Generales

By: Natalia Piedrahita Tamayo- Journalist

Universidad de Antioquia’s Emisora Cultural, in association with Instituto de Cultura y Patrimonio, launched the radio series Fogones antioqueños, delicias para el oído y el paladar, a special that reviews the region’s gastronomic customs and main dishes.

Traditional cuisine from the region of Urabá, Antioquia. Photograph: courtesy of Luis Alfonso Vidal.

Alongside the great pleasure of eating is the act of cooking as a mixing and creative process, sometimes for pleasure, and other times, for survival. This activity, which confinement turned into a habit, has its roots in tradition, heritage and knowledge.

A kitchen is that home laboratory of flavor where civilizations have mixed their food customs, sometimes using knowledge from the past; other times, innovating beyond recipe books. "All living beings eat, but the only ones that change the consistency of food are human beings. Although there are hypotheses of other species that do something similar, we are the only ones who, after dominating fire, engaged in sybaritism, that is, the pleasure of eating", explained the anthropologist and specialist in Colombian gastronomy Julián Estrada Ochoa.

Together with the culinary journalist Lorenzo Villegas Rúa, they host the radio program Fogones antioqueños, which is broadcast every week on Universidad de Antioquia’s Emisora Cultural (see box). It’s a special that takes as its starting point essential questions about regional gastronomy, such as: what are the differences between beans made in Hispania and those made in Yarumal, or what changes have taken place in the last centuries in terms of food?

Paisas have been changing their eating habits for decades. There was a time when Medellín was so small that people could go home to eat at lunchtime. From 1950 onwards, as the real estate expansion took place in the city, unions got companies to feed their employees. This is when fast-food restaurants arrived: Hamburgers, pizzas and roasted chicken have displaced traditional food.

Little Variety and a Lot of Creativity

Traditions, myths and habits are part of the narrative of this special. For example, it explains why beans and corn are fundamental for paisas. "When most of the settlers arrived in these lands, they only came for gold. When they found difficult weather conditions, they were unable to grow the extensive crops that did expand in other regions. Later, the indigenous people taught Antioquians that they could open a hole in the ground with the ferrule and, if they put in three bean seeds and one corn seed, the latter would support the other three as they grew", Villegas Rúa said.

One of the topics addressed in the series is corn as a source of Antioquian recipes like soups, tortillas, tamales and mazamorras. Two other protagonists, the expert pointed out, are plantains and beans made varied and healthy recipes. "Depending on the region, they are soaked with cabbage, yucca, plantain, carrots, pumpkin or potato peels, and they are seasoned with different spices and legumes". "Cuisine, regardless of the culture or world region in which it is framed, transcends a compendium of recipes. It is love, medicine, vegetable garden, history, geography, marketplace, agriculture, techniques, chemistry, physics, mathematics, literature, poetry, politics. This is the collection of subjects that we are going to talk about on the program", Julián Estrada Ochoa.

For the culinary journalist, soup is a heritage dish that is being lost. "From an aesthetic point of view, it is the opening of the table and the mind. It is key for health because it is hydrating. In the past, soup satisfied people for the rest of the day. Although it is still served at grandmothers' and mothers' houses, it has lost relevance for new generations", Villegas Rúa reflected. He also emphasized the contradiction soup, one of the healthiest recipes, implies nowadays when nutritional value is more important than food.

The figure of the matron —mother, grandmother, home caretaker— is another capital theme in the Antioquian culinary narrative. The researchers said that, in the past, this land did not offer a variety of crops, and it was matrons who invented recipes to feed their children daily. Moreover, they were the guardians of the table customs for a long time under the motto "The family that eats together stays together". Now, they are the authors of the key recipe books of gastronomic traditions.

Besides this maternal union, food reflects historical aspects of a region and its cultural connections or disconnections. "Antioquia is its rivers —Cauca and Magdalena— and its sea... Urabá has a very important cuisine. However, in popular terms, fish is still a mystery in the department’s interior", commented Villegas Rúa.

Eating stimulates the taste buds and nose. Similarly, the sounds of vegetables boiling in a pot or of fish frying in a pan make people want to have them on a plate. In that sense, this compendium of narrations on Antioquian culinary traditions is meant to be a library for researchers, teachers and audiences to have a collection of gastronomic sound experiences. It is an invitation to crave through the ear.

The radio series Fogones Antioqueños is broadcast every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. on Universidad de Antioquia’s Emisora Cultural.

Bajo Cauca: 96.3 FM

Magdalena Medio: 94.3 FM

West: 90.6 FM

East: 103.4 FM

Southwest: 100.9 FM

Urabá: 102.3 FM

Medellín: 1410 AM / 101.9 FM

In this Holy Week broadcast, the researchers wondered why people in Antioquia’s interior don’t have the custom of eating food from the sea and rivers: