The Colombian table

A Colombian meal is ajiaco you finish with cream and capers, or a bandeja that is already a whole platter.

Ajiaco Santafereño is a Bogotá soup of three potatoes, chicken, and guascas, served with avocado, cream, capers, and rice on the side. Bandeja paisa is a platter: beans, rice, chicharrón, egg, arepa, hogao, ground meat. Arepa de queso can be breakfast or the starch on the bandeja.

The inherited table is a deep bowl or a wide platter — pick which.

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How it looks

The ajiaco table

A deep bowl, avocado, cream, capers, a little rice.

Ajiaco with avocado, cream, capers, and rice.

The inherited Bogotá lunch is the soup. Guests add cream, capers, avocado. Rice can sit beside, not a second platter of beans and chicharrón.

How it looks

The bandeja

One wide plate that already holds the feast.

Bandeja paisa: beans, rice, chicharrón, egg, and arepa.

The newer or Paisa table is the bandeja. It looks like too much. That is the point of this one dish. Do not also ladle ajiaco.

How it is served

The order of the room

Soup with avocado and capers, or the Paisa platter. Not both.

Do not serve ajiaco and bandeja together. The soup is the Andean lunch. The bandeja is the Paisa feast already stacked on purpose — that stack is one dish, not a buffet of extras.

An arepa alone with cheese is breakfast. On the bandeja it is already there.

Bring it home