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Episode #97: Sabor Barranquilla · New Worlder

0:00
SPEAKER_01: This is the New Worlder podcast and I am one of your hosts, Nicholas Gill.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: We are going to do things a little different today.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: This episode is a special one, recorded on location in Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Rather than one straight interview like we usually do...
0:22
SPEAKER_01: This is more of a narrative about my time there.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: You'll hear words and sounds from many of the colorful characters that make Barranquilla what it is.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: If you like this episode, please share it.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Help us get it listened to so we can do more of these.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Also,
0:38
SPEAKER_01: subscribe to the New Worlder newsletter on Substack by going to newworlder.com as
0:43
SPEAKER_01: well as New Worlder on YouTube.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Let's get right into it.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: Let's travel to Barranquilla.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: Where the Magdalena River meets the Caribbean Sea, you'll find the city of Barranquilla, Colombia.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: I had passed through the city several times over the years,
1:44
SPEAKER_01: even windsurfing for a few days in a nearby lagoon,
1:47
SPEAKER_01: but I never had much feel for it.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: I saw it as a big, bustling port town with tall buildings and gritty streets.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: It didn't have an obvious appeal like Cartagena,
1:57
SPEAKER_01: with its walled colonial core full of narrow cobblestone streets that attracts so
2:02
SPEAKER_01: many tourists.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: I assumed the food in Barranquilla was similar to Cartagena,
2:08
SPEAKER_01: as they are just a couple of hours apart on the same coast,
2:11
SPEAKER_01: but I didn't realize just how distinct it was.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: In late August,
2:17
SPEAKER_01: I was invited to be on a panel about food media during Sabor Barranquilla,
2:22
SPEAKER_01: the city's annual culinary festival.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Now in its 17th edition, it's one of the longest running culinary festivals anywhere in Latin America.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: The four-day event was held at the Puerta de Oro,
2:36
SPEAKER_01: the Golden Gate,
2:37
SPEAKER_01: an event center that was built just beside the Magdalena River.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly,
2:41
SPEAKER_01: I was immersed in this region's cuisine and its unusual mix of Afro-Caribbean,
2:48
SPEAKER_01: Spanish,
2:48
SPEAKER_01: indigenous,
2:49
SPEAKER_01: and Middle Eastern influences.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: I was immersed in the city,
2:54
SPEAKER_01: brash and magnificent,
2:56
SPEAKER_01: wild and rainy and sweltering hot,
2:59
SPEAKER_01: seeing it in a completely new light.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: You hear sounds like this everywhere you go in Barranquilla.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: That's from my vendor selling cold coconut milk on the Gran Malacón,
3:21
SPEAKER_01: the newly renovated boardwalk that extends for almost six kilometers along the
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Magdalena River.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Just a little bit beyond where I was standing was a collection of food stalls in a
3:32
SPEAKER_01: building shaped like a caiman.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Beyond that, a statue of the singer Shakira, who was born and raised here.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Co-host Juliana Duque was there too, speaking on the same panel with me at Sabor Barranquilla.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: She has been visiting the city for years and comes often.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Here's what she has to say about Barranquilla.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: Barranquilla is joyful, tropical, and loud.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: It is as hybrid as every city with a colonial past can be,
4:01
SPEAKER_02: and as interesting as a port town can become through its years of national and
4:06
SPEAKER_02: transnational commerce and cultural flows through the Magdalena River and the
4:10
SPEAKER_02: Atlantic Ocean.
