Food in Colombia is delicious yet very different in many ways. Here people eat a lot of meat and starches. They eat breakfast, lunch and onces, and a snack in the evening. Breakfast is a big meal usually with bread, eggs, meat, arepas, soup and always chocolate. Lunch is the main meal of the day and in small towns in Colombia the town shuts down from 1-3 durring lunch. That doesn't happen in Bogota. Many people eat out for lunch and others all go home for the meal. Usually lunch consists of fruit or salad, soup, a main course and a small dessert. To drink there is a great variety of freshly made jugo (juice) or beer. Onces is a snack eaten at 4:30 it can be either sweet or savory, often it is street food (I'll do another post just on street food). Then in the evening between 6-9 there is a snack. This is usually a drink and some food. Often it is chocolate with cheese and rolls, or agua de panella (a sweet hot drink made of sugar cane, cinnamon, cloves and sometimes liquor) and bread. It can also be beer and wine with platacones (fried plantaines served with salsa or guacamole or sometimes meat.
Mexican food is very popular in Colombia but unlike in the US where mexican food is often cheap here it is rather expensive. It is very trendy. However, it is very authentic and delicious. This is chicken mole with fresh beans and avacado.
The traditional way to serve chocolate is with cheese. This cheese, called farmers cheese, is similar to mozzeralla. You tear it up and put it in your chocolate. I prefer my chocolate without cheese but I can appreciate the cheese. When you eat chocolate in the evening with bread and cheese you melt the cheese into your chocolate and then dip your bread into the mixture.
Platacones. Here we are eating them with a warm tomato salsa and soured milk, similar to sour cream. We also have eaten them with meat and guacamole. yummy!
This is a very traditional colombian lunch. Most restaurants at lunch have the plate of the day which is always very cheap. This was the plate of the day last week in Villa de Leyva a small town in the mountains north of Bogota. First was squash soup followed by beef goulash pictured here. The beef goulash had fresh peas, beans and carrots, and the plate is garnished with chimichuri sauce, a south american sauce made with parsley and cilantro. You notice both rice and potatoes, this is very common here.
This is a desert that tastes somewhat like milk pudding but actually it is made from a root starch and coconut. Here it is garnished with a sweet mint sauce.
Agua de panella con aguardiente. This drink is amazing! It is very cold here in the evenings and this is a hot drink made of sugar can, cinnamon and cloves. The aguardiente is the national liquor of Colombia and it is anise flavored.
Colombian tamales. These are very different from mexican tamales. They are huge and wrapped with banana leaves. Inside is cornmeal, beans, chicken and veggies. We ate them for breakfast yesterday. They are also eaten for lunch.
This is a very tradional colombian lunch it is a large bowl of rice, fresh beans, areppa, egg, beef, avacado, chorizo, and chichorones (fried pork fat). So good.
