Latino News in London – two birds, one free newspaper

 Since returning from Buenos Aires there’s no doubt that my Spanish has taken a turn for the worse. As last’s week foray into the world of casual cookery conversation proved, I need a little practice.

While in Argentina I had visions of coming home and moving in with a house of Spanish people. In reality, I moved in with my British friend in a nice flat in North London, and my Spanish ability hasn’t exactly soared….

But yesterday I stumbled across the Latino Times, a free newspaper available on my doorstep. It’s a great paper for practising Spanish as its pages are peppered with small ‘habla ingles?’ boxes (just in case you hadn’t grasped the full implications of the on-going FARC conlict in spanish…).

I really like it as a mix of Latin American news as well as news from around the UK. Its ‘affairs’ aren’t that ‘current’ – the paper comes out twice a week – but it’s still good practice for both my news and spanish language skills.

So what’s in the paper this week? Colombia features heavily, with President Juan Manuel Santos trying to resolve long-standing land disputes. The government is hoping to return stolen land to its displaced population. It’s been huge problem since the early ‘90s and Colombia now has the world’s second biggest internally displaced population after Sudan according to the UN.

Ecuador is also making records: The country has made it into the Guinness book of records for collecting the most plastic bottles for recycling in a fifteen day period. Almost two million bottles were collected at a value of $31,000, some of which will go towards sustainability projects in Yasuni national park.

Ecuador is well known for its commitment to sustainability being the first country to enshrine environmental rights in its constitution. This Guardian article is a good discussion of the history (I’m afraid Latino Times doesn’t cover everything…)

Reading in spanish is always a great way to practice. Hopefully by page ten I'll be 100% fluent. I'll let you know how that goes...

Latin American food shopping at La Bodeguita

Yesterday I went to La Bodeguita in Elephant and Castle to look at their range of Latin American foods. It has to be said that when I was there, most Argentine food seemed to me to revolve around meats and sweets. Despite their reputation for feistiness and passion, it was hard to find a food stuff which wasn’t beige and dusted with sugar. Unless it was brown, and coated in cheese…

I never did work out how Spanish women stay so thin while mainlining medialunes (delicious sticky croissants) but it’s definitely a mystery worth solving – they really are delicious. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with sugar and steak– clearly there’s a lot right with them - but yesterday reminded me of all the other interesting Latin American delicacies.

La Bodequita is hidden at the top of the sprawling Elephant and Castle shopping centre. It’s not particularly pretty but packed with shops selling foods, fabrics and interesting things from all over the world.

the tempting food shelves at La Bodeguita

The shop– a cross between a deli and a take away kiosk –  is packed out with exciting foods. The menu on the walls offers hot foods like empanadas (small meat pasties), chicharron con arepa (pork with a homemade corn bread) and chorizo. You can also order patatas rellenas – a famous Peruvian dish. Literally meaning ‘filled potatoes’, these look a bit like dumplings and are essentially mashed potato stuffed with a filling of meat and onions, whole olives, hard boiled eggs and other spices wrapped in pastry or deep fried. A cholesterol nightmare maybe, but a really really tasty one.

The menu of traditional South American food

The people before me in the La Bodequita queue all ordered in rapid Spanish and took away hot empanadas or mysterious meats from the counter. My own attempts at Spanish were not exactly embraced wholeheartedly but I came away with two empanadas nonetheless. 


The counter at La Bodeguita

The flavouring was good – particularly in the ‘pollo’ (chicken) empanada, but I prefer mine with a lighter pastry casing and am planning on cooking some this week. Unfortunately my attempts at castellano cooking conversation didn’t go down that well with the waitress so it looks like I’ll be scouring the city for empanada ‘tapas’ (the pasty cases surrounding the meat) alone this week. Do get in touch with any suggestions for my English empanada cooking adventure!

Pollo and carne empanadas