Bandeja Paisa

The dish comes from Antioquia and its logic is agricultural: it was food for people working long days in the mountains, assembled from what a smallholding produced and calibrated to keep someone going. A standard plate carries red beans cooked with pork, white rice, ground or minced beef, chicharron, chorizo, a fried egg, a slice of black pudding, fried sweet plantain, a wedge of avocado and an arepa - ten or so components on one large platter. It is genuinely too much food for most people not doing manual work, which locals will tell you cheerfully. The name bandeja means tray, and the plate had to become a tray because a normal one would not hold it. Portions vary but rarely downward.

Highlights

• Ten or so components on one platter - beans, rice, meats, egg, plantain.
• Chicharron - pork belly fried to a crackling.
• A tray rather than a plate - which is where the name comes from.
• Food built for physical work - and portioned accordingly.

When to go

Year round; lunch is when it is eaten. A meal.

Good to know

It is genuinely enormous and most visitors do not finish one. It is heavy food in a hot climate. Components vary by restaurant and some substitute freely. Vegetarian versions exist but miss the point.

Nearby

Medellin is the usual base; the coffee region is south.