4:13
SPEAKER_02: Its close connection with Miami has given it a commercial character,
4:17
SPEAKER_02: especially over the past two or three decades.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: However,
4:21
SPEAKER_02: locals and foreigners that take the time to understand it beyond that first layer
4:25
SPEAKER_02: of consumerism,
4:27
SPEAKER_02: to walk around its socially complex neighborhoods and take a ride along the
4:32
SPEAKER_02: coastline to locate it on the map of the Caribbean,
4:35
SPEAKER_02: in contrast and in sync with cities like Santa Marta,
4:39
SPEAKER_02: Cartagena,
4:39
SPEAKER_02: Riohacha,
4:41
SPEAKER_02: we'll know that it's deeply diverse and full of stories to tell about an ongoing
4:46
SPEAKER_02: conversation between two continent bodies and the north and the south of the Americas,
4:53
SPEAKER_02: as much as any other Colombian town.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: kibbes,
4:57
SPEAKER_02: labneh,
4:58
SPEAKER_02: tabbouleh,
5:00
SPEAKER_02: and baklavaas coming from the Middle East more than a century ago are as comforting
5:06
SPEAKER_02: as any other traditional foods that bring their own print of African,
5:10
SPEAKER_02: indigenous,
5:11
SPEAKER_02: and European origin.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: Fish and meat,
5:15
SPEAKER_02: stews,
5:16
SPEAKER_02: seafood,
5:16
SPEAKER_02: ceviches,
5:17
SPEAKER_02: plantains,
5:18
SPEAKER_02: yucca,
5:19
SPEAKER_02: and yammy everywhere,
5:21
SPEAKER_02: and fried street snacks that,
5:24
SPEAKER_02: as delicious as they are in their own right,
5:26
SPEAKER_02: are always overpowered by the exquisiteness of the arepa de huevo and the mastery
5:33
SPEAKER_02: needed to make it right.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: Sabores Barranquilla gathers hundreds of producers,
5:40
SPEAKER_01: chefs,
5:41
SPEAKER_01: and culinary entrepreneurs from within Barranquilla and elsewhere in Colombia's Caribbean.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Around 25,000 people attended the event.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: The special guest was the town of Mampos,
5:53
SPEAKER_01: a city on the Magdalena River,
5:55
SPEAKER_01: known for its queso de capa,
5:57
SPEAKER_01: thin layers of stretchy mozzarella-like cheese that are rolled into a ball,
6:01
SPEAKER_01: sometimes wrapped around guava paste,
6:04
SPEAKER_01: and its smoky,
6:06
SPEAKER_01: spicy pork sausages,
6:07
SPEAKER_01: or butifara.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: Elsewhere in the festival,
6:11
SPEAKER_01: stands were filled with regional products like vino de corazon,
6:15
SPEAKER_01: a wine made from the reddish-purple fruit that grows on the corazon palm,
6:20
SPEAKER_01: and crab-filled empanadas from the island of San Andres.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: At the in-yucate stand,
6:26
SPEAKER_01: cook Dominga Miranda told me about the different bocadas,
6:30
SPEAKER_01: a typical snack she was selling.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: All of them were made from yuca.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: Things like carimaniolas stuffed with the fish sábado,
6:38
SPEAKER_01: which had been stewed in coconut milk,
6:41
SPEAKER_01: and different bollos made with yuca masa.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Patricia Maestra,
6:59
SPEAKER_01: formerly the president of Cruz Roja,
7:02
SPEAKER_01: or the Red Cross in the Atlantico region,
7:04
SPEAKER_01: is the founder and current director of Sabor Barranquilla.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: She had a party at her mother's beautiful home and invited attending guests
7:13
SPEAKER_01: and other organizers to snack and drink and listen to live music on her back patio.
7:18
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm really, really, really happy to have you here in Barranquilla, my hometown.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: And this is the city where you can find all the mixture of Colombian,
7:34
SPEAKER_03: Caribbean culture,
7:35
SPEAKER_03: because we gathered here many,
7:38
SPEAKER_03: many cultures that came at the beginning of the 20th century.
7:44
SPEAKER_03: So Sabor Barranquilla is a result of all this mixture of cultures and we're here
7:52
SPEAKER_03: out in this garden where I grew up and you can hear all the small coqui,
8:01
SPEAKER_03: what's that name?
8:03
SPEAKER_03: Frogs?
8:03
SPEAKER_01: Frogs, tree frogs.
8:05
SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's a very peculiar sound that is original from Puerto Rico.
8:11
SPEAKER_03: And I think Barranquilla is a very special city from the gastronomic point of view
8:17
SPEAKER_03: because it holds a lot of traditional food.
8:24
SPEAKER_03: So Barranquilla is an answer to that.
8:28
SPEAKER_03: But it also has a very, very important chef.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: As we spoke, snacks started to be passed around.
8:36
SPEAKER_03: You have a...
8:39
SPEAKER_03: The union of Barranquilla's bollo yuca with Monpo's butifarro.
8:46
SPEAKER_03: What makes me enjoy the most of Sabor Barranquilla is that it has become like the
8:54
SPEAKER_03: place where you can gather all the Caribbean cuisine from all the states.
