Talk:Gallo pinto

message: I've attempted to give equal share to both Costa Rica and Nicaragua in the article. Until someone can come forward with a reliable source as to where the dish really originated, I think that's the best we can do.
I'm only knowledgeable about the Nicaraguan side of the debate. It may well be that this particular bit of cultural history is lost in the sands of time, and if that's the case, we may have to settle for documenting the controversy. --ryos 04:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth: googling "Costa Rica" "gallo pinto" yields 49,200 hits, "Nicaragua" "gallo pinto" 26,200 hits.  This may reflect only CR's higher online presence, but it does suggest the dish is currently associated at least as much with CR as with Nicaragua.  I edited the page to be consistent with this. --ScottMainwaring 04:42, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

text: If you read the article closely you will see that the author himself recognizes that the origin of the dish is difficult to determine.  He follows to give a possible story about the name of the dish.  It seems to me that the purpose of the editorial piece is not to give a historically rigorous account of the name but rather an account about a town's (San Sebastian) story of the origin of the name. The followng lines back me up: "En San Sebastián. Sin embargo, esa no es la verdadera historia."  That is why we cannot accpet that source as a historical account of the name.  Finally, inclusion of the story itself might be warranted under consensus but we have to be careful of undue weight. Brusegadi 19:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tico vs. Nica controversy

message: Someone added an other recipe.  Gallo pinto in the U.S.  	 
- 		 
- 	To make Gallo Pinto a la Americana (American Style) find two cans of black or red beans without condiments. Goya and most large retail stores carry brands with such already cooked and salted beans. 	 
- 	The next step in washing the contents of the regular sized cans in a small bowl with water. Rinse a few times until the spum from the preservatives has run out and the water comes clear. An exception can be made with bean soup cans that need not be washed out of preservatives. Then fry in little olive, sasaffras or canola oil and butter (it is okay to substitute this for margarine and the oil mix when there is someone in the family with lactose intolerance) 	 
- 		 
- 	Appart cook rice. You can cut on grease by just pan toasting the rice -two cups- to four cups of water. Both the beans and rice should be cook longer for a harder, crispier consistency or less for more relaxed end product. however the rice will be made in 15 to 18 minutes depending on heat at stove top and 15 minutes sharp in microwave -Japanese cookers are available at Wal Mart and other stores.
Can we find a way to accomodate it with the already existing one?  Since it mentions company's names  I removed it because it may violate policy.    Brusegadi 08:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Extra recipe

message: This article is a little light on answering the simple question, what is gallo pinto. It provides some variation and such, but doesn't list what the canonical form(s) are in each country.User:!jimtalk  contribs 20:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. A basic definition has now been provided. VanTucky talk 21:00, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Awesome, thanks! User:!jimtalk  contribs 08:01, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is it? 

message: But WTF is gallopinto? It says it has rice and varying spices, and that its origin is debated, but never actually says what it is! 128.146.46.2 (talk) 17:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: This is great and all...

message: I grew up in Nicaragua and lived a total of about 21 years in that country.  When my family moved to Costa Rica and looking for work in that country I visited and worked there countless times.
All I can share is that every day in Nicaragua gallopinto is part of the daily fare of the majority of Nicaraguans, most often for breakfast.  I've stayed at the home of Costa Ricans many times and eaten in more restaurants there that I can remember.  Not one time was gallo pinto served in the homes of Costa Ricans I've stayed with nor can I recall ONE single time I saw gallo pinto being eaten in my presence.  I never saw gallo-pinto in the menu restaurants in Costa Rica while in fact it is served at restaurants and hotels all over Nicaragua as part of a typical breakfast there.  I also have tasted some of the other so-called equivalent recipes, such as "moros y cristianos" from Cuba, Spain, and Puerto Rico, and these "variations" taste nothing like I tasted in Nicaragua.  (I can't compare it with Costa Rican gallo-pinto, as I never saw it!)  Just because you mix rice and beans, you can't call that gallo pinto.  In fact, many eateries in South Florida in the U.S. claim to offer gallo-pinto by doing just that and fail miserably at the attempt!  This is from personal first-hand experience.
65.9.236.91 (talk) 00:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  My experience with Gallo Pinto 

