This is a characteristic festival of the canton, which is based on the dedication of its inhabitants. The tradition accumulates a history that is preceded by several centuries, which has several versions about its origin.

Traditions in the Country

The country has seven traditions with the declaration of intangible cultural heritage. Four of them are from Guanacaste: the elaboration of Chorotega ceramic objects, the Tope de Toros, the festivity of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the celebration of the Holy Black Christ of Esquipulas.

The Holy Christ of Esquipulas is a venerated figure and its history dates back to 1841 when the parish that currently houses it was founded. This work began its construction in 1835, and since then it is celebrated with festivities every year.

In the main streets of Santa Cruz you can find marimbas to liven up the atmosphere; while in the Redondel de Toros the popular “montaderas” and bullfights are celebrated.

Another traditional activity during the festival is dancing in the park to the rhythm of the marimba. In turn, local dishes prepared as part of the celebration include rosquillas, tanelas or sweet tamales and sweet coyol wine.

History

The Saint Christ of Esquipulas is an important religious figure in Costa Rica, especially in the Guanacaste region. Its festivities are celebrated with much reverence and devotion by the local people, who tell the story of how the Black Christ of Esquipulas was brought from Guatemala to Guanacaste.

The story behind this event dates back to 1885 when Bernabela Ramos, a woman from Guanacaste, traveled to Guatemala and found a statue of the Holy Christ of Esquipulas. She was so dedicated to him that she decided to take it home. When she returned to Costa Rica, she placed the statue in a small chapel where it has been venerated ever since.

However, according to the Cultural Heritage Center, another of the origins of the figure was when an indigenous man found it, between two coyol plants, when he was cutting firewood. The villager tried to take the image back to town, but when he looked for it again, he never found it, until he returned to the same spot where it was first seen.

These days, the festivities are celebrated every year with great enthusiasm by locals and tourists alike. People join in prayer and song to honor this important religious figure that has become deeply rooted in Costa Rican culture over time.

Zelda Walters for Sensorial Sunsets

“Although the country is small and covers only 0.03% of the planet’s surface, it has the privilege of being the habitat of 5% of the world’s existing biodiversity. 25.58% of its territory is protected under various forms of conservation” describes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

This is synonymous with a wide variety of foods. From fruits and vegetables, to meats and seafood. This results in the presence of four culinary regions well defined by their geography and cultural development: 1- the Central Western and Eastern Valleys, 2- Guanacaste and the Northern Zone, 3- Puntarenas and 4- Limón.

Cultural mosaic. Costa Rica’s history is marked by the influence of different cultural groups: from the indigenous people belonging to the Mesoamerican Area and the Intermediate Area, with strong Caribbean influences, to the arrival of the Spaniards, who in turn brought Sephardic and African influences.

This cultural crossbreeding was reflected in the food: both in the variety of products and in their preparation. The indigenous people mainly used corn, beans, tubers (potato, yucca, ñampí…) and pumpkins; while the Spaniards brought milk, cream, butter, cheese, rice, wheat, sugar cane and new animals.

Later, thanks to the coffee bonanza in the mid-19th century, many immigrants arrived in the country over the next 100 years (Spaniards, Italians, Syrians, Greeks, Lebanese, Turks, Southern French, Americans, Jamaicans, Arubans and Bahamians, Germans, British, Swiss and Poles, Asians and, to a lesser extent, Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Panamanians, Cubans, Colombians, Peruvians and Argentinians) forging the multiculturalism of Costa Rican gastronomy, which had been diversifying since pre-colonization.

Autochthonous gastronomy. 

All this fusion has created a common base throughout the country, composed primarily of preparations such as gallo pinto, casado, picadillos, olla de carne, gallos, empanadas, tamales, fresh fruit and coffee.

Of course, each zone has its own characteristics, mainly guided by the presence of specific products and cultural influences. The Caribbean, for example, is characterized by strong flavors, with spicy and sweet notes, guided by coconut, ginger, Panamanian chili, banana, etc., forming rice & beans, plantain tart, rondón, patí, among others.

In Guanacaste, rice, corn, meat, ferments and the clay oven lead the way, with preparations such as  tanelas, chichas and pozol.

Puntarenas, on the other hand, is distinguished by its freshness and acidity: with ceviches, vigorón, churchill…

In the center, finally, we find seasonal products such as pejibaye, itabo flower and chiverre , which are intertwined with corn, rice, beans, eggs, meats, potatoes, etc., used to prepare the casados, empanadas, gallos, soups, among others.

All this versatility brings us to the present.

Contemporary cuisine. 

