Comida Tipica

Latin America has a wide variety of great food: from Argentinian steaks, to Mexican mole, from Cuban congri to Peruvian anticuchos, many countries in Latin America are known for their cuisine. There any many influences in the food of different Latin American countries which have led to some really good eating! Corn, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, avocado, some types of beans, turkey, and chocolate originated in the Americas, and were widely used in native cooking. After the arrival of the Spaniards, Europeans combined native foods in ways that were familiar, leading to some great combinations. If we add spices common to the Moors (remember the 8 centuries of Moorish presence in Spain) - cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, paprika, turmeric - we get a complex combination. Add to that influences from Africans brought to the Caribbean as slaves, Japanese influences in Peru, and so on...we have a wonderful smorgasbord.

Argentina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bus2NCPZcUw

Street food in Peru: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nQnkOrWZNw

Puerto Rican: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXohoyOl9Jo
and Newyorkican: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un2Y3D2ca3Q


Discovery Atlas: Mexico Food http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmxoRSQ1CGQ


With this short and yummy intro, I have questions for you.

1.- What is your favorite Latin American restaurant and why? Tell us where it is and if it is not local (Long Island/NYC), tell us where it is. What type of food does it offer? Keep in mind that Latin American food casts a very wide range...and Tex-Mex (like Taco Bell) is only marginally Latin.

2.- Choose one country and explore its food. What dish sounds the best? What would you like to try and why? Are there any foods you would not eat? Why?Which one appeals to you the most?

Me gusta pintar!

This week the book covers diversions and pastimes, and one of the verbs we have is pintar: to paint! I would like to introduce you to five 20th century painters: 2 from Spain, 2 from Mexico, and one from Colombia. Their styles are very different - and some of the paintings may actually look familiar to you.

Pablo Picasso was a very well known Spanish painter, and some of his works are in NYC at the MOMA. Many of his paintings are Cubist - a style where objects are not shown whole, but are broken up and reassembled to allow the viewer to see them from more than one perspective at a time.

The painting here is titled Guernica, after a city that was bombed during the Spanish Civil War. The small city (5000-7000) people was destroyed in 1937, in what many believe was a senseless act of violence. If you look at the image here, you will notice people screaming and animals also suffering. Cubism is a very appropriate style to denote the horrors of war.
You can search his images on the web, but here is a link to a small selection: http://www.artinthepicture.com/artists/Pablo_Picasso/.


Another painter from Spain who is well known is Salvador Dali, who was a surrealist. Surrealist works offer an element of surprise and unexpected images set together. Surrealism.org defines it as "Surrealism style uses visual imagery from the subconscious mind to create art without the intention of logical comprehensibility. "



This painting titled "The Persistence of Memory" is in the MOMA in NYC. If you are ever in St Petersburg, FL, stop by the Salvador Dali museum. Here is a link to a page with more info - he was a very eccentric character!

Let's jump over the Atlantic now and take a look at Frida Kahlo, who has become pretty popular in the US. A few years ago, Salma Hayek produced and starred in a film, titled simply "Frida", and based on the painter's life. Many of her paintings are self-portraits. She also focuses quite a bit on her body and on medical aspects, perhaps because of an almost-fatal accident when she ws a teen. Here are her "Two Fridas".



On a somewhat irrelevant (and irreverent) side note, if you ever saw the movie Dodgeball, the one female dodgeball player was probably based on Frida, with the exaggerated features and the unibrow! Here is a link to her paintings: http://www.fridakahlofans.com/mainmenu.html.

Another Mexican painter was Diego Rivera, who was Frida's husband. He was a muralist, and as a painter, much more innovative when it came to style than his wife. Murals - or large paintings directly on the wall or the ceiling of a building - had been used in antiquity and during the renaissance, but the type of paint was unknown. In early 20th century Mexico, Rivera (and others) experimented until they found a type of paint that would hold up. Some of his enormous murals are very detailed, and show a preoccupation with social justice. Here is "Man at the Crossroads".
"



Rivera also painted smaller pictures, and sometimes you can catch one in the city. If you are interested in seeing a mural painted by one of the best know Mexican muralists, the New School for Social Research has some by Jose Clemente Orozco. A link to more info on Rivera is here:http://www.diegorivera.com/index.php.

The last painter here is the only one who is still alive of these 5. His work should look familiar, as you have seen one of his paintings in the text: Fernando Botero, from Colombia. His trademark is painting very fat people, and he is known for using a deceptively simple style to insert social criticism. This painting is titled "The Dancer". Here is a link to a youtube video with some of his work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI1rjytiZsM.

You can find info online for all of these painters. The Wikipedia site on Botero is not very good, but the others seemed better with a quick glance.

All five painters have very different styles, and they are very recognizable. My question to you is which is your favorite, and why? Tell me why you like the specific painter the best - and why you don't like the others as much.

