What Panamaians and I Eat at the Fair

This is the final week of the Flower and Coffee Fair in Boquete and it has been a very busy week for everyone anywhere near the fair grounds.

Each year, vendors come from all over Central and South America to sell their wares and locals showcase their home-grown flowers and coffee.

This year was quite different in that the town father’s decided to eliminate street vendors, reduce the volume of the bands that entertain throughout the fair and spruce up the grounds by developing gardens for each and every square inch of fairground.



But my favorite part of the fair is the food available along the midways.

All the dishes are hot, fragrant, beautiful to look at and reasonably priced. Because David and I have visited this annual fair for the last 8 years, we always end up on a bench drinking a local beer and munching on yucca, the local delicacy that reminds me of dry French fried potatoes, but with more flavor.

Whole chickens are cut and grilled to order. The photo just to the right shows chicken pieces and yucca sizzling on the grill. The cook sprinkled some garlic oil on the grill while they were warming up – a good tip.



Folks were ordering fresh smoothies made in an instant, and candied apples were being dipped on the spot.