9:03
SPEAKER_03: And I always say, I always remind people that Colombian, Caribbean
9:09
SPEAKER_03: um region goes up to choco because it's all the caribbean coast we have uh
9:18
SPEAKER_03: antioquia has caribbean coast also we have we've had all those states except choco
9:22
SPEAKER_03: i'm eager to have the um the the the afro from choco in barranquilla but so far we
9:33
SPEAKER_03: we always have been able to
9:37
SPEAKER_03: to make people meet all our flavors.
9:42
SPEAKER_03: And what makes me more proud of this event is that more and more people are very,
9:52
SPEAKER_03: they recognize our flavors,
9:55
SPEAKER_03: our own,
9:55
SPEAKER_03: our local food as a very,
9:57
SPEAKER_03: very important cultural treasure.
10:04
SPEAKER_03: I'll keep working on that.
10:08
SPEAKER_03: That's my aim.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: At the party was Maritza Vazquez,
10:12
SPEAKER_01: a cook who specializes in traditional foods from the Colombian Caribbean.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: She was cooking up chicharron, bollos, and empanadas.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: The standout for the night,
10:22
SPEAKER_01: the coast,
10:23
SPEAKER_01: maybe even all of Colombia or the entire Latin American region,
10:27
SPEAKER_01: were her arepas de huevo.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: It's an emblematic recipe that has been around for 200 years in various forms.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: Some point to the town of Luruaco,
10:36
SPEAKER_01: east of Cartagena,
10:37
SPEAKER_01: where corn has grown in abundance as its birthplace,
10:40
SPEAKER_01: though it's likely that Arab immigrants and enslaved Africans played a role in
10:44
SPEAKER_01: developing the recipe too.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: Regardless of its origins, the modern art of the technique is the same.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: The arepa de huevo might be street food made from basic ingredients and cost next to nothing,
10:57
SPEAKER_01: But to attain a perfectly cooked egg with a runny yolk within a crisp arepa that is
11:02
SPEAKER_01: fried in hot oil is near miraculous.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: The French have the soufflé.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: Colombians have the arepa de huevo.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: These are arepa de huevo.
11:11
SPEAKER_03: The size of a party.
11:13
SPEAKER_03: The size of a party party, okay.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: It's a beaten egg because the whole egg doesn't fit.
11:18
SPEAKER_03: We used to make it with corned eggs,
11:20
SPEAKER_03: but the corned egg was too sticky to the box and it would waste time.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: So now we are making it beaten from the same normal egg.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: Look.
11:30
SPEAKER_03: The secret is that the corn has that corn.
11:33
SPEAKER_03: Corn and you add cheese to the dough.
11:36
SPEAKER_03: Well grated cheese to the dough.
11:38
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
11:39
SPEAKER_03: To give it flavor.
11:41
SPEAKER_03: Look.
11:42
SPEAKER_03: We also add cheese to the dough.
11:44
SPEAKER_03: We add cheese, we add sugar.
11:45
SPEAKER_03: We add anise in grams.
11:49
SPEAKER_03: And we knead it well, well, well.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: She's making party-size arepas de huevo for the night, she told me.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: And the secret for a great arepa de huevo is in the corn, she said.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: And she adds cheese to the masa.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: Cheese that is well shredded.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: And sugar.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: As I snacked on Maritza's food, the music kicked on.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: You cannot get away from it here.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: There's always a beat in the background.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: Always a band playing.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in Barranquilla, someone is always dancing.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: The never-ending beat of Barranquilla continues at the Mercado Público,
12:55
SPEAKER_01: which is on the eastern edge of the city where it meets the Magdalena.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: Like Cartagena's Mercado Basurto,
13:02
SPEAKER_01: it's massive,
13:03
SPEAKER_01: a city unto itself,
13:05
SPEAKER_01: sprawling in every direction in buildings both new and old.
13:08
SPEAKER_03: This is the old Calle de la Paz, one of the most famous streets in Barranquilla.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: Today it's known as Calle 30.
13:18
SPEAKER_03: This has always been the market area.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: That's Johnny Insignares.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: He runs tours of the market with his company, City Lover.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: As much as I wanted to just wander around the market alone, I would have never found anything.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: It's a maze of ramshackle tin roof shacks draped with tarps amidst crumbling buildings,
13:38
SPEAKER_01: many of them dating to the late 1800s when the original core of the market was erected.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: Other parts of the market fall under a modern facility that opened in early 2024 called El Gran Bazar.
