#64 Panama
- Jen
- Dec 10, 2023
- 4 min read
A Van Halen song
The canal
Hats*
A transcontinental country situated on the Isthmus of Panama, a land bridge spanning Costa Rica and Colombia, joining the continental plates of North and South America.
* which, if you recall from my Ecuador post, aren’t actually from Panama.
The indigenous people living in the rainforests, mountains and coastal plains of the Isthamus of Panama in the pre-Columbian era hunted and gathered meat, seafood and fruits, and also cultivated crops such as corn, cacao, peppers, tomatoes and root vegetables.
These crops are still important sources of food for Panama today and are the main ingredients in street food dishes, such as the Mesoamerican traditional staple tamales, a corn dough filled with meat, vegetables or dried fruit, steamed in a banana leaf. Similar to tamales are carimañolas, a cassava-based fried dough filled with cheese or minced meat. Cassava fries, or yuca frita, are also very popular.
In the 16th century ingredients including olive oil, dairy, pigs, goats and spices like paprika were introduced by the Spaniards, along with their recipes and culinary techniques. This is why empanadas are found across the Spanish-speaking world, with different twists between countries. Panamanian empanadas are made with either wheat or corn flour and have savoury or sweet fillings.
Meat stews are common in Panama. Ropa vieja is Spanish for ‘old clothes’ and also the name of a spicy pulled beef stew, based on a sofrito of garlic, onion and peppers (a classic Spanish cooking technique). The dish apparently resembles a pile of old clothes when served.
The conquistadores transported people as slaves from West Africa, who brought with them their own culinary practices. Popular foods eaten in Panama today have their roots in African or Afro-Caribbean cooking, such as the ubiquitous regional street food snack, patacones – fried plantain chips.
Rice was introduced to the region on the 17th century slave ships, and today rice is the most farmed crop in Panama, and most main meals are either rice-based or served with rice.
Arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) was a Spanish dish of rice with onions, herbs, vegetables, saffron and chicken. Arroz con pollo has evolved in this region over the centuries, for example, by making use of a local spice, achiote, in place of expensive saffron to provide the dish’s yellow hue. It’s big one-pot cooking, eaten family-style, or at celebrations when you have a crowd to feed, and is one of the most important dishes in Latin America.
In 1821, under the leadership of the prominent Simón Bolívar, Panama freed itself from Spanish rule and united with what is now Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, as Gran Colombia. Evidence of the countries’ shared history can be seen in food eaten today. For example, corn tortillas, consumed throughout Central America, and well-known for being thin disc-like wrappers for tacos in Mexican cooking, take on a different form in Panama, where they are a thicker patty, more akin to arepas from Venezuela or Colombia. Panamanian tortillas are eaten for breakfast with fruit or eggs with a local fresh white crumbly cheese, similar to feta.
Another Panamanian breakfast and street food dish is hojaldras, fried wheat flat breads, which often come with fried eggs, black beans and salchichas (sausages) in tomato sauce: Panama’s answer to a full English.
Sancocho de pollo
Named after the Spanish sancochar (to parboil), and sometimes referred to as sancocho de gallina, this is considered to be Panama’s national dish. Sancocho is a hearty chicken and root vegetable soup/stew with corn on the cob and flavoured with herbs including cultantro (similar to, but not the same as, coriander/cilantro). It is usually served with rice and hot sauce, as the soup itself quite mild, and is reported to be an excellent hangover cure. Variations of the same dish are found in other Central/South American and Caribbean countries, and the exact recipe changes regionally within Panama.
A traditional sancocho should use the entire chicken to create a flavoursome, nutritious broth. I didn’t use a whole bird but did use bone-in chicken pieces. I gently poached the chicken and then cooked all the vegetables in the chicken pot: sweet potato, carrot, onion, celery, potato, dried woody herbs and plenty of fresh coriander, which gives the soup a green tinge.
Chicken soup in all its forms is deliciously comforting and filling, and sancocho is no exception. I enjoyed nourishing my body and soul with this for four days in a row, with some very hot sauce sprinkled on top.
“El puente del mundo, corazón del universo”
Panamanians refer to their country as “the bridge of the world, heart of the universe”, because the Panama Canal really is the bridge of the [shipping] world, slashing thousands of miles off the journey between Atlantic and Pacific ports by ploughing through a narrow stretch of Panama, and thus avoiding the treacherous Cape Horn.
The idea of a passage across Panama was first floated in the 1500s and the Spanish built a track linking the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. The Americans subsequently upgraded this to a railway in the 1800s, which worked but required lengthy unloading and reloading of goods onto ships at either end.
The French tried and failed (twice) to build a canal towards the end of the 19th century, killing many thousands of workers in the process. The US Army Corps of Engineers successfully built the Canal between 1904 and 1914, and the American Society of Civil Engineers has named it one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. It is perhaps unsporting to nominate yourself for such an accolade, but it’s hard to argue with. It is an engineering marvel!
Locks at each end of the canal lift the largest ships in the world to 26m above sea level to Gatun Lake, a reservoir on the Chagres River, impounded by the 2km long Gatun Dam. Gatun Lake was constructed for the purposes of providing water for the locks and to considerably reduce the excavation required for the canal. At one point, the Gatun Dam was the largest earthfill dam in the world and Gatun Lake was the largest reservoir in the world!
The Canal has made Panama a melting pot of culture from Europe, America, Africa, India, China and many other places, and perhaps that’s why Panama is the “heart of the universe”.
From the bridge of the world…to the land down under…AUSTRALIA!
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