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Food, eating habits and cusine of Panama

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The Republic of Panama has rich tradition in culinary arts but its cooking traditions and styles are mostly borrowed from its neighbor countries. Meat is the most important part of its cuisine that contains a variety of cereals and vegetables. But even if based on the country’s diverse cultures, cooking is typically delicious from breakfast to lunch and dinner.

The country has a national typical dish called Sancocho, which is a soup made of chicken, salt and coriander boiled in water. Other typical dishes include Bunuelo, a new seed corn milled and fried; Carimañola, which is fried milled yucca, with mass filled with ground meat; Hojalda, fried mass of flour stretched in oval shape; Lechona, a piece of fried suckling pig; Masamorra, which is cooked with milk and cane sugar; and Rosquietas, a small ring-shaped bread roll covered with sugar. Some foods representative of Panamanian cuisine are also served at roadside restaurants in many areas of the country. Some of the country’s popular recipes include patacones, tentacion, arroz con polo, sancocho, tortilla de maiz con queso blanco, and carimañola.

Panamanians also serve breakfast consisting of hojaldas, or Panamanian doughnuts, tortillas of deep fried eggs, cheese and beans, and empanada. For the main means, the favorite dishes are corvine, fish commonly known as sea bass; sancocho; sea foods which come from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts; and tamales, which is made of dough or corn-filled with pork or chicken and spices and wrapped in banana leaves for boiling in water. Restaurant habitués are allowed to select a variety of side dishes such as the platano maduro, carimañola, arroz con quandu or appetizers, the most popular of them being called ceviche.

Fresh fruits are not served in many restaurants but can be purchased in outdoor markets.