I08 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



Tortillas and bread, the latter not home-made but bought 

 at the store, were also served at breakfast and at dinner. 

 The bread is almost always in the form of narrow loaves of 

 varying size and shape but pointed at both ends, more like 

 elongated rolls with hard crust on all sides. Once at the 

 Brenes' we had a sort of corn bread, at least Seiior Tristan 

 said it was made from maize; it was thicker than the tor- 

 tillas, not yellow, so apparently it contained no eggs and 

 rather heavy — I did not care for it. Butter there was none, 

 but a substitute was often present in a fresh white cheese 

 resembling Neufchatel, in the form of a fairly solid cake 

 with a little whey. It was unsalted, but a piece of it on a 

 tortilla with a little pinch of salt improved the tortilla very 

 much in my opinion. 



The most novel feature of our meals at the Brenes' was the 

 animal surroundings. The beasts belonging to the estab- 

 lishment consisted of two cows, each with a frolicsome calf, 

 a young bull, a couple of young pigs, a dog (and another 

 which usually came from across the road) a cat, three ducks 

 and numerous chickens. All of these gamboled or strayed 

 on the terrace under the projecting roof and not infrequently 

 into the rooms of the house. Usually when we were eating, 

 some one was continually employed In chasing the live stock 

 away. The two cows were not present often but once they 

 were milked under the eaves just previous to our meal. 

 Two larger pigs were doubtless only prevented from joining 

 our party around the table by being too big to push between 

 the barbed wires which bounded their pen back of the house. 

 A priest and his brother took meals at the same table for 

 part of my stay, and I have a distinct recollection of one even- 

 ing, when the priest sat at one end of the table while eight 

 Inches from the back of his chair were the flanks of the young 

 bull whose head was through the kitchen doorway. 



There was so much mud in Tierra Blanca owing to the 



