GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA–(Marketwire – Jan. 21, 2010) – Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz led an agricultural trade mission to Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala and the United States to create new market opportunities for Canadian farmers.
“Step by step this Government is working to expand and create new trade opportunities for Canadian farmers and processors,” said Minister Ritz. “Trade is a key priority of Canada’s Economic Action Plan and that’s why Canada is working to level the playing field and give industry the opportunity to be stable and profitable.”
In Mexico, Minister Ritz announced a $5 million investment to boost the Mexican appetite and raise consumer awareness of Canada’s safe and top quality food. The Canada Brand initiative, part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, will drive promotional activities in Mexico for a wide range of Canadian products, including canola. Canadian agriculture exports to Mexico totaled $1.6 billion in 2008.
“Mexican families are looking for top quality and healthy agricultural products such as Canadian canola oil when they go to the grocery store,” said Minister Ritz. “This initiative will further connect the Canadian maple leaf and our commitment to quality to our Canadian agricultural products.”
Minister Ritz also met with Secretary of Agriculture Francisco Mayorga and Secretary of Economy, Gerardo Ruiz Mateos and stressed the need for an expedited scientific process that will reopen the Mexican market to Canadian over-thirty-months (OTM) beef.
Minister Ritz took the opportunity to stop in Colombia to reiterate the Government of Canada’s dedication to implement the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The Minister met personally with Colombian Minister of Agriculture Andres Fernandez, Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism Luis Guillermo Plata, and Colombian Agriculture Institute General Manager Luis Fernando Caicedo. The FTA will provide preferential access to the Colombian market for Canadian agriculture and non-agriculture products and is an important market for Canadian wheat and pulses. In 2008, Colombia imported $123 million in Canadian wheat, durum and barley sales and $72 million of pulse and specialty crops.
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Archeologists have discovered a huge Mayan sculptured head in Guatemala that suggests a little-known site in the jungle-covered Peten region may once have been a significant city.
The stucco sculpture, which is 10 feet wide and 11.5 feet tall, was buried for centuries at the Chilonche ruins, close to the border with Belize.
The recent discovery of the head, which dates from the early Classic period between 300 to 600 AD, means the site is much older than previously thought. The Maya often constructed new buildings using older ones as foundations.
“It could be an imaginary being, something from the underworld, perhaps linked to a Mayan deity,” Polytechnic University of Valencia professor Gaspar Munoz, part of the team of archeologists that found the head, told Reuters.
Unlike Guatemala’s famous Mayan cities of Tikal and El Mirador, little excavation has been carried out at Chilonche.
Looters, looking for artifacts to sell on the black market, had dug a small tunnel passing the buried sculpture, which is similar to others decorating a solar observatory at another site, Uaxactun.
Guatemala’s Peten region is home to dozens of Mayan ruins, but the largely jungle-covered area is plagued by looters, poachers and smugglers taking cocaine to Mexico.
Some predict that the end of the world is going to be December 21 of 2012. A lot of hype and intrigue surround the Mayan calendar.
According to a report in the UK Telegraph the modern day Mayan don’t put any stock into what is being said about 2012. “The famous Mayan prophecy inspired an excellent story,” he said in a recent interview about what he calls the “mother of all disaster films”.
But such a “prophecy” is news to the modern Maya in Guatemala and Mexico. Instead, they view the burgeoning end-of-the-world 2012 industry with a mixture of confusion, exasperation and anger at what is perceived as a Western distortion of their traditions and beliefs.
”There is no concept of apocalypse in the Mayan culture,” Jesus Gomez, head of the Guatemalan confederation of Mayan priests and spiritual guides, told The Sunday Telegraph.
Cirilo Perez, an adviser to Guatemala’s President Alvaro Colom is a prominent ajq’ij – literally a “day counter”, a wise man who makes predictions and advice on the most propitious dates to marry, plant or harvest. He decried the commercial exploitation of Mayan culture by outsiders.
”This has all become business but there is no desire to understand,” he said. “When foreigners, or even some Guatemalans, see us, they think ‘Look at the Maya, how nice, how pretty’, but they don’t understand us.”
Mayan elder Chile Pixtun recalled how he was bombarded with questions about the end of the world during a recent trip to Britain. “Man, they had me fed up with this stuff,” he said, his frustration clear.
The Maya make up about half of Guatemala’s 13 million people and many live on less than $2 a day as subsistence farmers – an unimaginably far cry from the colossal budget lavished on 2012, which stars John Cusack, Woody Harrelson and the British actress, Thandie Newton.
In neighboring Mexico, the Maya are concentrated in the Yucatan peninsula, a popular tourist destination but where local farmer are struggling with drought-like conditions.