In spite of having a great culinary heritage, as we have already seen, there aren’t many Costa Rican food restaurants. But let’s not confuse the typical food we talked about in the previous section (honored by the thousands of sodas and typical restaurants throughout the country) with restaurants that seek to reinterpret the traditions, hand in hand with local products, focusing on creativity and experience.

In recent years, however, interesting proposals have emerged throughout the country. Joan Roca, one of the best chefs in the world, said in July 2020 that “we must start thinking with a more sustainable conscience. Recycling, reusing, not wasting so much food. That will make people make authentic proposals, from their culture, their land, valuing what they have. And if all chefs start to be clear about that, it will be a trend: to be authentic and cook what is close to you. Differentiate yourself from another place by doing your own thing, not only from your area, but from your own way of understanding your cuisine”.

In Costa Rica, little by little this trend has been growing exponentially. It has been developed by restaurants, suppliers and producers themselves, who seek to generate benefits at a general level, with a holistic vision, beyond the commercial one. They want their product to stand out for what it represents, for the connections it generated and for the creative process that was carried out to come up with the final product.

This results in better products with healthier processes, forming a synergy between the cook and the producer, allowing for greater creativity and integration.

Understanding the product is key to know how to use it in the kitchen. For example, the  cas, a very emblematic fruit of our country, characteristic for being refreshing, acid and sweet at the same time, we can compare it to a lemon and introduce it in ceviches, mixed it with seafood or even with fatty proteins such as pork, make a cas  barbecue, for instance.

This trend is just emerging in our country and we are all responsible for it to gain more strength. We can do this by supporting small producers, visiting local enterprises and encouraging those who seek, in this case through gastronomy, to do something different, highlighting national products.

FACTS TO REMEMBER

• With more than 5% of the world’s biodiversity, Costa Rica has a great variety of foods.
• In Costa Rica, the trend to explore new recipes based on traditional ingredients is increasing.
• Let’s not confuse “typical food” with restaurants that seek to reinterpret Costa Rican cuisine.

Fabián Romero Jara
Entrepreneur, Administrator and Chef of the Restaurant 11.47
IG: 11.47Aranjuez

By Jorge Emilio Castro Fonseca. 

A battered sector 

The Covid 19 pandemic has shown that the challenges generated need exceptional and innovative solutions to stabilize and enhance productive sectors that have suffered throughout these months. One of these sectors is the creative and cultural industries, which have played a fundamental role in this crisis, transmitting positive messages, providing their professional services to carry out campaigns promoting prevention and mental health wellness, promoting entertainment.

What had been dragging on for many years, became evident in this pandemic, because in a matter of weeks entrepreneurs, cultural and art workers, cultural institutions and art budgets were reduced, causing a shortage of money in families that depend on this income, and increasing the uncertainty in which workers in this sector have lived for a long time. Here, it becomes relevant to study and recognize the market failures of these industries, coupled with little political will, in order to demand concrete answers.

Challenges of Culture and Art. 

Supporting the survival and reactivation of the creative industries sector must be a priority in political agendas, which must face important challenges so that the productive sectors of the creative and cultural industries can survive and, above all, establish themselves, being significant in the national productivity indexes. These challenges are classified into four: financing, innovation, collaboration between the public and private sectors, and digitalization.

Regarding financing, the productive sectors of the creative industries encounter major barriers to access, due to the very characteristics of the sector, such as, for example, the uncertainty and risk of investing in projects whose assets are intangible (such as creativity and knowledge, the lack of history) since many of these ventures are making their first incursion into the productive world. The lack of information asymmetries, which depend on the individual risk of the project and the idea that there is an intrinsic motivation related more to a cultural, creative or artistic objective than to a financial profitability objective, and the sunk and transaction costs generated by these projects. Therefore, solutions such as subsidies, soft loans with differentiated interest rates for cultural projects, creation of public and private funds for research and development of creative industries, subsidies to create models of open access gps platforms, state purchase of platforms for public access to streaming content, funds for the creation of crowdfunding platforms, crowdsourcing and match-crowdfunding, loans at subsidized rates and the elimination of taxes for companies that collaborate with culture should be sought.

“What had been dragging on for many years was evident in this pandemic, because in a matter of weeks entrepreneurs, cultural and art workers, cultural institutions and budgets allocated to art were reduced (…)”. 

For its part, innovation must be supported through new business models by means of regional investment funds and digital innovation with a greater role for the private sector, through promotion policies associated with the specifications of goods and services and the opening of new markets.

