For those staying for longer than a vacation, an apartment or house with a kitchen is a wonderful way of enjoying Costa Rican cooking and experimenting with the unusual tropical ingredients available in the markets. Around the San Jose area, every neighborhood has at least one supermarket, supplemented by weekend ferias or open air markets, and every neighborhood has its little pulperia or convenience store where you can buy items you forgot at the other markets.
Major supermarket chains are: Auto Mercado, Mega Super, Pali, Maxi Bodega and Mas X Menos. The "X" in the latter market is pronounced por, which means "for" in Spanish, making the store's literal name: "More for Less" markets. Open-air markets are held on weekends, the major ones being: Saturday in Escazu, on the south side of the main square; Saturday in Pavas, about five blocks from the main shopping center; and Sunday in Zapote, next to the Bull Ring. Heredia's farmers' market, also on Saturday, is perhaps the best known of all, with local families selling produce raised in their back yards. Heredia's main market, open every day of the week, is a wonderful place to browse for food, clothing, tools, furniture, whatever you can imagine.

Costa Rica's selection of fruits and vegetables are sometimes bewildering for us North Americans. In addition to delicious pineapples, strawberries, melons and other things we are used to, you'll find chayotes, pejibayes, palmitos, platanos and other strange- looking items which will soon become standard parts of your menu. A common substitute for potatoes, the yuca root, in my opinion, tastes much better than ordinary spuds. Exotic tropical fruits such as guayabas, tamarindo or carambolas are exciting to experiment with, and make delicious drinks, called refrescos. One of my favorite refrescos is made by blending fresh cacao nuts (the source of chocolate) with horchata (a rice flour and sugar drink). My wife prefers a batida of fresh papaya, milk and ice, whipped to a milkshake-like consistency. Some fruits are so exotic they border on fantastic?with shells, spines and barbs?looking like something from a science fiction book cover. Especially interesting is the mararion fruit, the source of the common cashew nut. The nut itself grows at the end of a edible orange or yellow fruit that can be eaten raw or, more often, made into a refresco by blending with sugar and ice cubes. But the cashew nut itself is encased in a rubbery shell which is primed with cyanide, making it bitter and extremely poisonous. I have to marvel over the wonderful way nature designed this fruit as a way to disperse its seeds. In the wild, monkeys, parrots and other creatures pluck the fruit and carry it away to be consumed. When they finish eating the sweet fruit, the bitter-tasting seed is discarded, dropped on the ground to produce another tree.

Since Costa Rica is a cattle growing country, steaks and roasts are as good as you might expect, with the flavor that only grass-fed beef can have?and it's inexpensive. But you might be surprised to discover that pork and chicken are higher priced than filet mignon. One reason is that pigs and chickens require large amounts of protein in their diets, which isn't available in bananas or other cheap tropical foods, so imported protein supplements bring prices up. The quality of pork and chicken is very good. Eggs are delicious, having a brighter-colored yolk and a better flavor than we're used to up north with our mass-produced egg farms.

With an ocean on both sides, of course Costa Rica enjoys a wide selection of seafood. And since shipping distances from either ocean involve just a few short hours, the seafood arrives fresh. Almost any kind of fish and shellfish you can imagine is available, plus some you can't imagine. You might want to try some of the shellfish and conch that only thrives around the Costa Rican shores. Imported foods are expensive. Partly because of shipping its and partly because of foreign exchange differentials. Central American substitutes are often as good, and locally grown?fresh food are always much better than something canned or packaged.

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