13:51
SPEAKER_03: What is it?
13:52
SPEAKER_03: Here we find everything,
13:54
SPEAKER_03: there is a variety of spices,
13:59
SPEAKER_03: there is an important issue of artisan spices and another thing that I find
14:04
SPEAKER_03: wonderful is the popular graphics,
14:06
SPEAKER_03: here in Barranquilla if you want to see the DNA of the city,
14:09
SPEAKER_03: the popular graphics shows you because what it wants is to alert the consumer from
14:14
SPEAKER_03: the culture of the street,
14:15
SPEAKER_03: from the culture of the corner stores and obviously going through the market.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Inside the Mercado Público, you can still find the old Barranquilla.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Insigniares led me to morcia makers,
14:30
SPEAKER_01: making blood sausage using the same process they have done for decades.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: There were rows of bijal and banana leaves for envueltos,
14:37
SPEAKER_01: piles of salted fish,
14:39
SPEAKER_01: a century-old grain store and fruits from as far away as La Guajira and the Andes.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: The market even has its own bold and colorful style of graphic art,
14:50
SPEAKER_01: something that has become a symbol of the city.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: When I was not at the festival, I spent my time exploring the city.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: I went to see where a modern new rail link is helping connect the urban center of
15:02
SPEAKER_01: Barranquilla with the Bocas de Senitza,
15:05
SPEAKER_01: the mouth of the Magdalena,
15:06
SPEAKER_01: where the river flows into the Caribbean Sea.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: Beside it,
15:17
SPEAKER_01: I walked through the Echo Park at the Cienaga de Mallorquin,
15:21
SPEAKER_01: a patch of swamp and mangrove forest that is being rehabilitated to help the city
15:26
SPEAKER_01: clean its waterways while also providing access to nature.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: I strolled over miles and miles of raised wooden walkways that traverse this
15:36
SPEAKER_01: biodiversity hotspot,
15:37
SPEAKER_01: which is home to more than 200 species of birds.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: From the Grand Malecon, I hopped on a speedboat on a tour of the choppy Magdalena.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: On one side,
15:52
SPEAKER_01: you could see the city skyline,
15:54
SPEAKER_01: the glass and steel skyscrapers and all the cranes that were building them higher
15:58
SPEAKER_01: and higher.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: In the other direction,
16:01
SPEAKER_01: on the other side of the river,
16:03
SPEAKER_01: a vast expanse of flat green land with nothing on it.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: As soon as the boat was in motion, it started to rain.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: This wasn't a light rain.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't dying down at all.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: It kept growing in intensity,
16:23
SPEAKER_01: erupting over the water with such a force,
16:26
SPEAKER_01: pouring down in thick sheets that grayed out my vision.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: The boat turned into a narrow waterway closer to the city to escape the waves and splashes.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: Soon we were pulling up to a dock downtown,
16:38
SPEAKER_01: right in the historic center,
16:40
SPEAKER_01: where a cluster of food stalls like Don de Mayo were selling classic
16:44
SPEAKER_01: Caribbean-Colombian dishes
16:46
SPEAKER_01: made with magdalene of river fish such as mojar and savolo, which they serve with coconut rice and yuca.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: The specialty there is bocachico al cabrito,
16:57
SPEAKER_01: using the medium-sized fish bocachico,
17:00
SPEAKER_01: which is stuffed with aromatics and then grilled.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: There's also huevas de pescado, fried fish raw sacks.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: In the days that followed,
17:09
SPEAKER_01: I continued to immerse myself into Barranquilla's cuisine,
17:14
SPEAKER_01: visiting restaurants recommended by various friends.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: The first thing that stood out was the level of Middle Eastern influence in the city.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Lebanese and Levantine immigrants arrived in port cities on Colombia's Caribbean coast during the 1880s.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: They immersed themselves into the local economy and gradually accumulated political power.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: They also created Shakira.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: The influence these communities have had on local gastronomy cannot be understated.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Today there are dozens and dozens of Middle Eastern restaurants around the city.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: I went to several, tasting meze platters, baba ganoush, stuffed grape leaves, and lamb tripe.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: Kibe has become a common street snack around the Caribbean coast.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: It's sold by roving street vendors and as appetizers in restaurants.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Rather than the lamb that is more common in the Middle East,
18:08
SPEAKER_01: here the bulgur wheat is mixed with minced beef.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: It's also served as kibbeh krudo, a sort of raw beef in bulgur wheat tartare.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Manuel is a restaurant that is three years old, where the change of a 12-year-old teacher is noticeable.
