Colombian Cuisine

Today was our cooking class. We had two guides, Stephan and Nicole. Our instructor was Claudia, who has been cooking wholesome vegetarian traditional Colombia food for 20 years. We were back at the fruit market first thing this morning which was lovely because the wholesale flower sellers were out in picturesque force. After yesterday's visit Chris and I had particular missions - we wanted spices, honey and anything else small, light and dry. We succeeded in getting some spices. We hope they make it back without disaster. One of the spices is the fruit and seed of a very strange fruit used here to make a bright red sauce. We also got some hot chocolate balls - just add milk and you get strange Colombian hot chocolate.

During our lesson we made amaranth soup, deep fried fritters, salad and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were the star of the meal as they were a special Colombian variety only grown in the Andean highlands. They were indeed delicious. I can't say that I am thrilled with Colombian cooking so far. It seems that many Colombian's aren't either because most of the 'fine' restaurants are, yes, you guess it, Italian.

After our cooking lesson and lunch our guide Stephan stayed with us to take us to assist us with a money changing adventure. It was an adventure, not for the unilingual English speaker. The money changer we used just happened to be in the Emerald mall. Yes, a mall where all the vendors sell emeralds. This was a lucky chance as I had it in mind that I wanted an emerald. Well, not at the prices they were charging. I probably could have shopped around an haggled lots and still not felt like I was getting a deal. So, I decided that I didn't want an emerald for the prices they were charging.

Stephan treated us to some chicha, which is an indigenous type of rot gut. The stuff is like a sourdough starter, you get to add more new ingredients to the pot when you take out some chicha for your party. Chris found it interesting. I couldn't stomach it. The live yeast was very lively on the tongue. I think, like ripe cheese, one could get accostomed to it.