BARRANQUILLA GOURMET
Calificación promedio de usuarios
This writing is not intended to be, in any way, an attempt to convince the reader that Barranquilla's cuisine is the best or most varied on the Atlantic Coast, nor in the country, much less in the world, as some authors try to do when they write about the cuisine of their homeland, movingly inspired by regionalism. This has been a purely recreational experience, which I have undertaken in my free time, with which I have enjoyed in the most delicious way, stealing time from time in the midst of my daily occupations that have nothing to do with cooking.
Nor do I pretend to have the last word on exactly what and how many our dishes are, as if there were a finite number of preparations. The kitchen, like everything in nature, is changing, and it could almost be said that, just as there are as many different accents in a city as there are inhabitants, there are also as many dishes as there are culinary occurrences that can arise from the head of each cook. Much less is it my intention to give a lecture on cooking, of which I consider myself a simple fan: I just wanted to have fun commenting freely on one of the things I like most in life. Or perhaps I have simply wanted to evoke those aromas, those flavors, those textures that are enjoyed from early childhood and that stay with us forever.
The cuisine of Barranquilla and its surroundings, like most of the regions of America, arises from the tremendous cultural shock that the discovery of our continent brought with it. The arrival of the European, and later that of the African, produced not only the emergence of a new race, but also cheerful musical airs, a culture with very particular features, new forms of language and, of course, the introduction of unknown ingredients that gave rise to to a very original cuisine.
The Europeans bequeathed us cattle, pigs, chickens, coriander, garlic, milk, rice, olives, onions, citrus fruits, cane and wheat, without which we could not imagine our daily diet. Africa brought us coconuts, coffee, millet, sorghum, bananas, pumpkins, melons, tamarinds, bananas, and yams. In turn, America began to export its very varied products to the world, which were immediately integrated into existing preparations, perfecting them: Pizza, whose ancestors were prepared with pig blood and honey, began to be bathed in delicious sauces of our tomatoes; the hieratic corn gave rise to polenta; the stately pope calmed the hunger of thousands of Europeans, displacing even bread; and cheerful cocoa became the basis for the finest sweets.
The cuisine of the New World is, therefore, a great melting pot of aromas and flavors where the ingredients of indigenous America were happily combined with the food brought from Europe, Asia and Africa, of which the gastronomy of Barranquilla is a very representative sample.
GASTRONOMICA ROUTE
The Mayor's Office of Barranquilla, through the Ministry of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, has developed actions aimed at the construction of a new tourist product called the Gastronomic Route.
This tour of various sites that sell food from our traditional cuisine, allows you to taste exquisite dishes with a quality and variety to test the most demanding palates.