La Copa Mundial/ The World Cup

The world cup of the most popular sport in the world is taking place this summer in South Africa. Los ojos del mundo van a estar en la Copa el Mundo! Be forewarned: this post rambles a little!

When I was a kid in the town where I lived, girls were not allowed to play soccer. It was strange; we could play volleyball and basketball, we competed in bike races (some were pretty long, all around the southern perimeter of the island of Cozumel) and track meets. When our middle school basketball team got second national place, everyone was elated. When we beat the guys' basketball team, it really did not bother anyone. Still, we were told that girls did not play soccer. I am five years older than my sister - and when she came around, they did have a girls' soccer team. She played for a while and loved it.

Soccer is the most popular sport in Latin America, along with the world. Baseball (beisbol) is played quite a bit in the Caribbean and is rumored to be Fidel Castro's favorite sport, but it comes nowhere near to soccer.

Futbol is played as a 90 minute game: 45 minutes of play, a 15 minute break, and another 45 minutes of play. If the game must have a winner, if it cannot end in a tie, two 15 minute periods are added, with no break. If the teams are still tied, go to a penalty shoot-out (players try to kick the ball in between the goal posts while being blocked by opponents - there is no running around or intercepting the ball - just kick and block if possible). 10 players and a goal keeper are on the field at any given time. If you want to know more about the rules, you can check out: http://www.soccer-fans-info.com/soccer-rules.html. WileyPlus also has a video on soccer in chapter 4.

The World Cup is celebrated every 4 years with teams from 32 countries from all over the world. According to FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football), the cumulative TV audience of the matches, up to 2006, has been 26.29 billion people since they were first televised in 1954 (WOW!).

Rambling here again: I am concerned about the cup being held in South Africa: this is not a worry about terrorism or crime, but a health concern. In 2007, an estimated 25% of the population was HIV+. When a big international sports event is held somewhere - this applies to the Olympics as well - prostitution goes up. You have young athletes who want to celebrate victory or get consolation for losses, tons of fans and visitors and sex trade has an uptick in the region. I hope there is enough health info to avoid tragedies.

OK, on to my questions. You need to answer both of these for extra credit for the quiz on chapter 4, or for credit for the cultural assignment. Note: Brazil is NOT a Spanish-speaking country; they speak Portuguese.

1.- Why do you think soccer is so popular worldwide?

2.- Answer only one part of a question here, to leave options for your classmates.
a) What Spanish-speaking countries are competing in the World Cup now?
b) Choose one Spanish-speaking country that has played, tell us who they played and what the final score was.
c) Which countries played the opening game? What was the final score?
d) Which Spanish-speaking countries have already played?
e) Choose one Spanish-speaking country and tell us when they are slated to play the rest of the games that are already set up.
f) Make a prediction: which Spanish-speaking country will get the furthest in the World Cup? How far will they go? Tell us why and how you made this decision.

Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra

The campus map in chapter 2 has three streets names after people that I will bring up in the blog at some point this semester. While the main focus of the blog is Latin America, Miguel de Cervantes is one of the best known Spanish novelists from the golden era of Spanish literature.

He was born in 1547, served in the military, and was a tax collector. When his books did not add up in the latter job, he was sent to prison for three years. In the former job, he was wounded and lost use of his left arm. There are different accounts of his life, and some are more interesting than others: he left Spain to go to Italy possibly after winning a duel, or wanting to avoid prison again, or simply to be exposed to the world. Either way, records from those days are incomplete but it is known that he moved around a bit.

His biggest bodies of work are the Novelas Ejemplares and El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. The Novelas Ejemplares are a series of very short novels where he explored different styles of writing, one for each novel, published in 1613. Don Quijote was published in two parts, one in 1605 and the second in 1615. Readers had given Cervantes feedback after the first part of the Quijote, and he took it into account when he wrote the second part. This novel is considered one of the masterpieces of Western literature, and one of the earliest novels.

Cervantes passed away on April 23, 1616 - by coincidence, the same day Shakespeare did.

Here is a link to his wikipedia page if you want more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes. There is also a picture of him on the page.


First of all, tell me if you had ever heard of Cervantes and/or of El Quijote. How did you hear of him and what episodes of the novel did you know of? If not, just tell me that too.

Second - answer only one of these questions. A number of the questions can be repeated with different info...do not use info that others have posted. Keep in mind this post focuses on Spain only, not Latin America.

1.- When was the golden era of Spanish Literature? Why is it called that?
2.- Find one play from that era, and tell a little about the author and the play - 6 or 7 sentences. Do not cut and paste, but use your own words.
3.- How many Nobel prizes in literature have been won by Spanish authors? Obviously these are MUCH later!
4.- Discuss one Nobel Prize winning author and summarize one of his or her books very briefly.
5.- Another well-known period in Spanish Literature is the Generacion del 98. Explain what traits this group had.