Can you talk about food and coffee in Spanish?
The You Have Homework Community Newsletter - September 2024
Happy September! It might feel like you’re going back to school with the long article and a video in this newsletter! Maybe you can use it as an excuse to go out for a fancy coffee + pastry to enjoy while reading.
Thanks to those of you who joined the You Have Homework community this past month. ¡Bienvenid@s!
This month’s newsletter includes:
☕ Coffee culture in South America
🐟 Food in Peru
📚 Free books online
☕ Buenos Aires vs. Lima
Do you remember my newsletter on Buenos Aires? One of my favorite things about that city was the coffee culture. And my favorite coffee shop in the Villa Crespo neighborhood where I lived introduced me to Peruvian coffee.
Chloe
I had forgotten all about that moment when I landed in Lima, but after tasting a locally-sourced, organic, and sustainable espresso, I was hooked on finding out more about the coffee culture in Peru.
The country suffered from widespread terrorism and corruption in the 1980s and 1990s, which interrupted the coffee production in the jungles. Toward the end of this era, coffee growing restarted from scratch, but with old techniques. This is why a lot of beans you may come across will be designated as organic – there was no easy access to the modern world outside of their region, so farmers worked with the old-school techniques they had.
If you get a chance to visit Lima, the staff at the impeccably designed cafes in Barranco and Miraflores will be able to tell you from which farm their beans come from.
This past month I read this article from Wired (in Spanish) about sustainable coffee production in Brazil. Check it out if you want to build your coffee vocabulary!
I haven’t traveled all over South America, but since a hip coffee shop competition is brewing in my mind, perhaps I will have to add Sao Paulo to my bucket list!
🐟 Causa acevichada
The long words in Spanish still make my tongue twist, and sometimes make me wonder if I should go in for an adult dyslexia test. A lot of what I ate in Peru was easy to pronounce: un espresso y un canalé, tacu tacu, chaufa, un pisco sour, leche de tigre… But the word acevichada gave me a lot of trouble because I kept adding letters – acevechisada.
Why am I telling you this? It would be a crime to talk about everything about Peru except for the food. They have some of the best restaurants in the entire world, meticulous chefs, and influences from Europe, Africa and Asia that created a cuisine that’s truly unique. No matter where you are in the world, the conversation will probably come around to food, so it’s worth it to learn the related vocabulary to be able to describe complex dishes.
I had never tried causa until I got to Chile (sorry to my Chilean friends, but I sought out more interesting gastronomy while I was there), and my favorite type I ate when I got to Peru was the acevichada. The combination of tangy, savory, creamy, and with a hint of spice really did it for me.
Work on your food vocabulary with this video recipe below (though I prefer my causa without tomato). And listen carefully to region-specific names, like a lime is called limón sutil and an avocado is called palta.
📚 A reading resource from Colombia
I suspect the content on this website might be blocked outside of Colombia, but if you ever visit the country (or use a VPN, I dunno) check out El Libro Total.
Like Project Gutenberg, it’s an organization that makes books available online for free. And it’s not just books you can read – there are sections for art and music. I’ve already flipped through a few fairy tales and picked up some new vocabulary words. There’s nothing like reading a children’s story to remind you there’s somewhere between 100-200,000 words in the Spanish language.
🌴🦾🙂
It’s funny how locations can affect our moods and physical wellbeing. In Peru I had trouble getting out of bed in the morning, I alternated between having a stomach ache and a cold, and my hair frizzed like crazy. I recently returned to Colombia and am feeling perfectly healthy. Now to look for a great Peruvian restaurant!
¡Chimpum!
Chloe
Founder, You Have Homework