Panama Food Press

[caroline]

In e-Gullet's continuing search to reach the global food community, here's a nifty source. La Prensa in Panama. The food page is run by Ana Alfaro who is really well informed (speaks fluent Spanish, English and Japanese) and writes great pieces.

the story of La Prensa goes something like this. In early 1999, Deputy Director (Acting Editor) Gustavo Gorriti of La Prensa, Panama's most important newspaper, started searching for a food critic. Gorriti, a Peruvian journalist, had been forced into self-exile after having been abducted by order of Vladimiro Montesinos, President Fujimori's Svengali. Gorriti would then play a pivotal role in the ousting of Fujimori and in bringing Montesinos to justice.

Ana Alfaro started writing her column, Buen Comer (Good Eating), on April 8th, 1999. She was the first hard hitting restaurant critic in the country to the outrage of restaurateurs and their lawyers. Her comment is "La Prensa had previously stood up to the Noriega dictatorship, and was not about to be intimidated by a group of chefs, no matter how good their knife skills."

Her pieces can be read online every Wednesday at www.prensa.com Sección Revista. She writes the cover story under her own by-line, and the Buen Comer restaurant review under her pseudonym, Aristóloga. Earlier articles can be accessed through the Ediciones Anteriores tag.

The last two pieces dealt with the Christmas leg of pork and the Culinary Association of Panama and its competitions for the brightest and best chefs, attended by Patrick Michel of Le Cordon Bleu, Paris.

With any luck, she's going to join e-Gullet. So welcome to Ana and La Prensa,

Rachel

[Jaymes]

Wow. Rachel. Thanks!

I lived in Panama for four years....on both the Pacific and Atlantic sides. I am really excited about this.

I want to start by asking her if 'Las Americas' is still there, and if they still serve that delicious almond fish dish.

I really loved my time in Panama.

And I'm still looking for someone to mourn with me the passing of the Balboa Yacht Club. What a place that was.

Sigh.

[esperanza]

Thanks for giving us the link to the newspaper. I read a few of her pieces and enjoyed them thoroughly. Do encourage her to join eGullet--it would be great fun having her here.

Thanks again, Rachel.

Esperanza

[caroline]

Hey Jaymes, where is it you haven't been? Tell us about that yacht club. I'd love to go to Panama, but dream on. And Esperanza I think you like Jaymes will enjoy Ana's postings (she will make many I am sure because she is an amazing correspondent). She really knows food, not just Panamanian food,

Rachel

[Jaymes]

Hey Jaymes, where is it you haven't been?  Tell us about that yacht club.

I talked about it a little

HERE...

Beto had been there, too.

It was really something....

[Ana Alfaro]

Hello Rachel, Esperanza, Jaymes. I'm so happy to be here with you!!!

Jaymes, I really think that you mourn the passing of a lifestyle. The Canal Zone was a funny place. The child of capitalism, it was the perfect communist model (for zonians, that is).

***The Yacht Club. Never went to the upstairs steakhouse. Did go to the downstairs bar, and of course, a lot of my friends had yachts and we would depart for Las Perlas archipelago from there, or for day trips to Melones or Taboga, cool. This place was at the mouth of the Canal, and you would just sit there and lounge and watch the sun set, drinking beer. Now, Jaymes, there is a new visitors' Centre at the Miraflores Locks, including a restaurant on the third floor, where you can dine whilst, ten meters away, these huge ships rise and fall with the waters. Crappy food, lovely spectacle: the technological equivalent (except for the food) of those five star hotels on the Serengeti with dining decks above watering holes.

***Re. Las Americas: No more corvina with almonds, trout amandine now, and corvina with other sauces. Chef Rafa Ciniglio built a fancy restaurant, but the old takeout place still stands.

[esperanza]

Ana, muchísimo gusto y gracias por estar aquí con nosotros los de eGullet.

I look forward to reading your posts, and I've certainly enjoyed your pieces in La Prensa. You are very direct and honest, an excellent thing in a reviewer and writer.

Where I live--in Mexico--it's almost impossible to find an honest and thorough review of a restaurant. We have a law in this country that usually prohibits us from offering even the smallest criticism that might be considered potentially harmful to an individual's business. Our so-called restaurant reviews are usually puff pieces for restaurants which may or may not serve acceptable meals. Given that it's nearly impossible to find out which restaurants are wonderful and which are not, there is a lot of trial and error--i.e., consumption of bad meals in the name of research. I'm assuming that you have no such law in Panamá.

Again, welcome aboard and I will be watching for your posts.

[Ana Alfaro]

Esperanza, we do not have that law. We do, however, have some stupid law on slanderring public officials, which is sooo ridiculous, do you know that Panama's corruption index in 2003 topped Mexico's?

Thanks for your kind words on my articles. This last week I wrote about this amazing turkey my cousin makes, on the barbecue, and injected full of triple sec. Unfortunately, this year the bird burnt and did not look as engaging as the last time. For Año Nuevo I am going to a friend's place in El Valle De Antón (kind of posh weekend-vacation place a couple of hours from P. City) and we are going to make "lechón en caja china", which I will be posting in January. Will let you know. The funny thing is, the Caja China has nothing chinese about it. The Cubans call "chino" anything quaint, sort of like La China de Puebla, who was actually Indian.

[esperanza]

The Cubans call "chino" anything quaint, sort of like La China de Puebla, who was actually Indian.

Yes, la famosa China Poblana! She is one of Mexico's national symbols.

I named my calico cat China, for her dress of many colors.

[Jaymes]

Hello Rachel, Esperanza, Jaymes. I'm so happy to be here with you!!!

Jaymes, I really think that you mourn the passing of a lifestyle. The Canal Zone was a funny place. The child of capitalism, it was the perfect communist model (for zonians, that is).

←

Yes, there was definitely something of a time warp there. We weren't "Zonians"; we were Air Force -- just visiting the colonial life. First over at Colon for a year, and then at Howard for three. Most of my favorite restaurants are probably long gone: Pesco del Oro comes immediately to mind. Most of all, I remember the ceviche, the Chinese vegetable markets, the saltimboca at an Italian restaurant downtown overlooking the sea, the beans at a Peruvian restaurant you went into from a back door, the many wonderful Chinese restaurants, an excellent Japanese one right by the Japanese embassy, an old Colonial restaurant in Colon where we ate out on a terrace, the 'batidas' that I've tried to recreate but can't get exactly right, the Mongolian BBQ at Ft. Amador, the excellent seafood at that open-air place perched high on the cliff overlooking the ocean just off of the highway up to the Indian market at El Valle, the hotel in the San Blas Islands where they had built a lobster tank by rocking off a part of the sea, and when you ordered a lobster, a barely-clothed lithe young lad would dive in and get you one.

I really loved Panama. Must go back someday.

Ana, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to have you here, and to be able to read your pieces in La Prensa. This is my lucky day!!!

Edited December 16, 2004 by Jaymes (log)

[Ana Alfaro]

Man, you must have been here like in the seventies!!

Most of the places you mention are long gone. However, Panamanian gastronomy is really kicking up, and for a small country of three million, there is a lot of diversity --port cities always have diversity of culture. We have Japanese, excellent Chinese --and I do mean excellent--, Thai, tons of Spanish, Fusion, French, Italian --no decent Indian or Vietnamese, alas, and no Northern Italian--and of course, a host of US franchises: from Dunkin Donuts to Tony Roma's, you name it. Plus, local cooking shows, food magazines, a Cordon Bleu joint program with a local university, a new Nouvelle Panamanian cuisine, very nice.

So, when were you here? aa.