Do you like cake? someone asked me on the Coast
(using the Spanish word pastel).
Yes, I said, (of course).
OK. We’ll get you some for your breakfast tomorrow.
It was at this point that I realised that pastel probably didn’t mean cake in that region. Pastel turned out to be a version of tamal, rice and meat wrapped in the leaf of the plantain tree.
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In 1972 for Jim’s birthday, I asked our cook to make “pastel”. What a surprise when the Colombian version of a tamale was brought out–fortunately Jim really liked it!!! We’d just come from Guatemala where cake is pastel. 42 years later, the same hilarious misunderstanding!