18:25
SPEAKER_03: We started with a first restaurant,
18:28
SPEAKER_03: Cocina 33,
18:28
SPEAKER_03: and Manuel starts after the pandemic,
18:31
SPEAKER_03: something more mature,
18:33
SPEAKER_03: something more serious,
18:35
SPEAKER_03: more dreamy,
18:36
SPEAKER_03: and landing more than all dreams.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: That was the chef Manuel Mendoza of the restaurant Manuel.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: The Middle Eastern influence was also felt at his restaurant,
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Barranquilla's only true fine dining restaurant.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Here,
18:53
SPEAKER_01: Mendoza takes all of the influences,
18:55
SPEAKER_01: traditions,
18:56
SPEAKER_01: and ingredients from around the Colombian Caribbean and reimagines them in a modern,
19:01
SPEAKER_01: eclectic format.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: For example,
19:04
SPEAKER_01: he'll take Suero Costeno,
19:06
SPEAKER_01: the fermented sour cream that was influenced by the introduction of labneh into the region,
19:12
SPEAKER_01: and it's eaten with everything,
19:14
SPEAKER_01: and he turns it into beurre blanc,
19:16
SPEAKER_01: as a sauce for fish,
19:17
SPEAKER_01: sourced from local purveyor Cholomar,
19:20
SPEAKER_01: which is renowned throughout Colombia for its transparent practices.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: As he explains,
19:26
SPEAKER_01: Mendoza previously ran Cochina 33,
19:30
SPEAKER_01: a sort of Colombian Caribbean bistro which he reopened in the towns of Monteria and Medellin.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: At Manuel, he takes his cooking, takes the food of Barranquilla to new heights.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Inside the restaurant, vaulted ceilings and dark woods are matched with a long marble bar.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Through the glass windows to the kitchen,
19:49
SPEAKER_01: I could see a wood-fired oven where he makes his signature lobster thermidor pizza.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: At Los Hijos de Sancho,
19:58
SPEAKER_01: chef Jose Barbosa,
20:00
SPEAKER_01: who is also producing Colombia's first artisan gin,
20:03
SPEAKER_01: called Selva,
20:05
SPEAKER_01: offers another original take on local food.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Inside of a 1960s house in the center, he's doing a little bit of everything.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: There's a restaurant with seasonal menus,
20:15
SPEAKER_01: but also a deli,
20:16
SPEAKER_01: a butcher,
20:17
SPEAKER_01: cafe,
20:18
SPEAKER_01: bakery,
20:18
SPEAKER_01: pastry shop,
20:19
SPEAKER_01: and gourmet market.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: The flavors of the arepa de huevo I had there at Los Hijos de Sancho,
20:26
SPEAKER_01: made with a blue corn arepa and filled with skate,
20:29
SPEAKER_01: still linger in my brain.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: Then there is narco bollo.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Despite the reference to drug trafficking in its name,
20:38
SPEAKER_01: this is a beloved cafeteria-style family restaurant serving typical foods of the region,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: like arepas de huevo,
20:45
SPEAKER_01: pollo limpio,
20:46
SPEAKER_01: bote de queso,
20:47
SPEAKER_01: deditos de queso,
20:49
SPEAKER_01: cariñi moñolas,
20:50
SPEAKER_01: and much more.
20:51
SPEAKER_03: In the year 89,
20:52
SPEAKER_03: when Carlos Galán was killed,
20:54
SPEAKER_03: it was Pablo Escobar's time,
20:55
SPEAKER_03: Carlos Galán was killed,
20:56
SPEAKER_03: and the movements throughout Colombia began.
21:03
SPEAKER_03: My grandmother lived in a house in a neighborhood of Manga,
21:05
SPEAKER_03: in Cartagena,
21:06
SPEAKER_03: she lived rented,
21:07
SPEAKER_03: and that house was in the name of a person of that reputation,
21:11
SPEAKER_03: they had sex with drug trafficking,
21:12
SPEAKER_03: all that,
21:12
SPEAKER_03: and my grandmother lived rented in the house.
