| When you think about Guatemalan food, the images that come to your mind are variety of flavors, textures, aromas and colors. One of the first appealings of our kitchen is precisely the colors’ pallet, which reflects the riches of our fruits, vegetables and spices that grow in our soils. Our cuisine is the inheritance of two big culinary traditions. With the conquest, the pleasure for the Arabic taste arrived, transformed by the Spaniards; and the local ethnies that contibuted with the gods’ flavor. One example of this blend of tastes and culinary techniques is the tamale, purely indigenous but adapted to the taste of Europeans.
| In the Guatemalan meals the most common ingredients are beans and corn, prepared in plenty of recipes; but also cow meat, chicken, turkey and other animals (like deer, armadillo, iguana and spotted cavy), which form a part of a good table. |  | Another common foods are cheeses, corn tortillas, avocado, rice and all kinds of species, from which we can emphasize the different chilis, used in one and thousand ways, specially because through them and oregano, pepper, laurel, parsley, mint, and other herbs we obtain the typical season of our foods. And thanks to others, its undeniable green and red colors, a reflection of our landscapes. In the Guatemalan cuisine, an almost omnipresent plate is soup, generally very hot and served as an entry for a heavy meal, then followed by dessert prepared mainly with fruits like, papayas, watermelons, mangoes, bananas, sapodillas, and peaches. Lots of them, that are transformed into delicious sweet plates, which are a pleasure to all Guatemalans, because the sweet strong flavor is enjoyed by everybody. The beverages that usually come out of all these fruits, give the table a colorful touch, as well as an extraordinary taste. And to finish, we have the coffee, another companion to the Guatemalan tables that is never missing, with its dark color and penetrating aroma. |