The “Fritanga” – just what the doctor ordered

Have you ever heard the word “fritanga”? It’s a dish that ever single visitor in Colombia must try!

“Fritanga” is a typical weekend lunch for Colombians. It is a varied dish served in a basket and enjoyed not with cutlery but your hands. When ordering fritanga you can mix and match, but it’s ingredients are commonly potato criolla (or “papita bogotana”), grilled banana, blood sausage (morcilla), long spicy pork sausage (longaniza), fried cassava (“yuquita frita”), stuffed potato, crackling (chicharrón), chorizo and chunchullo (fried pork small intestine). Nicknamed “the vitamin Ch” plate: chunchullo, chorizo, chicharrón are considered indispensable in it, and normally it is served with a beer, “una fría”.

One of the things that characterizes and differentiates Colombian regions are their different typical dishes. Fritanga is the most tipical dish in Andina region: Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Tolima, among others have Fritanga as the familiar weekend dish. It is very common to enjoy this delicious preparation in “plazas de mercado”, outdoor places where you can find and buy fruits and vegetables or, more typically in “Piqueteaderos” – restaurants specialized in Fritanga. If you’re in Bogota, one of the best well known places to try Fritanga is in “Piqueteadero Doña Segunda” in “Plaza 12 de Octubre”, in the northeast of the city.

But fritanga is so traditional and delicious that you can also find it in more formal restaurants. And while it’s most popular in Andina, people from all over Colombia eat Fritanga. The dish varies in each region, according to particular variations in the preparation of ingredients or even in quantity or variety of them.

No doubt, this is a dish in which takes you on a complete tour of Colombian food culture and traditions, by way of many colors, textures, and tastes. Go talk to your Colombian doctor and get a prescription for vitamin Ch to cure what ails you.