Leticia has a varied gastronomic offer, influenced by various fish obtained from the Amazon River and its tributaries. Dishes such as little pirarucú balls, stuffed gamitana, tucunaré, dorado, patarasca (fish prepared in banana leaves), smoked fish, mojojoy, a worm obtained from palm trees and eaten fried, raw or stuffed, etc.
Casabe, a kind of arepa made with yucca brava, is another of the typical preparations of the region. As for exotic fruits, in Leticia the Amazon apple, arazá, pineapple, cupuaçu, among others, are consumed.
In Leticia there are restaurants that offer typical regional cuisine, fast food, and Brazilian and Peruvian food restaurants.
Amazon typical
Cassava Juanes
A typical dish prepared with boiled and grated cassava. The one that is mixed with rice and wrapped in achira leaf together with a good prey of chicken or jerky. Everything is prepared is steamed.
Purtumute
This dish is prepared with beans and boiled mote, which is boiled with coriander.
Jerky with tacacho
This delicious typical dish is prepared with mashed green plantains and accompanied by salty dried beef or pork. Other delicacies that can be enjoyed in this department are tamales, humitas and enrollado. It is a product that is only seen when it is peach season, a fruit that occurs at the beginning of each year.
Catfish in chontaduro sauce
To prepare this dish, the chontaduro is cooked for approximately two hours, then peeled, blended and left to rest. A sweat is made with the catfish, adding paprika, cassava, tomato, onion, salt, garlic and plantain. Before turning off the heat, add the chontaduro smoothie and begin to stir so that it mixes with the fish, and once thick, serve and enjoy. This recipe is a creamy mixture, with an ethnic and cultural tinge that can be accompanied with cassava or patacón, a preparation that is also an aphrodisiac.
Mojojoy
The mojojoy is a larva that hatches from the eggs of a beetle that settles on the bagasse of the palms, there it feeds with some mucus that it secretes. To harvest it, a cut is made on the same plant, where the beetles lay their eggs. After approximately 30 days, a colony of mojojoy emerges, which in its adult state can be consumed. According to Andrés Barrera, this product has many vitamins and can be prepared in different ways: raw, roasted, grilled, fried, sweated or in soup.
To cook them, just remove their heads and place them on the pan or depending on how you want to eat them.
Pintadillo ceviche
The pintadillo is another fish that is eaten a lot in the lower part of the Putumayo, it is a preparation influenced by other areas, since according to Andrés "we adopt part of the Peruvian culture, ceviche is from Peru." However, this dish changes in the way it is prepared, since in this area of the Amazon it is cooked with leche de tigre, which is a sauce made with the same fish and contains products such as lemon, chicory (coriander from the region) and peppers. The pieces of fish are cooked in lemon and salt and when served it has corn, lemon and lots of red onion.
Banana chips are used for decoration. After tasting this period, passion fruit juice is usually drunk, to remove the bitter taste that the onion can leave in the mouth.
Typical Amazon roasts
Many of the typical foods of the Amazon are grilled. This is how fish and meat with salt are stuffed with vegetables such as coriander, paprika and onion, and placed on the grill. Like most traditional Amazonian dishes, grilled barbecue is also accompanied with cassava, plantain, and chili pepper. The barbecue that is prepared with fish is made with piranha, tarpon or bocachico.
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