1 month since we left, and only a day of rain. Life is treating us extremely well! We arrived in Medellin already a week ago, and stayed the whole time at our good friend Eduard’s place. Him and his family were really lovely; his dad always laughed everytime I ate things (I really show how much I love eating!!) and his mom cooked some amazing meals and made the best fresh juices I ever drank. They live in Bello, which is a suburb of Medellin. The view outside is absolutely breath taking, you see huge mountains wherever you look!
This is about a minute walk from Eduard's home. Check out the view, holy shit!
The view from Hugo (a friend/drummer of Witchtrap)'s place in the day
And the view at dusk. When it is really dark, you see the lights of the houses in the mountains as if they were stars!!
They have huge supermarkets here, with an extremely diverse fruit section. I’ve never seen such exotic fruits – some stuff here is actually impossible to find outside of the country. Here is a few samples of what I tried this week:
Papaya - A sweet and soft-like fruit. It was really good - not too sweet, just perfect with a nice exotic taste.
Granadilla - A parent of the pomgranate, is like yummy tasting...snot! Haha. You don't chew the seeds, you swallow everything whole.
Tomates de arbol - Tree Tomatoes. They are like tomatoes that taste like cantaloups! You have to remove the skin to eat it. You can also make juice out of 'em.
Lulo - Smells like old socks, but tastes like heaven! Very acid, this fruit is full of vitamin C. Eduard's mom made juice with it... here it is, taken in her garden with a lulo tree behind it.
The food we ate at home was extremely tasty. Everything tasted so comforting… it was like winter food, but in a tropical climate.
Arepa with quesito (cheese) and scrambled eggs. A typical breakfast, usually served with hot chocolate. Man, do they know how to eat here!
Arequipe - An absolutely amazing milk-caramel spread. I put this on everything, including bananas and wafers.
Arequipe on arepas. I think it's almost considered blasphemy here, but damn it's tasty!
Bifsteak with potatoes, yuca (some sort of very carby-potatoe) and rice. A coast-style meal, as Eduard's mom explained me.
Eduard's legendary frijoles (beans) with arepas, avocado, plantains, chicharron (fried pork) and rice. SO SO SO SO GOOD but deadly for my stomach (and poor François's nose) haha
And for desert, mazamorra! Corn grains, crushed with Mortar and pestle, then soaked in water with soda. It is usually cooked until soft and you eat it with arequipe, or other sweet stuff like cane-sugar candies (pictured here) or dried fruit pulp.
We also tried some of the infamous gigantör hotdogs. Check it out, it’s like half the size of an arm!!
Yeah, that's a hot dog. There's like 30 different toppings on this hotdog, including chips and pineapple sauce.
Our huge discovery is homemade Arepas de Chocolo – some kind of round bread which tasted like fresh sweet corn firm pancakes. I swear, it is like biting in sweet corn. Together with butter, salt and cheese, it will make any grown man cry of joy.
Artisanal-made arepas de chocolo. They don't look like much, but damn these are addictive. We bought three bags just to survive this week at our hostel!
Unfortunately, Colombia is not really a country of beer; usually people here drink beer to start the night – and always finish with hard liquor. They still have some nice refreshing beers, like Club Colombia and Poker (Lemmy’s favorite beer??):
Poker beer
Eduard, beside a convenient store. Did I mention that you can DRINK IN THE STREETS in Medellin? You can grab a beer, and sip it joyfully in a park. Ahh, heaven!
On Sunday, our friend Andres came and made diner for the whole gang of Eduard’s Metalero friends. He is a metal chef, and is extremely talented in the culinary arts. He made us Ajiaco, which is chicken soup with three different kinds of potato, vegetables and herbs (guasca), served with rice, avocado, corn, milk cream and capers. It was divine!!
Ajiaco
After mixing everything. It's so good. You can run a marathon after eating that feast!
Andres with his chef d'oeuvre
And for desert, he made ice-cream topped with warm balsamic-strawberry coulis. Here is how to do it:
Pick 8 big strawberries
Slice them up
In a hot pan, pour about 1 cup of balsamic vinegar
Add 3 tablespoons of sugar
Add the strawberries and cook them until they are soft
Prepare ice cream cups
Pour the coulis on top of the ice cream
And voilà! A sweet italian-style dessert. You can serve with a fresh leaf of mint if you want. Thanks for the recipe, Andres!
We also went to a market, which sold a really interesting dessert, called “Gelatina de Pata” – gelatin of leg… the taste is an unusual mix of beef broth and marshmallow:
Gelatina de pata
So yeah, that’s pretty much it for the culinary aspect of our first week in Medellin! We still have tons of stuff to try, like Bandeja Paisa and gigantic burgers… mmm!
Into the Void 
February 8th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
I am happy your time here in our country is being very cool for you….maybe sean and dora are coming to DEMONIZER METAL near from my house this week…you can talk with them if you want a heavy metal night!
February 10th, 2011 at 2:48 am
hey I have only one word to say:
UNA CHIMBA!!!!!
February 22nd, 2011 at 6:41 am
WOOOOOW, trop épique la photo du Hot Dog…
et je dois trop essayer cette recette de dessert fraise/balsamique
March 3rd, 2011 at 6:52 pm
The icecream with vinegar and strawberries will serve as dessert for 12 people tomorrow. Awesome and absolutely easy to make.