”If I went to Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn’t have any idea,” said Jose Huchim, a Mayan archaeologist in the Yucatan. “That the world is going to end? They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain.”
Founded in 1971, the no-frills, quick-serve chain expects to have up to three stores locally by the end of 2010 dishing up its marinated, grilled or pressure-fried (and less greasy) chicken, beans, rice and rice pudding. Each store comes equipped with a salsa bar. For signature drinks, Pollo Campero pours up Salvadoran and Mexican horchata, tamarindo and maranon. The company has 53 stores in the United States after growing via franchising since 2002, but plans 40 more company-owned ones within 18 months.
“We’re looking for locations close to large Central American neighborhoods,” said Jim Plante of Clearwater, director of East Coast licensing. “We put a store near a large Nicaraguan population in Boston, and it’s doing $180,000 a week.”
Licuados are a Latin American handmade blended beverage similar to smoothies, made with milk, fruit, and usually ice. They are also sometimes called “preparados”.
Licuados and other fresh fruit juice drinks are ubiquitous throughout Mexico.They are sold by street vendors, and in special licuado shops, restaurants, and fruiterias (restaurants specializing in fresh fruit).
As you travel around Guatemala you find Licuado shops all around the country. Guatemala uses fresh fruit, since this is a country that produces some the best fruit in the world. Star fruit, Papya, Pineapple, and Banana are four of the main licuado drinks served around the country. These drinks are so refreshing and tasty. When you want something fruity, cold, and smooth next time you are walking around Antigua, stop in and visit one of a hundred eating establihments around Antigua for a fresh refreshing real fruit Licuado.
Papaya
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President Alvaro Colom says Venezuela and Mexico offered to send rice and other basic grains. Colom says Brazil also offered help, but did not give details.
Guatemala estimates 400,000 families are “at risk of food insecurity” due to adverse weather, poor soil and economic troubles. The government says 25 children have died since January from malnutrition.
The World Food Program will distribute 20 tons of nutritional cookies in the worst-hit areas.
Colom announced the new offers of help on Wednesday, a week after he declared “a state of public calamity” to help mobilize resources.
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Tres Leches 3-milk Cake is popular in Latin America and gaining popularity in the US. The origins of the tres leches are disputed, and are usually attributed to Mexico or Ecuador, the two places where it appeared earliest. Mexico does, however, appear to have had recipes very similar to that of the tres leches, which probably led to the now famous dessert being created there, which then possibly migrated to Nicaragua.
A Tres Leches cake, or Pastel De Tres Leches(Spanish, “Three milk cake”), is a sponge cake,-in some recipes, a butter cake-soaked in three kinds of milk: evaporated milk, condensed milk, and either whole milk or cream. When butter is not used, the tres leches is a very light cake, with many air bubbles. This distinct texture is why it does not have a soggy consistency, despite being soaked in a mixture of three types of milk.
Following the same recipe for the cake, but soaking it in a mixture of water, rum or brandy, and sugar, it is called “pastel borracho” (drunken cake). It is popular throughout Central America in this form.
In the Caribbean, cream of coconut is occasionally used instead of condensed milk. As in the pastel borracho, rum is sometimes added.
In addition, fruit or nuts are added in some recipes, as well as many other kinds of alcohol. Cherries are most commonly used as decoration, but other fruits or berries are sometimes used instead.
At some restaurants in Texas and Florida, the addition of cajeta creates what is known as a cuatro leches cake.
Tres Leches (Three Milks Cake), Latin America Recipe :
* 3 tablespoons water
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 3 large egg whites
* 1 ripe mango, peeled, seed removed, and thinly sliced
* 1 ripe papaya, peeled, seeds removed, and thinly sliced
Directions
To make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour a 9 by 13-inch baking dish and set aside.
In the bowl of a mixer, beat the egg whites on low speed until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually with the mixer running and peak to stiff peaks. Add the egg yolks 1 at a time, beating well after the addition of each.
Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to the egg mixture, alternating with the milk. (Do this quickly so the batter does not lose volume.) Add the vanilla. Bake until golden, 25 minutes.
To make the cream topping: In a blender, combine the evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream and blend on high speed.
Remove the cake from the oven and while still warm, pour the cream mixture over it. Let sit and cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 4 hours or overnight.
To make the icing: Once the cake is completely chilled, in a saucepan combine the water and sugar. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Cook until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage, 235 to 240 degrees F. Remove from the heat. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks. While beating, add the hot syrup in a stream. Beat until all the syrup has been added, the mixture cools, and a glossy icing forms.
To assemble: Remove the cake from the refrigerator and spread the icing evenly across the top. Arrange the mango and papaya slices over the top and serve.
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are sold by street vendors, and in special 
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