Flavors OF COLOMBIA

Savor traditional foods and beverages at Bogota’s street carts, markets, restaurants and cafes

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BY RANDY MINK

IT SEEMS as if you can’t walk a block in central Bogota without running into a fruit market, sidewalk juice stand or mom-and-pop cafe. And you’re never far from a street vendor serving up that classic Colombian corn cake, the arepa, hot off the griddle.

Tempting passersby on the streets of Bogota’s atmospheric La Candelaria district, the fermented corn drink chicha comes in a variety of flavors and eye-catching colors.

Not long after their arrival in this sprawling, traffic-choked capital cradled by the green slopes of the Andes, firsttime visitors seeking to sample native foods inevitably find themselves biting into an arepa. Colombia’s version of a tortilla, the ubiquitous patty of cornmeal and butter is usually grilled plain or filled with a sweet cheese, or sometimes with egg, ham or chicken. Arepas can be a snack, light breakfast or starchy accompaniment to a sit-down meal.

Corn plays a part in many Colombian dishes with Andean influences, as do meat and potatoes. Food in this South American country is basically peasant fare, simply prepared and gently flavored.

Bogota’s most famous dish is the beloved ajiaco santafereno. A hearty meal in a bowl, ajiaco is a chicken and potato stew with small pieces of corn on the cob. It is flavored with guascas, a wild herb native to the Andes, and often garnished with capers and a dollop of sour cream. Ajiaco is popular with tourists dining at La Puerta de la Cathedral, a restaurant located in a historic, high-ceilinged building around the corner from the main cathedral. Specializing in traditional Colombian cuisine, it is just steps from Plaza de Bolivar in La Candelaria, the atmospheric Spanish colonial district. Its narrow cobbled streets brim with churches, museums, handicraft shops and 300-year-old houses.

Many in my tour group at La Puerta ordered the ajiaco, but I went for the bandeja paisa, another signature Colombian dish that satisfies big appetites. The platter of chorizo, fried pork belly (chicharron), pulverized beef, rice, beans and baked plantain is topped with a fried egg and comes with an arepa and a slice of avocado.

One day we took a tour called “Bogota Like a Local,” which exposed our group to more Colombian food and drink specialties. During a tasting session at

La Candelaria’s Casa Galeria Cafe, we sampled a fermented corn drink called chicha and were surprised to learn that Colombia grows 60 different types of corn, a grain that for centuries has been an important part of the heritage of indigenous people in the Andes. The corn brew is slightly bubbly, thick and most commonly yellow.

As our Casa Galeria host told us, chicha has religious origins. Long ago, it was made by the local wise man, who would chew the corn off the cob and then let it ferment in a pot—in his saliva!—for 15 days. Villagers who partook of the brew supposedly were drinking knowledge. Over the years, the idea behind imbibing chicha evolved into the secular, and chicha became associated with drunkenness and stupidity. In fact, after a political revolution in 1948, in which 70 percent of Bogota was burned, drinking or producing chicha was declared forbidden. To this day, the drink is still on the books as being illegal, though the law is not enforced.

The chicha we had at Casa Galeria was from an ancient recipe from the cafe owner’s family. Following tradition, we drank from a gourd cup with a string attached. Our brew (made only with corn, no water) was fermented for only two or three days and had an alcohol content of 2 percent, but vendors up and down the street, a colorful stretch filled with artistic graffiti, sell bottles of chicha with 4 or 5 percent alcohol (though it can go up to 12 percent). And it comes in many different flavors in a rainbow of colors. At night, students flock to the chicha bars surrounding Plaza de Chorro de Quevedo, the lively hub of the graffiti district.

Our Casa Galeria session featured other drinks, including Club Colombia amber beer, the premium brand made by Bavaria, the country’s only industrialscale brewery. We also sipped Chela, a locally made, small-batch coffee beer that has chocolate in it.