Bandeja paisa

This is not a dish, it is a portion for two, and yet one person eats it.

On the plate: beans, white rice, minced meat, sausage, a fried egg, a slice of fried plantain, avocado, an arepa, and chicharrón, pork belly fried crisp. Some places add blood sausage and mazamorra, a maize porridge.

Where it comes from

From the food of the arrieros, the muleteers who carried goods across the mountains of Antioquia in the nineteenth century. They needed one meal to last a whole day, so it was built from what keeps and what fills: beans, lard, maize, meat.

The name bandeja paisa only appeared around 1950, when the first list of typical Colombian dishes was drawn up. Today it is the badge of the whole of Antioquia.

How to eat it

In the morning or at midday, not in the evening. Eat a bandeja at eight at night and you will sleep badly.

And save the chicharrón for last.