🍜 Panamanian Cuisine
Panama's food reflects its job description: a bridge, not a wall. Spanish colonial staples, Afro-Caribbean technique from the Caribbean coast, indigenous Guna and Ngabe ingredients, and a substantial Chinese-Panamanian community's cooking (Panama has one of Latin America's oldest and largest Chinese diasporas, dating to 1850s railway construction) all sit on the same menu without much fuss about fusion.
🍲 Sancocho — The National Dish
A hearty chicken soup built on name (a starchy tuber) and culantro (a sharper cousin of cilantro), simmered until the broth turns rich. Every family has a version; it is the dish Panamanians cite first when asked what home tastes like.
🐟 Ceviche Panameno
Corvina (sea bass) cured in lime juice with onion, cilantro, and hot sauce, served cold from beachside stalls as often as in restaurants — Panama City's Mercado de Mariscos does a version straight off the boats that is worth the trip alone.
Also look for: carimanolas (fried yuca rolls stuffed with meat), hojaldre (fried bread dough, a breakfast staple), and patacones (twice-fried plantain discs) served alongside nearly everything.
