Dining

We had a light breakfast every morning. The meals do not very much especially breakfast. The menu: hard boiled eggs topped with carrot shreds that have been soaked in some sort of hot sauce spice, also has a hint of vinegar. Not sure exactly how they prepare the carrot shreds, but really tasty with the hard boiled egg. Fruit: bananas are the standard, but we also had pineapple and mango one morning. A loaf of bread, you have to rip off a hunk. Peanuts are mixed in with your hard boiled eggs to create an egg and peanuts salad, a quite popular dish. We also had Haitian peanut butter. Similar to peanut butter you can find in the US but with some spice, kind of peppery flavor. We also had jelly so we could make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Haitians eat one large meal a day usually around 3 pm. I loved this meal everyday. So good. The food was cooked fresh each day. Rice and bean were always included; white rice with either black or pinto beans. The rice and beans would either be mixed or served separate. Also served was fried chicken drum sticks. What made the meal for me was the sauce the cooks prepared. The sauce was a light tomato sauce with onions, scallions and chunk tomato accompanied by a few other vegetables and spices. The sauce atop the rice, beans and chicken created an incredible feast.

Lunch was always accompanied by a half liter bottle of Coke or Sprite. The Coca Cola is much tastier in Haiti then in the US. When it is manufactured they use real sugar instead of corn syrup as a base, providing the beverage a little sweeter and lasting taste. Everyone that in the program agreed coke tasted much better. Another interesting thing that is not seen in the US anymore is that they reuse all the coke and sprite bottles. All the bottles are worn on the bottoms and the sides that touch when packaged. When you buy a case of Coke from a store you pay an initial deposit for the bottles. As long as you always bring back a case full of empty bottles you are not charged the extra deposit fee, you are just paying for the liquid in the bottle. At the little snack stands on the side of the road if you purchase a bottle of coke you need to finish the bottle before you leave the stand. It thought their little system was interesting.

A there is late evening snack, much like breakfast, that consist of bread, bananas and peanut butter.

I don’t know the history of Haitian meals, but I think one meal a day has to do with the fact that there is a lack of food for many people. I if you don’t have the money to buy the food then you cannot eat three large meals a day.