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thread_title: File:Gallo pinto.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: I am personally from Costa Rica and have heard that 'Gallo Pinto' is actually from Afro-Caribbean origins and I have know that the dish (basically rice and beans mixed together) is prepared with many variations in many other nations.
I write as a costa rican, but will be as neutral as possible. 
I have gotten the following information from a magazine called : "Proa" which belongs to the same organization as "La Nación" newspaper of Costa Rica does : Proa
In Costa Rica, there is this urban legend (previously mentioned here before) about a wealthy farmer named Bernabé who in the 1930's told the townspeople of San Sebastián that he was going to kill a gallo pinto, or spotted rooster he had been fattening up until the celebrations in name of the town's patron. As such, he invited the townspeople over to his hacienda and to the big meal he was preparing. The legend continues on to say that the one rooster was not enough to feed the multitude that had shown up at Bernabé's hacienda. So, the cooks decided to mix in some rice and beans into a large pot in order to serve the multitude something to eat.
The townspeople, feeling deceived, jokingly asked among themselves if they had been present at Bernabé's 'gallo pinto'. And from then on, the population began referencing the same food served at Bernabé's as 'gallo pinto', referencing farmer's lack of 'spotted rooster' at his 'gathering' (if you will).
This, however, is an urban legend, and does not describe itself how the dish was created, just the way it supposedly got its current name in costa rica (at least). But the article goes on to state that it was previously known as detentempié.
The article referenced a survey carried out by Unimer, which uncovered that 92% of costa ricans consider the dish 'gallo pinto' an identifier of Costa Rica and its culture.
The article also references Patricia Vega Jiménez, a historian intent on discovering the origins and history of this food. According to her, beans (the ones composing Gallo Pinto) originate in the Americas, and as such, were a common Amerindian ingredient. At the start of la conquista, during the colonia and from then on, this ingredient's importance in latin american and caribbean nations was maintained and perhaps even augmented. It was also mostly consumed by the poorer people of these regions.
However, rice came via Europe (Spain), which to them came via the Moors, which in turn reached America via the Iberian colonizers (which used rice actively in their gastronomy) and tried their best to bring with them to the new world that important crop.
The first Costa Rican recipe book written by Juana Ramírez de Aragón in the late nineteenth century established that by then Costa Ricans liked to eat dried black beans accompanied with tortillas, Agua Dulce, or Coffee. It is apparent (states the article) that during that time period, the aforementioned food was what identified Costa Rican gastronomy. 
Regarding rice, however, considering that at first it had to be imported from Spain (states the article) it was only accessible to the higher up social classes. Usually the white Spaniards who sought ways to differentiate themselves from the natives. They accompanied the rice with fish, meat or vegetables such as beans or lentils, depending on the area they settled.
As the Spanish born population and the natives mixed, so did their gastronomical differences. The article goes on stating that the mixed progeny received into their every-day diet the Spaniards' rice and the natives' beans and tortillas.   
However, Vega (the aforementioned historian) is assured by her findings that today's gallo pinto as we know it, did not develop until at least 2 decades into the XX century. And Vega is certain this is thanks to the Afro-Caribbean population.
Marjorie Ross, states the article, had already proposed this theory (she is a latin american food investigator and writer). 
At least in costa rica; the immigrant population of Chinese, Blacks, and Italians of the 1870's brought over to work in Costa Rica's railroad construction, made even more prominent the use of Rice and Beans as ingredients in food. The need or high demand for both ingredients also hints at their status as prominent basic ingredients. The article states that the Chinese population cooked their rice in large pots, the Italians used their rice as complement to their diets, and the Blacks tried to conjure up new ways of mixing both rice and beans (as was typical of the Black Caribbean culture since the XVIII century). 
At that time, the majority of Afro-Caribbean workers were from Jamaica and surrounding islands. They were descendants of slaves and, therefore, had learned the recipe of their ancestors. During the sea voyage from the African coast to the Americas, their ancestors fed themselves with a mixture of rice and Angolan arverjas.
Arriving in the Americas, they discovered that the local beans could be a good substitute to their Angolan peas and so gave rise to the so-called rice and beans dish. Which was a low-cost food and was gradually generalized by the railway companies to support their employees food needs.
