Note XXVIII-64 — Chapter XXVIII · THE PEOPLE OF COSTA RICA, NICARAGUA, AND SALVADOR. 1800-1887.

Quite simple. Squier's Travels, 120, 272-5. Breakfast invariably comprises eggs, roast meat, beans, and cheese, to which other dishes may be added or not; finishing with chocolate or coffee, the former mixed with roasted corn, and the latter with milk. The dinner consists of soup, boiled meat and greens, followed by a stew of beef, pork, fish, or fowl, with some vegetables, and dessert in the form of a variety of dulces. Rice is as necessary at dinner as beans at breakfast. Between breakfast and dinner, fruits or some cooling beverage are partaken of. Supper is a frugal meal, accompanied with chocolate, or tiste, which is the national beverage of Nic.—a mixture of cacao, and ground roasted corn, beaten in cold water with sugar. Wheaten bread is made of imported flour; but it is too expensive for general use, and is generally sweetened. The tortilla of Nic. is larger, thicker, and of coarser dough than in other parts. In many places it is considered 'artículo de lujo,' and instead of it, boiled or roasted green plantains are used. Wine is rarely brought into requisition. The only fermented liquor in common use is the aguardiente distilled from molasses, which only the lower classes drink, and not to excess. The poorer classes are very irregular in their eating, for they eat at all hours; living mostly on plantains, beans, cheese, and chicharrones and other fat portions of pork. Fruit in superabundance is eaten. Lévy, Nic., 267-72; Stout's Nic., 130-2; Squier's Travels, i. 271.