Cubicle Throwdown

tales of a serial expat

“So, like… what do you EAT in Honduras?” – Part 2

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I hadn’t ever intended this to be a two-part series… I thought I’d just write the original “What do you eat in Honduras?” post to answer all the questions I used to get about it, and that would be that.

Well. An islander saw my post and decided to cook for me and show me what real island food is, because he said my photos of ‘bush’ (salad) was ridiculous and “that not what we island people be eatin here” (his words, oh hey island creole). So a follow-up post became necessary!


So here is round two of what I eat in Honduras… 





First, when an islander cooks for me!

Let’s see if you can find the similarities in the dishes here:

my absolute favorite dish of all time… fried pork, fried plantains and cabbage salad. i liked this one so much i had him make it 3 times!


pan-fried lionfish, lionfish ceviche, cabbage salad and fried breadfruit


lionfish fillets frying in lard…healthy.


fried guatusa, fried chata, cabbage salad.

fried lionfish at work

fried lionfish, fried breadfruit, and cabbage salad.



So just in case you didn’t pick up on it, there was a whole lot of fried animal, fried starch and cabbage salad. And holy shit, was it ever good. Probably some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. Also probably because most of it was fried. Oh well.


Here’s the last employee lunch I’ve eaten at work:

stewed chicken, black beans, yellow rice, ‘coleslaw’

I have a sneaking suspicion that these employee breakfast and lunches are not helping my ‘expat 15’ weight gain (which we are so not talking about right now, but is like the ‘freshman 15’ and totally true). So I’ve tried to be less of a lazy loser and bring lunch from home. These lunches are really greasy and unhealthy (but so cheap and easy!) and I need to start eating a lot better.

To balance out Employee Lunch/Islander Food Delicious Greasefest 2013 and combat some serious Asian food cravings, I’ve been doing a whole lot of these rice/rice noodle bowls lately:


Also here is some salad love since you all commented so much about my mega-salads in the last post!


Y ensalada con una gatita porque me gusta gatitas! (I’m working on my Spanish these days with DuoLingo, if you’re on there let me know so we can be foreign language nerd friends):

tiny kitten interfering with the salad creation process

Oh, and lots of you asked about typical Honduran breakfasts. Well, I don’t eat it often so I had to steal these photos from the internet and then I forgot where they were from. So if they’re yours, I’m sorry, let me know so I can credit it. But anyway, this is what a Honduran breakfast usually looks like:


El desayuno typico: fried eggs, refried beans, avocado, what they call ‘mantequilla’ but it’s not butter it’s just runny sour cream, and queso (hard white cheese like feta). Or just a baleada, which is all those things folded into a flour tortilla.

Well there you have it – even more things that I eat here. I couldn’t believe the response after I posted Part One so I hope this one answers all the other questions people had about what I eat here. And just FYI, I don’t always have a personal islander chef or make fancy Asian noodle bowls… as I’m writing this I’m currently eating a giant bowl of popcorn for dinner. For the third time this week. No shame.

Thank you all for being so weird and nosy and asking what I eat – it’s the first thing I always ask people when they’re traveling! I love food and finding out what people eat either as tourists or expats or locals. Food is my favorite (not news) so I’m always happy to talk about it. Although I’m sick of remembering to take photos of my food so please don’t make me do Part Three! (If you really want to know, I suggest following me on Instagram because I am a 20something white girl so I post lots of photos of what I’m about to eat.)




Guys, make sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter … there’s lots of extras posted there that don’t make it onto the blog. Plus it makes the best fried food in the world happen. So there’s that.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jamie says

    That looks like my culinary heaven…all fried everything. You're lucky you're only at an Expat 15. I'd get at least a good 30 out of all that goodness. Especially fried pork. Looks delicious!

  2. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    Well I think I'm well on my way to the expat 80, so let's not jinx it 🙂 It does sound good though. Kind of like the sleek sounding "Euro 20" Colleen mentioned below! The breakfasts are good, but I never ate eggs before I came here and while I'm getting better at eating them, I still can't handle it daily.