21:15
SPEAKER_03: But she had a sale,
21:16
SPEAKER_03: a sale of bollo,
21:17
SPEAKER_03: which is her suero,
21:19
SPEAKER_03: but it was a place that was called Don Golina,
21:21
SPEAKER_03: it was not even open to the public,
21:23
SPEAKER_03: but she also sold a lot of bollo,
21:25
SPEAKER_03: because she got a contract to sell the bollo to Cocorico,
21:29
SPEAKER_03: at the time it was called Pío Rico.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: That was Carolina Molina,
21:34
SPEAKER_01: who is the chef and owner of Narcobollo,
21:37
SPEAKER_01: describing how her grandmother was selling bollos in the manga neighborhood of
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Cartagena and was mistaken for a drug trafficking neighbor.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: The name stuck and was ultimately embraced.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: The Cartagena location closed years ago,
21:51
SPEAKER_01: and now the Barranquilla location is the headquarters of the operation,
21:54
SPEAKER_01: and they serve more than a thousand people every day.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: My friend Stephanie Bonin,
22:01
SPEAKER_01: who is from Barranquilla and now cooks food influenced by her upbringing there with
22:05
SPEAKER_01: her project La Tropi Kitchen in New York,
22:08
SPEAKER_01: suggested I check out Totumazos El Original,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: a restaurant in a residential neighborhood that specializes in different varieties
22:17
SPEAKER_01: of sancocho or stew.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: So Totumazos were born in a neighborhood called Barrio Abajo in Barranquilla, Colombia.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: It was a tradition that started every Sunday where families that didn't want to
22:32
SPEAKER_00: make lunch,
22:33
SPEAKER_00: they would go to this open space place in the middle of the street with these big
22:40
SPEAKER_00: pots of different soups like mondongo,
22:43
SPEAKER_00: ajiaco,
22:44
SPEAKER_00: sancocho de pescado,
22:46
SPEAKER_00: sancocho trifásico,
22:48
SPEAKER_00: mote de queso,
22:50
SPEAKER_00: guandulada,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: and many more.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And you will bring the pot that you will use in your house to cook your soups and
22:59
SPEAKER_00: you will go there and you will buy soup for X amount of people.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Also, you can buy what apple with lime juice.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful tradition because it's bringing to the street and serving the
23:11
SPEAKER_00: community like foods,
23:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:13
SPEAKER_00: that they can,
23:14
SPEAKER_00: they're mean to be sharing family.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: unfortunately these people are having a lot of issues with public space and
23:22
SPEAKER_00: government policies because they're being pushed away to rent commercial spaces
23:29
SPEAKER_00: which is really interesting because it's a tradition that is rooted you know in in
23:35
SPEAKER_00: community so it would be really nice that the government will really understand
23:39
SPEAKER_00: that this is part of the culture the tradition of the neighborhood and kind of
23:43
SPEAKER_00: regulated these kind of like activities
23:46
SPEAKER_00: But nowadays there is so many of these different totumazos around the city of Barranquilla.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: But the tradition started in Barrio Abajo where usually you will see the big pots
23:57
SPEAKER_00: of soup in the middle of the street,
23:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:00
SPEAKER_00: like steaming hot.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: There is so many business like this nowadays.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: usually the soup is served with a cod pvc tube as a supported in a big totuma pot
24:16
SPEAKER_00: and the price is around 20k pesos colombianos and is served with cilantro lime
24:23
SPEAKER_00: juice pique or aji and a side of rice it's really interesting as well because you
24:30
SPEAKER_00: can buy your own avocado from another business so these businesses are kind of like
24:35
SPEAKER_00: creating opportunities for other entrepreneurs
24:37
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully the government eventually is going to regulate activities like these
24:43
SPEAKER_00: that are more connected with the cultural and identity of these neighborhoods.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: At night, the go-to destination, at least for the conference crowd, was a salsa bar called La Troja.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear that?
