The Colombian Palate

Buenavista – Taraza, Colombia

With our new “dawn patrol” plan – starting at 6:20 a.m., as soon as there is enough light to bike – we end up in our destination town for a much longer period of time each day. 

(I’m borrowing the “dawn patrol” name from our friend Gunnar. He is part of a biking group that calls themselves by this name. I guess when you live in one of these super hot climates the best time to do any kind of exercise is early in the morning.)

We had plenty of time to explore Beunavista yesterday afternoon. And I think I can say with some confidence that there are exactly two restaurant type facilities in this town of 22,000+ people. There’s a pizza place that also serves standard “comida” fare. And there’s a hamburguesa type place. 

We’ve tried enough pizza down here to be pretty skeptical on that front. It’s not just the pizza. It’s really all bread type products – pizza is just a particular manifestation of the problem – which I would characterize as Latin America’s lack of the necessary knowledge or ingredients to make any type of bread products taste good. 

Now, don’t get all upset. It’s not like all the food is bad. Not at all. They’re just not good at stuff like this. Just like Norwegians are probably not good at pasta, and Minnesotans aren’t so good at spicy. And certainly New Yorkers are not good at casseroles or jello salads . . .

And, really, to be fair, the hamburger buns – a bread product – were pretty good. I know, because we ended up at the hamburguesa place and I ordered a chicharrón hamburguesa. As I understand it, chicharrón refers to pork belly type stuff. And, I must say, I am becoming a pretty big fan of chicharrón . It’s not low fat or anything. But a little crispy pork fat is undeniably good . . .

Now, to clarify, hamburguesa is not just the Spanish word for hamburger. I mean, hamburguesa includes hamburgers. But it seems to be a much broader term. I’m not totally sure, but I think it might include pretty much any type of sandwich. As evidenced by last night’s meal, it also includes what we would think of as hamburgers – only with totally different meat choices – like chicharrón. 

I can report that the chicharrón hamburguesa was very good. And the place gets bonus points for having a little ensalada. The fact that we’re giving bonus points for vegetable matter is so weird. Because you would think that they would have tons of vegetables – with all this sun and rain you can undoubtedly grow anything in Colombia. But the way they serve – or, really, don’t serve – vegetables around here you would think that broccoli and cauliflower were made of gold . . .

Since, apparently, we’re on a food theme here, I think it’s time to comment on Latin American beef. It is SO tough. I mean, it does have some good characteristics. Like, if you are working on your jaw strength, by all means order res (beef). 

You take a bite. It tastes good because they are great at seasoning and cooking meat products in Latin America. But after a few minutes of chewing you have a choice to make. You either keep chewing – like the cow that the stuff came from – chewing her cud all day – or you just take the risk of choking and try to swallow the stuff . . .

For me the problem is even worse. Because I’ve discovered that tough meat like this ends up caught between my teeth – and I end up having to use a toothpick or dental floss, lest I wake up in the night with a terrible ache in my mouth.

Diana has a whole theory about this – i.e., the toughness of the meat. Remember, she was an animal science major in college. She points out that these grass fed cattle are skinny and stringy. 

“Of course the meat is tough. Look at them.”

She does have a point. 

Remember when we were kids and they would show the pictures of starving people – I think generally from Ethiopia. Or, at least, that’s how I remember it. It was terrible. You could see all the bones sticking out all over the place. 

My Mom would always bring this up when we refused to eat things at dinner.

”John Munger! There are starving people in Africa!” 

I guess you would probably never say that now. I’m not exactly sure why, but I’m pretty sure that a statement like this would be politically incorrect at liberal American dinner tables today. But, of course, liberal American tables don’t serve liver and onions, or tongue anymore, either . . . 

So maybe no need to go there in the first place . . .

Anyway, the beef down here has made me think a little bit. Reality is that if the cows are not fed with grain, the beef is really not good for anything but American style hamburgers. (I know, I know – there will be a whole crowd that insists that grass feed is the best – but I think you’re just fooling yourselves because you want it to be that way . . .) 

I do agree though; I’m pretty sure feeding corn to cows is not good for the world – just promotes the Iowa monoculture that is obviously bad for everyone. So maybe it’s time to just skip beef and go with chicken, fish, or pork. The longer we’re in Latin America, the more we realize just how good these options are anyway . . .

Where was I? Oh, yes. The Buenavista restaurant scene.

It’s not like there weren’t any other places to eat. There were plenty of them. Lots of little stands. But they were basically the same food that we’ve been eating for breakfast and lunch every day. Arepas, empanadas, patacones, and tamales. Good and all, but our third fried meal of the day? Not what we were really looking for after a full day of biking . . .

That’s the thing, though. Colombia is super into this stuff. Stands are everywhere. All fried. 

Colombia kind of reminds us of Mexico in that everyone seems to be selling something, and it’s all super cheap. But in Mexico most stuff was grilled; everyone had little sticks that they had collected to burn in order to heat up their grills. Here, everyone seems to have little portable propane stoves – with a big fryer on top. 

Now, the drink side of things is a different story. Having only biked for four days now, our jury is still out, but our early impression is that Colombia really excels on the beverage front. Which makes sense in a country that is this hot and humid every day. When people sweat this much you need some refreshments to keep everyone going . . .

We talked about the passion fruit juice that Fernando served us yesterday. Excelente! 

Today we had some fresh squeezed orange juice. Really good! 

I also ended up getting a cup of this white liquid that is probably some type of coconut milk. Pretty good, but kind of thick. Any ideas from the peanut gallery? We’ve been seeing bottles of this stuff at roadside stands. What do we think it might be?

And then we finished the day with two drinks that amounted to passion fruit and strawberry Julius. Remember Orange Julius stores? I think they might still exist? Maybe as part of Dairy Queen? In any event, I used to love the classic orange. I would spend half my paper route money buying one at City Center after taking the Number 4 bus downtown. Those were the days . . .

Sorry. Back to Colombia. The Julius-type drinks were fantastic. The perfect thing for the end of a long hot day of biking. Wow!

More interesting was the person making the drinks. 

Kesaun. (Might have the spelling wrong).

This young woman knows how to make her Julius-like smoothie things! (I probably have it backwards. Undoubtedly, Mr. or Mrs. Julius were inspired by the drinks here in Colombia . . .)

When we told her we were from Estados Unidos, she became very excited and pantomimed rocking the baby. Turns out she has a four month old – Jack. Jack is in the States with Kesaun’s aunt. She doesn’t know what state, but she thinks maybe California. However, she showed us a picture of the aunt, and she’s standing in a very snowy place with her co-workers. Maybe Tahoe? 

Doesn’t matter . . .

But a little crazy that this young woman has a baby at all. She looks pretty young – and she’s very skinny. Doesn’t look like she had a baby four months ago . . .

She says she wants to visit Jack, but we’re not sure she has a plan for how that might happen. Also kind of confused about how the baby got to the States. Do infants need passports or visas? 

Bottom line. The more we travel in Latin America the more we see how inextricably tied together the United States and Latin America are. 

Other interesting notes . . .

My derailleur cable broke today. At about 1 p.m. – right in the heat of the day. Pretty proud of myself though. After switching out several of these over the past six months I set a new record – taking only about 15 minutes to install the new one. Only one or two missteps – and none of them catastrophic . . . Old Dan is back to working like his not-so-old self . . .

Time to head to bed. We need our beauty sleep if we’re going to get up at 5:30 again tomorrow. Especially because we start heading up into the mountains.