By 1930, the mixture of rice and beans was a fairly common practice in Costa Rica's banana plantations of the Atlantic. Carlos Luis Fallas (a prominent Costa Rican figure of that time), in his book, Mamita Yunai (Mother Uni - referencing the spanish pronunciation of the english word United, which in turn referenced the United Fruit Company and its banana production in Costa Rica's Limón province) describes a lavish breakfast for employees called famosaburra; consisting of "a bowl of oatmeal, lots of rice and roasted beans scrambled together, whom they referred to as gallo pinto, and boiled bananas. Then, a mug of black unsweetened coffee."
According to Vega, gallo pinto is definitely a copy or a derivative of African rice and beans. However, the men who worked in the banana plantations but that came from the Central Valley (San José) were who baptized it with the name "Gallo Pinto". They, on the one hand, missed the taste of tradicionalgallo (a tortilla wrap with minced meat) as prepared in their homes, and on the other, remember the popular black and white spotted rooster used in the usual cockfighting. Known to be the bravest of all and the most anticipated during competitions.
When they returned to their homes, they brought with them the recipe for this "gallo pinto", only that in the Central Valley it suffered a few modifications: coconut oil was replaced by lard, black beans won prominence over red beans, and to add more color, some seasonings and spices like onions, sweet peppers and cilantro were mixed.
Very practical and liked was this "pinto" dish that soon women began to prepare it almost daily and in turn it became the meal their husbands received to be taken to the field. "Maybe that's why the gallo pinto became part of Costa Rican breakfast, regardless of social status" says Vega, who is quick to clarify that, since always, the Ticos diet was characterized by large meals at the beginning of their day.
The article goes on to state that the question of when this dish became costa rica's 'national dish' is still somewhat a mystery. The aforementioned historian (Ms Vega) states that it must have happened a few decades back, in the most subtle of ways, since, in reality, no one has made official that dish as such.
What is undeniable, however, is that the gallo pinto dish identifies the Ticos as does the sausage to the Germans, the pasta to the Italians, and the sushi to the Japanese. Even international food chains like McDonald's and Subway have incorporated this dish to the local chain's respective menus. 
Nevertheless, the article also states the 'conflict' that arises between the claiming of the origin of this dish by both Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans. However, the article, along with the heavily referenced Historian Vega and other such historians coincide that both Nicaragua and Costa Rica are right in claiming their dish's respective origin. The article states that one need only look at other latin american and even Spanish recipes to see that they are all basically the same with one ingredient more or one ingredient less or prepared a certain way instead of another, according to the nation and even to the regions within a certain nation that the dish is prepared. 
What is certain, however, is that this dish's roots come from the afro-caribbeans themselves. It just morphed and developed into different versions as the people who visited the afro-caribbean populations went back to their respective homes along with the basics of this recipe. The article I referenced here makes allusion to the dish 'gallo pinto' and how it entered costa rica and morphed into the popular breakfast dish it is today only within Costa Rica. This information does not reference how the dish entered and developed and morphed into what it is today within Nicaragua, and as such, should not be discarded. It only references the version of Gallo Pinto which is enjoyed in Costa Rica; which is significantly different than the Gallo Pinto served in Nicaragua. Not only in how it is prepared, but in how it is served as well. With that said, I do not mean to state that the dishes are not related in any way whatsoever. 
This matter is very similar to the common latin american food : Tamale. although its roots are understood to a certain degree, almost every nation in Latin America has its own version, its own history and origin. One way of preparing it is not superior than another. They are all unique within their respective nations and can identify the populations of said nations.
I have written what is above this signature within this section: JosepaXD (talk) 19:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding Gallo Pinto and its Origins: hopefully ending the matter once and for all! 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: " In countries near or in the Caribbean, these dishes are simply known as rice and beans, in which the dish is cooked in coconut milk." Are they really known by that English phrase, or by the Spanish equivalent?  If the latter, it should be used in the article instead of the English. 71.235.184.247 (talk) 15:20, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Rice and beans"