Regarding the collaboration of the public and private sectors, culture should be included in the surveys conducted by INEC (National Institute of Statistics and Census), for the collection of relevant data on the needs of the sector and the different target audiences, in order to generate clusters, which allow us to develop studies on the creation of audiences and needs of the creative industries. In addition, the commitment of sponsors should be encouraged in this space, through patronage systems such as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing, through platforms such as Patreon and Kickstarter, and initiatives such as matchfunding; establish policies to facilitate international trade in services and cultural goods, supporting platforms such as e-commerce (smart contracts, micropayments, blockchain, data mining, IP trackin). 

“With respect to financing, the productive sectors of the creative industries encounter major barriers to access, due to the very characteristics of the sector (…)” 

In the digitalization section, digital infrastructure must be improved, for example, investing in cloud computing and broadband as public goods as part of the strategies to reduce inequality in Internet access, legislating net neutrality with public good criteria and investing in the interoperability of public projects, promoting the development of new digital products of real/virtual integration such as transmedia or multiplatform models, and a technological loop in all creative industries. Finally, it is of vital importance the training and teaching of new digital skills and processes, through bootcamps.

Many challenges are about to begin in this race against time. Also the artistic and cultural industries are in intensive care. The decisions we make now will define the path to follow in the coming years. It is vital the interaction between the actors of a creative ecosystem (public, private sector, local, regional and national governments, academia and consumers) and their commitment in the search for new initiatives to revive a sector hit by the pandemic.

Things to remember: 

The reactivation of the creative economy requires financing, innovation, but above all the construction of a creative ecosystem that combines important actors such as the public and private sectors, local governments, academia and consumers, with the aim of creating projects that allow the development of platforms that make the industries more competitive. 

Author: MBA. Jorge Emilio Castro Fonseca 

Business Manager and Director – Consultant – Researcher. Contact: jorgecasfo@gmail.com

If you are from Costa Rica, perhaps a tourist has asked you this question:

“What is ‘Pura Vida’?”

We immediately smile because we know that this person, just a few hours after arriving in the country, has already heard ‘pura vida’ countless times. It is also repeated inexplicably, in very different contexts. 

We share that it is a way of feeling and appreciating life. We tell them, “It means hello, goodbye, how are you, I’m fine”. With 5 million people, each of us is an “expert” on the subject, but what does it mean to BE Pura Vida? 

A creative thinking center 

With this question emerges the Pura Vida Institute, a center of creative thought, a space to investigate our culture expressed through ‘pura vida’ and co-create a collective imaginary and a philosophy of life that unifies our desires and actions. 

At the Pura Vida Institute we believe that we are pure life through actions, individual and collective. It is present in the people who live and breathe its spirit, locals and foreigners, and put it into action. It ceases to be just an abstract phrase or idea if we can identify the pillars that identify it, the actions that determine it. It was from hundreds of conversations, readings, interviews, information analysis and a lot of introspection that we were able to identify 9 pillars that make up the Costa Rican pura vida: 

The Adventure

It is our way of being innovative, finding alternative ways to solve problems, the initiative to create new things and part of the experience we offer to those who visit us.

La Paz 

We have been a country without an army since 1949 and have chosen neutrality as our policy with respect to international conflicts. 

Love for Nature 

We managed to reverse the trend of deforestation through ‘green’ policies and today we have a high percentage of national territory protected in National Parks and Protected Areas (25%). Today we live together with several generations that enjoy and love this positive trend.

Solidarity 

We were able to institutionalize solidarity in systems such as Health and Education, socializing the benefits so that they can be enjoyed by all people, especially the most vulnerable.

Resilience

We have learned to face local and global challenges with an attitude and mentality of growth and vision. 

Happiness

The Costa Rican character is associated with an optimistic outlook on life, in our collective imagination, Costa Rica is happy and this is also indicated by multiple international indexes in this regard.

Collaboration

In the most difficult moments we have managed to unite in the face of external enemies and internal problems.

Hospitality

It is most evident in our tourism industry, where we anticipate visitors’ needs to offer them high quality service with a friendly heart.

Spirituality

We live in a Catholic state, where more than 90% of the population is a believer, and once a year one of the largest mobilizations in Latin America is held to celebrate the Virgin of the Angels.

A philosophy of life

From a very young age in many tribes, children are taught the philosophy of life of their community, the principles and actions that determine their way of seeing and acting in life.  The 9 pillars that make up the pura vida are the basis to learn more about our culture, a tool that allows us to share its essence with visitors who accompany us on this journey and above all to teach our philosophy of life to future generations. 

Felipe Castro Truque – Founder of The Pura Vida Institute

                                                                        felipetruque@protonmail.com
https://www.instagram.com/puravidainstitute