  3. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    There are so many fruits that grow here locally!! Grapefruit, avocado, papaya, lime, coco plums, seagrapes, wineberries, hog plums, mangoes, the list goes on! Sadly I'm not a huge fan of fruit.. but at least I know I'd never starve here haha!

  5. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    I keep blaming the food for my expat 15, but I'm pretty sure a massive increase in rum & coca cola may be playing a part was well… 🙂

    I have a serious cured ham obsession, and I'm pretty sure I would eat myself sick in Spain!!

    (As soon as I end up somewhere with wifi for my iphone I'll add you on Instagram – I guess the desktop version won't let me do it 🙁 )

  6. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    I think beans, rice and eggs I could do…but not refried beans, fried tortillas and fried eggs every day 🙂

    Salad is always the #1 thing I miss while traveling. Roatan's saving grace is an amazing hydroponic greenhouse that makes lots of delicious greens!

  7. Steph (@ 20 Years Hence) says

    This is incredible! I'd say eating like that you're lucky to only experience and expat 15 and not, say, the expat 80 (which has a certain ring to it, no?). I can't believe you have the fortitude to skip those breakfasts though: they look particularly delicious!

  8. Agness says

    It's great to see you can still eat healthy in Honduras. I love the great variety of salads and fruits!!! Fried plantains and cabbage salad look so yummy!!!!!

  9. Colleen Brynn says

    I was going to say something along the lines of "fried fried fried" but then you pointed it out. Yeah, let's not talk about any sort of 15. I gained a Euro 20 (at LEAST) the first time I lived in Europe, and that was gross. Last year at school I actually lost weight… but I think I've found it again. Yay. So we can all rest easy tonight knowing it's not out there looking for some other sad soul trying not to become a lil fatty. Damn.

  10. Jessica says

    Ahaha the expat 15! I love it, that's SO true. There's just so much tasty food to be had…

    This all looks pretty delicious, although I'm not sure I could get used to such a heavy breakfast. I live in Spain, where they eat tons of cured ham for breakfast (well, at any time of the day, really!), and I'm still not convinced by it.

    (BTW, just requested you on Instagram for more yummy food pics 🙂 ).

  11. Carmel & Shawn says

    Maybe it's my upbringing (my mom is Mexican), but I could seriously eat beans, rice and eggs for breakfast just about every day and be happy. I could even skip the eggs. Of course we also have some yummy salsas to throw on there….

    I would imagine fried food would get old quickly. Oh wait, I don't have to imagine…I was in Mongolia for 3 1/2 weeks! Gets old VERY quickly. I miss salad. I think when I get home I'm just going to eat heaps of salad.

  12. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    I think it's a real thing, I definitely didn't coin the term. I have read a few other girls writing about it on blogs and it's definitely a real thing here on Roatan – I don't know anyone who's been here more than a year and hasn't gained a ton of weight!!

  13. Jessica Dawdy says

    Awesome! I'm with you, I'm always curious about what people eat in different countries. Aside from the yummy-ness, it teaches you so much about local history and culture. Is the "expat 15" actually a thing? I almost don't want it to be because then it makes my weight gain justified or something, haha.

  15. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    I've had the cruise ship lady's stuff before! Yep, I'm totally sick of fried meat or stewed meat and rice and runny potato salad. I'm back to cooking for myself again, although as you said – it's hard when you're so busy! Are you done your DMT yet?

  18. DMT Joe says

    Yepp.. I've eaten the local food many times in West Bay for lunch. There's someone called the "cruise ship lady" that makes plates of lunches for 60 LPS. I could only eat so much fried ___________ , or stewed chicken before I had to start seeking alternatives. Most of the time I would just skip lunch, although it's really hard when you're diving two or three times a day and doing all the DMT work associated with that! I think the "cruise ship lady" actually prepares food for some of the tour operators who provide lunches to customers doing tours with them.