In 2005, at the
dining hall in Santa Rosa, one of the drink machines was filled with an unusual
"liquid". The transparent container, normally filled with a
pleasant red or orange or even green tropical fruit juice, seemed to have been
converted over to use as a macabre, makeshift aquarium full of amphibian
eggs.
Of course, we
had to try it, and it turned out to be a wonderful, slightly minty drink
with, well, slimy egg-like things in it. They tasted the same as the
drink, however, and we didn't give it any more thought. As one of
the students came up, Dr. Brown and I began a "serious"
conversation; I was pointing out the "neural crests" and the
"external gills" and Brown was vaguely pointing to ones that had
"just moved"; soon we were able to convince the student that we
were in fact drinking frog eggs.
As with guanabana, we
kept a lookout for it wherever we went, and we indeed saw it again at La
Fortuna, in a soda (restaurant) there. We enquired, and found out
that this magical elixir was called "cas". No word on its composition.
When we went back the next day the "cas" in the machine had been
replaced by a pleasant watermelon juice, and we never saw "cas"
again in La Fortuna.
We didn't see any the
rest of the trip either, and when we got back to Ohio any research into it
was stymied. We couldn't find any reference to "cas";
although there is a fruit that goes by that name it obviously wasn't the
same stuff.
We were primed to look
for "cas" on our return in 2007. Since we were basically
going around the country in a reverse direction from 2005, we couldn't
start our search at the place of first contact, Santa Rosa. No one
at La Suerte had heard of it. It wasn't on the menu anywhere in
Tortuguero or Cahuita (we asked).
We thought we
were in real trouble when we got to La Fortuna. We went out to lunch,
hoping to find it at the same soda where we had eaten in 2005, but the soda was
gone! It looked as if the mystery of "cas" wouldn't be solved.
Then, a turn of
good luck. Our second-favorite soda was still open, and at dinner we found
"cas" on the menu. We were able to introduce the group to the
tropical drink that is as much fun to play with as it is to drink.
Video may take a few minutes to load...
We didn't see
"cas" the rest of the trip. Back home, armed with a newly
purchased book, A Guide to Tropical Plants of Costa Rica, I discovered
that the real name was "chan". This was not as useful as
one might think - try doing a Google search for chan. Trust me, try
it.
