You Are What You Eat

Some say the best way to get to know a culture is to eat your way through it. Sounds like a fat person’s rationalization to me; or anyone’s excuse for gaining weight on vacation. Been there done that right? Actually… in Colombia’s case, I tend to agree.

Colombians are really into their food. That’s not to say they’re overweight, just that, in general, Colombians derive a great deal of pride from the perceived deliciousness of what they eat. Everyone, I mean everyone, has asked me So how do you like the food here??? They ask genuinely, but they’re waiting for a very specific answer. Sometimes they even prime the answer by “asking,” Isn’t the food here amazing??? I must say, the food is good. Of course I miss my mom’s famous gooey noodles and French toast, but Colombia knows what’s up.

Being the domestic fool that I am (and as I am really busy), grilled cheese, scrambled eggs, pasta, and bizarre combinations of the three are as far as I’ve gotten. Even when my roommates cook, they give me remedial tasks like mixing things and setting the table. Pathetic I know. I’ve found some local “hot spots” to eat out on weekends, and Arepas rellenas off the street are so delicious and so cheap I’m not sure why I eat anything else.

My greatest eating experience thus far however, bar none, was the weekend I spent out on the farm. Benjamín (Ben-ha-mean in Spanish), a good friend without whom I would admittedly be rather lonely, invited me to travel out to Fresno where his parents live on a farm. Not the Illinois, flatland farms you’re picturing. This farm is in the mountains. It’s ridiculously beautiful, and they grow chocolate (yes, chocolate grows on trees here!), bananas, coffee, plantains, maracuya, guayaba, mangos, oranges, avocado; you name it, they grow it. They have dozens of fruits that don’t even exist in the US. Aside from fruit, as it is a farm, they also have chickens and the like running around everywhere. Most unfortunately, I woke up Sunday morning to a giant rooster hanging upside down with blood oozing down its face into a bucket placed appropriately below. Graphic I know. So this is where Benjamin’s mom comes in.

For starters, she’s ridiculous. She cooked all day Saturday and Sunday; I’m literally not sure she ever stopped. Everything’s from scratch. And I mean scratch scratch, like start-by-killing-the-rooster scratch. She prepared traditional Colombian tamales, which start as a mixture of potatoes, rice, carrots, corn, chicken, beef, and probably lots of other things I’m unaware of, and are then wrapped up in giant leaves (picked from the trees out back) and cooked in boiling water for 2 hours. She made 100… one hundred. It was almost comical, like a witch with a giant wooden spoon, ladling her magic potion in a giant cauldron. And the kitchen is far from high-tech. We’re talking coal and wood burning under the stove.

Needless to say, I overate. She just kept handing me food, and I kept eating it. She even sent me home with four tamales to eat throughout the week: hospitality in its purist form. I watched her cooking the whole time, intrigued, and when she caught on to my curiosity she asked, Well how does your mom make them? She struggled to understand what exactly we eat in the United States if we don’t eat tamales. Adorable.

In Colombia, food is a way of life. Boasting about your mother’s homemade meals is a common pastime. Sharing a good meal in good company is about as good as it gets J.