it. It is much cheaper to feed someone fruit in Costa Rica than meat.

The selection of the soda does change, and if you are squeamish, you need to ask what everything is. Delicacies in one culture often can be very unexpected. For example, in some places in the USA, pigs’ feet are much desired, but I have not had the desire to try them. My family generally is very concerned about my lack of taste buds, so I will usually try almost anything. Normally, I have no sensibilities. One of my favorite dishes that appears sometimes is beef tongue.

Because tilapia is raised locally, it is common to find it at the sodas. The Costa Rican way of cooking it is to gut the fish and scale it and then deep fry it, head and all. This can be very good if the fish is fresh. Normally you will have primarily meat dishes and then plantains and gallo pinto. There will be at least 4 or 5 different kinds of meat, fried chicken (yeah!), sausage (it looks a lot like fried bologna), beef and pork. There are usually tortillas with queso blanco fried inside. The beef tends to be tough, but this is probably because there is no way to age beef in Costa Rica without a locker. Most beef is tough without being aged, so the Costa Ricans just slice it thin and use their teeth. If you want eggs, all you have to do is ask.

One of the things that people who come to Costa Rica comment on is that the food is bland. I have to agree. I have a theory (and I don’t think it is unique with me) that this is because in Costa Rica you do not have to preserve anything. It is the tropics, after all, and there is always something growing. So the need to preserve food is much less important. Spices were originally used to cover up the bad taste of food after it had been around a little too long—sort of like some of my cheeses. Therefore, most of the food I have eaten in Costa Rica is good, filling, but not terribly exciting. That is not to say that I do not enjoy it. There are exceptions. The fruit is to die for; I never liked mangoes until I was in Costa Rica.

There are few things I enjoy more than hanging out in the soda and watching life go by. Of course, there is steady traffic of people coming in and out. You really get a feel for life in the campo by sitting in the soda. When any person comes up, they greet everyone and then are served their plate of food after picking out what they want. Lucy shows her great esteem for us in that she doesn’t chase us out of her kitchen when we sneak back there. In fact, when we stayed with them, after a while she had me making my own afternoon coffee with a bolsa. The table has hot sauce that some of the Ticos use (and it isn’t very hot). This got me once, because we were eating with Hector and his father and his father was eating some pickled vegetables and said they were hot. I didn’t believe him, so I grabbed one and ate it. It was really hot, worse than most things I have tasted even in the United States.

The people who normally stop at the soda are truck drivers and people driving to town. The campesinos do not go to sodas very often, so for them it is a treat. So when you are sitting in the soda, you meet a lot of people heading to town or that drive the trucks that haul the livestock and logs.

I have a lifelong habit (some would say addiction) to my morning coffee. Well, being in Costa Rica, I sure am not going to go without my coffee! Costa Ricans are not into super-sizing everything like we do in the USA, so their coffee cups are still small. Lucy and her crew got a real kick out of my coffee consumption. When we started the week, they would bring me a normal cup, then of course I would ask for two or three more. This is not normal in Costa Rica; in fact, Hector prefers tea. By the last couple of days, they hit on a solution—they starting serving me in a handled soup bowl (complete with Campbell’s Soup logo). Now, that was just about the right size! It was about the size of a grande cappuccino cup.

On our last trip to Costa Rica, Lucy was very pleased to be able to produce a large coffee cup that they had bought just for me. I was very touched, and also very grateful!

*We are Fred and Amy Morgan, originally from the US. We bought a dairy farm in Costa Rica to plant trees in its pastures, then later caught a dream of turning all the land we can to permanently protected, sustainably maintained forest once the plantation trees have been harvested for profit. Along the way, we made it possible for our former partner to realize his dream of starting a business of his own in his native land. He is featured in many of the earlier stories.

To read more about Finca Leola S.A. and how you can also invest in trees and at the same time help with reforestation, go to Own Trees with Us.

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