(PNS reporting from PAVAS, COSTA RICA) Jose Valdez slipped into an existential crisis Tuesday after he spent the majority of his lunch hour at a neighborhood soda staring at his untouched bowl of rice and deeply debating whether he could physically add more Salsa Lizano to his already drenched platter.
The crisis began when Valdez, 21, uncorked the plastic bottle of Costa Rica’s famous, tangy, vegetable poop-colored condiment and realized he could no longer even see the white Uncle Ben’s rice served with his casado dish, which featured other culinary innovations such as beans and breaded fish. At that point, Valdez, with his hand visibly shaking as he gripped the Lizano bottle, had what he referred to as an epiphany-like “Diay, Mae” moment.
“I thought to myself: ‘Mae, do you think it’s possible that it’s gotten to the point that we use too much of this stuff?’” Valdez said. “I was raised to put Lizano on everything: rice, beans, beans and rice, plaintains, plantains with rice. I mean, every food a Tico can think of mae. Could it be possible that…I’m overusing it?”
Valdez, who at this point in the interview buried his face into his hands and repeated “I MAE! I MAE!” said he quickly ignored this flicker of doubt and the pangs of remorse – both physically from ingesting too much sauce and emotionally for questioning if it could be consumed in excess.
“Mae, I’ve never felt like such a traicionero anti-Tico in my life, mae,” Valdez said. “I immediately went to Mall San Pedro, ate at Pops, listened to ‘Agarrense de las manos’ and visited the Fuente de la Hispanidad to rethink about who – and what – I was becoming.”
At the end of what Valdez described as a “despiche” and “maldita playada” of a day, when asked if he would ultimately reduce his Lizano intake, he said that the idea is too daring, for if he were to spark a trend, it could be the end of excessive Costa Rican Lizano usage as we know it.
“I think we can all agree that anything in excess is bad,” he said as he applied a new coat of gel to his pineapple spiked hair. “But I have faith that we as a people know where the line is, and with Lizano, mae, once you pop you can’t stop mae. O sea, maybe the eslogan should be: don’t be a play-o, when using Lizan–o.”
Story via our Ñews Partners @ El Pejibaye. All right reserved.