25:18
SPEAKER_01: That was food photographer Alejandro Osis playing the cowbell.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: La Troja is a cultural institution.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: It's a funhouse full of day-glow posters that plaster the walls and a maze of
25:30
SPEAKER_01: plastic tables and chairs with an incredible vinyl collection.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: It feels like a San Francisco acid test in the 1960s,
25:39
SPEAKER_01: but the DJ's blasting salsa at a level that knocks you out of your chair and gets
25:43
SPEAKER_01: you on the dance floor.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: which isn't a formal space, but basically anywhere you can just stand.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Even being exposed to the outside, it can get hot inside.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: So buckets of ice filled with costanitas,
25:56
SPEAKER_01: light lagers in small bottles so you drink them before they get warm,
26:00
SPEAKER_01: keep coming.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Bars like La Troja tell the story of Barranquilla as much as any newspaper ever could.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: Another popular night spot is La Cueva.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: It's a former fisherman bar that was taken over in the 1950s by El Grupo de Barranquilla,
26:17
SPEAKER_01: a famous group of intellectuals,
26:19
SPEAKER_01: painters,
26:19
SPEAKER_01: and writers that included Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alejandro Obregón.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: They wanted to create Paris of the 1920s in Barranquilla,
26:29
SPEAKER_01: and the bar became a symbol of the group,
26:31
SPEAKER_01: and they debated ideas amidst wild,
26:34
SPEAKER_01: rum-fueled parties.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: The bar closed in 1969, then sat abandoned for decades throughout the Civil War.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: A cultural organization rescued it and reopened it in 2004 in its helping revive
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Barranquilla's bohemian spirit.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: On my final night in town, I found myself with a large group from the festival at La Troja again.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: It was much more crowded, and the Costanitas and Aguardiente was flowing.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: I ran into my friend,
27:04
SPEAKER_01: Jose Cotes,
27:05
SPEAKER_01: who has the restaurant Mantequilla in Rio Hacha in La Guajira,
27:09
SPEAKER_01: the desert peninsula not far away.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: We went outside for some fresh air, and he saw some of his friends.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: They were musicians, just coming from a gig.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: One was carrying a guitar, and the other, Fabio Leonardo Camargo Sanchez, a microphone.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: They set up on an uneven sidewalk in front of an auto garage with a rainbow of
27:31
SPEAKER_01: plastic flags strung overhead and tied to a light post.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: Little cups of aguardiente appeared and a joint was passed around.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: They began to sing the classic Vallenato song, El Arco Iris.
27:55
SPEAKER_03: Pintame una golondrina y te diré si eres un buen pintor.
28:01
SPEAKER_03: Debe de tener en el pico una espina y en los ojos su color.
28:08
SPEAKER_03: Pintame una golondrina y te diré si eres un buen pintor.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: Debe de tener en el pico una espina y en los ojos
28:24
SPEAKER_03: Dice que cuando Cristo agonizaba, llegó del occidente.
28:30
SPEAKER_03: El hombre de la pegolondrina, a limpiarle la cara.
28:36
SPEAKER_03: Y a quitarle a su pico las espinas, grabadas en la frente.
28:52
SPEAKER_03: Oh,
29:34
SPEAKER_03: Cuenta que los arcoiris y que nacen en la nevada Frente a Valle de un par Y después
29:43
SPEAKER_03: de un aguasar y que se esconden en la sabana Cerquita y pastilla Y después las
29:50
SPEAKER_03: golondrinas y que salen para que el sol las mire Y después desaparecen en el aire
30:11
SPEAKER_03: You are my rainbow, my light.
30:13
SPEAKER_03: You are my rainbow, my light.
30:15
SPEAKER_03: You are my rainbow.
30:18
SPEAKER_03: And you, and you, and you.
30:21
You are my rainbow, my light.
30:24
SPEAKER_03: You are my rainbow, my light.
30:50
SPEAKER_03: Mira lo que se le ocurrió a esta loca.
30:52
SPEAKER_03: Cuenta que los arcoiris son muy bellos y en el fondo la cruz.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: Él tenía un amigo que se llamaba Jaime Molina.
31:03
SPEAKER_03: Mira lo que le dijo.
31:04
SPEAKER_03: Lo pintó Jaime Molina y le decía que es para de la luz.
31:13
SPEAKER_03: Cuentan en los arcoiris y que nacen en la sabana frente a Valle del Mar.
31:19
SPEAKER_03: Y después de un agua acera y que se esconden en la sabana, son que están partidas.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: This episode was produced by Juliana Duque and myself, Nicholas Gill.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: Thank you to Sabor Barranquilla for inviting us and to the city of Barranquilla for
32:07
SPEAKER_01: providing the soundtrack and flavors to write home about.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed this one of a kind episode, please share it and let us know.