Lechona

Lechona is a Tolima institution. The pig is boned out with the skin and meat left whole, stuffed with rice, dried peas, onion and spices, sewn shut and put into a clay or brick oven for eight to twelve hours. It comes out with skin like glass and is sold by the portion: a slab of crackling, a spoonful of the rice and pea filling, a piece of meat, an arepa, and often a slice of insulso, the boiled cornmeal sweet the region serves with it. It is a Sunday and celebration dish, cooked in quantity, and whole towns on the roads to Espinal and Ibague live off it.

What you actually see

• The crackling - the sheet of skin blistered hard by hours in the oven.
• The rice and pea stuffing - the filling that absorbs the fat as it cooks.
• The clay ovens - wood-fired ovens behind the roadside lechonerias.
• Insulso - the boiled cornmeal sweet usually served alongside.

When to go

Year-round, but Sunday is when it is made in quantity and when it is freshest; by late afternoon what remains has been sitting for hours. The roadside places between Bogota, Girardot, Espinal and Ibague are the traditional stops and are busiest at weekend lunchtimes. In Bogota it is sold in the covered market halls all week.

Honest expectations

It is very heavy and very fatty, and one portion is effectively a day's eating. Quality varies enormously between one lechoneria and the next, and a pig that has been standing since morning has soft chewy skin rather than crackling. There is nothing at all here for vegetarians. The roadside strip is functional rather than pleasant, all car parks and plastic chairs.

Nearby

The Tatacoa desert lies south in Huila; Ibague sits under the Nevado del Tolima.