Colombia, a fruit paradise in the midst of a culinary revolution
NUGGET-FRIENDLY FRUITS 5/6. Colombia is like a vast Garden of Eden, with more than 2,500 varieties of fruit growing within its borders. Since the end of the armed conflict in 2016, producers, consumers, and restaurateurs have been rediscovering this rich heritage, sparking a boom in the culinary scene, reports the Spanish weekly El País Semanal.
Until 1863, Colombia was an exotic fruit. For three centuries, it was alternately a kingdom, a viceroyalty, and a republic of New Granada, [so named by the Spanish conquistadors] in honor of the Andalusian city and the thorny shrub that produces a red fruit filled with juicy, sweet seeds.
Víctor Beltrán, a self-taught man who grew up very close to the botanical garden [in Bogota, the capital] and listened attentively to the explanations of his biologist mother, shows a coin with a pomegranate in relief, a coin that the Bank of the Republic minted to commemorate the 200th anniversary of independence [on July 20, 2010].
When it broke free from the metropolis, the country swapped the name of a fruit for that of a navigator [Christopher Columbus]. “The pomegranate is not from here,” Beltrán explains. “It originates from what is now Iran. In Colombia, the plant grows less tall and is used for medicinal purposes, in infusions, for stomach aches.”
The Paloquemao market in Bogota is a natural pharmacy and a gigantic pantry. There you can find fruits from the Amazon [in the south], the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta [in the north], the Andes [in the west], the páramos [an area of high plateaus]
Courrier International
