Los fideos versus Pasta

This story was inspired by our families experience creating homemade pasta this afternoon. One thing we learned was that none of us is likely to pursue a career in noodle making. Please click on the picture for more fun poster-style details.

The first time I met up with my daughter to study Spanish at C.P.I. in Costa Rica, we studied at the Monteverde campus and stayed in a beautiful school apartment. One afternoon, after our morning classes, we wandered along the dirt road through the cloud forest. There we stumbled upon a grocery store. Happy that we wouldn't have to walk back the other way into town for ingredients for supper, we set out to get in some Spanish language practice.

It gets dark a lot earlier in Costa Rica than in the U.S., so we ate our larger meal midday after class, in one of the local restaurants. Later we prepared a small simple supper in the evening in our apartment. So many food words are universal, or close to words we use in English that food shopping is a comfortable activity for language practice. How hard would it be to locate cereal, tomatoes and various types of frutas when so little alteration is necessary to make ourselves understood? And what could be easier to prepare than salad and a bowl of pasta with delicious local Monteverde queso shaved on top? An even bigger plus- how hard could it be to locate a package of noodles.

Donde pasta? We asked. Surely a universal word, if ever there was one!

"Pasta?" the clerk answered. Except that he followed the 'pasta' word with something we couldn't quite make out. Probably the type of noodle, we guessed. No doubt they do something unusual and cunning with the local shapes.

"Si," we answered confidently and followed him around a corner of the small store. There we were confronted by a long row of long, shiny containers.

Neither Mollie or I will every forget how to say "toothpaste" in Costa Rica.

It's "pasta dental".

"Noodles", by the way, or as we managed to learn after we stuttered, "ah, no - como spaghetti?" are "los fideos".