NATIONAL DISHES

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about

GALLO PINTO

Gallo pinto or gallopinto is a traditional dish from Central America. Consisting of rice and beans as a base, gallo pinto has a long history and is important to Costa Rican and Nicaraguan identity and cultures, just as rice and beans variations are equally important in many Latin American cultures as well.

The beans in gallo pinto are quickly cooked until the juice is almost consumed, then combined with prepared rice and other ingredients such as cooked bell peppers, chopped onions, and garlic.

Gallo pinto means "spotted rooster" in Spanish. The name is said to originate in the multi-colored or speckled appearance that results from cooking the rice with black or red beans. The term may also be shortened depending on the region.

It is uncertain and disputed which country is the precise origin of the dish. Both Costa Rica and Nicaragua claim it as their own, and its origin is a controversial subject between the two countries.

Gallo pinto is one of many various Latin American plates which involve the preparation of the most integral ingredients for many cultures: rice and beans. Gallo pinto is considered to be a product of mestizos; a combination of beans, cultivated by Indigenous people of pre-Columbian time, and rice, a grain introduced by the Spanish. The cooking and preparation is heavily influenced by African cooking.

Rice, originally from Asia,was introduced by Arabs in Spain and became a main but versatile ingredients in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. With the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish introduced rice quickly to Mexico and South America. It is suggested that within the eighteenth century, the cultivation of rice became relevant to Central America. 

Asian rice was cultivated by Africans in the neolithic period, and with their arrival to the Americas as slaves by Europeans, they were already accustomed to eating rice. So this occurred as well with beans, which were cultivated centuries prior in the Americas. On their travels to America, slaves were given bowls and a wooden spoon from which they ate twice a day. They ate primarily beans and European or African rice, along with maize, yams, cassava and sponge cake.

As Africans were forced to settle in the continent, various forms of rice and beans began to take form. Because the Americas had many types of beans cultivated by Indigenous people, they gave rise to a range of dishes when combined with rice.

and as always have a chilled day from the Viking