Today was a very relaxed and short day. Going into this, I had no idea what “heart of palm” meant. But I learned a lot about palm trees. When growing heart of palm , the only edible part is one meter above the ground. However, it can grow up to 10 feet. After 5 months it grow to about 2 feet. There are specific parameters that must exist for the palmito to grow efficiently. For example, it needs lots of sun and water and can grow year round. The stem of the plant splits off and grows palm offshoots. This is what creates the many leaves.

Harvesting the heart of palm was super interesting because we got to watch her cut down one of the trees and peel back the many layers and skin to get to the vegetable itself. I didn’t even know you could eat the end of the palmito plant. Some challenges the palmito plantation faces related to souring in my group project is obtaining the land and workers. The plantation is usually composed of family members who get the land from the government. However, they can take back the land if it is not productive. This is why it is important to have productive workers. Also keep in mind the heart of palm is all harvested by hand individually which I thought was interesting because nowadays I feel like everything is advancing quickly.

After watching her harvest the heart of palm we had the chance to eat it in many different variations. To be honest, I did not like it. It was bland and had the texture of asparagus. We ate it like a salsa on top of plantain chips and then inside a lasagna. It’s always interesting trying new foods but made me a little sick to my stomach.

Finally, we arrived back home and it finally started down pouring! Jenna, Ryan and I had to walk all the way home from the mall in the pouring rain. Finally got to experience that Costa Rican wet season lol!

We ended off the night going to a Latin American fútbol semifinal game between Liga Deportiva Alajuense (“La Liga”) from Alajuela and Cartaginés from Cartago from the other side of the valley. It was fun to immerse ourselves in the culture and attend a popular sporting event with friends! I’ve also never seen a live professional soccer game and it was really fun to watch. The energy was crazy and you could really feel the passion!