Medellin cuisine is somewhat of a mystery to us still. We know about, but will not try, bandeja paisa which is a massive plate consisting of ground beef, chicharron, rice, beans, avocado, a fried egg, an arepa, and plantains. We know that the Medellin diet is very meat centric and also has a lot of fried dishes. We tend to shy away from food tours but Jim really wanted to do a street food tour and Sandy😕 grudgingly consented.
Our first taste was a fruit salad of bananas, mango, apple and papaya.We were told to try the fruit salad first then add the vanilla ice cream and grated mozzarella cheese. This is called salpicón and is eaten at any meal but usually as a snack. It was very tasty, Jim could have made a meal out of it. Apparently Colombians put cheese on everything including hot chocolate and even coffee.We walked quite a bit between tastings. This tour was in Laureles which is the neighborhood that we live in. David pointed out this chain restaurant which specializes in Colombian food. Mondongo is a soup made from the third stomach of a cow.Our next tasting was arepas with quesita cheese, chicharrons (fried pork belly) fried chorizo sausage, salsa, guacamole and a buttermilk like spread. Arepas are a flat bread made out of corn which can be stuffed, folded or eaten with a topping as is the case here. Our guide said many South American countries claim to have originated arepas. Patacóns (fried plantains) served with guacamole and hogao, which is a delicious tomato-based sauce. To experience a traditional Colombian cocktail our guide took us to a rooftop bar based in an old home that has multiple floors with traditional furnishing of years gone by as you can see in the following photos.Our tour guide, David, explained that this drink has a fruit base of Lula aka Little orange. We tried it first as a “lemonade”.Then he added Aguardiente their traditional alcohol which is anise flavored. We also tried it straight up, very similar to Italian Sambuca or Turkish Raki.The last stop we had buñuelo (fried dough balls) and fried empanadas filled with pork. We then tasted the traditional Christmas dessert Natilla which is made with panela, a sweet brown product made from sugar cane.
As you can see from this video Jim had some fun with this dessert.
Fortunately there was a lot of walking and talking between stops. The tour lasted about three hours so we had time to digest an earlier tasting before moving on to the next. As we said in the introduction Colombian food leans heavily on fried carbohydrates and pork. We learned quite a bit with this tour but we will not be frequenting restaurants serving typical Colombian cuisine. We have already fixed a lot of food at home and we will be searching out our favorite regional foods of Mexico, Thailand, India and Italy.
Your experience in South American food mirrored ours. In my experience Mexican food was much more varied and sophisticated…even in Costa Rica it was heavy on fried meat…Chile and Argentina were also generally disappointing….but they have amazing fruit varieties….😜
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