Cartagena is currently celebrating the 37th edition of “El Festival del Pastel.” At the popular annual get-together, the city’s best pasteles are selected and then offered to offer locals and visitors, enabling them to enjoy this traditional meal.
At this year’s event, held in Centenario Park in Cartagena’s historic downtown, more than 20 stands display a variety of pasteles, a type of rice cake with vegetables, meat, and potatoes, all wrapped in banana leaves. The festival menu includes pasteles with pork, chicken, hen, and a vegetarian choice. Prices range from 17.000 to 32.000 pesos (approximately US$3.8 to US$7.30)
Cartagena’s traditional pasteles
Irma Pedroza, one of the attendees at El Festival del Pastel, moved from Bogotá to Cartagena a year ago. Prior to the city’s 2024 Pastel Festival, she had never had the chance to try the local delicacy. “In Bogotá we eat tamal,” Pedroza explained, before adding that she had heard about the Festival on social media and had been keen to taste a pastel.
A tamal – a small steamed cake made of corn dough, filled with different fillings, and wrapped in a banana leaf – is very similar to a pastel. However, the major difference is that pasteles do not contain flour.
After sampling her first pastel at the Festival, Pedroza commented on the difference in taste and texture, and also was surprised to find an extra ingredient that tamales do not have: a slice of eggplant. “[The pastesles] were huge and tasty!,” she concluded.
Maria Alejandra Hincapie, from the outskirts of Cartagena, was at the Festival to help her mother sell pasteles. Her mother has been part of this festival for more than 20 years and previously even won the competition for the best pastel. Hincapie said that in order to create her prize-winning dish, her mother cooks the rice and meat separately and adds the carrots, olives, potatoes and eggplant later on. The mixture is then cooked for another two hours within the banana leaves, making the total cooking time for this delicious dish around five hours.
Local chefs compete to sell pasteles at Cartagena festival
Cartagena’s local government opened the application process for potential Festival participants on November 23. A total of 30 of the applications were selected to participate in the Festival, after having gone through a vigorous cooking test in front of a judging committee which evaluated taste, presentation, use of traditional ingredients, cooking practices, and texture.
The Festival will award and recognize the three best pasteles. The first prize will win 5.000.000 COP, the second 2.500.000 COP, and the third place 1.500.000 (approximately US$1,128 to US$338)
According to Dayana Aguilar, one of the Festival’s selected vendors, pork is the most popular pastel filling. Aguilar attended this years’ Festival to help her cousin, who is participating for the first time. As part of her efforts to promote her cousin’s pasteles, Aguilar walks around the park inviting visitors to their stand and explaining their special heir stand offers the “triphasic” combination, which includes three types of meat including beef ribs. She also explains that her cousin’s delicacies have a particularly special ingredient: they are made with love.
Cartagena’s El Festival del Pastel started on December 16 and will continue until Christmas Day, December 25, when it will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Dumek Turbay, Cartagena’s Mayor, has invited locals to participate in the Festival, adding that their involvement is an important contribution towards the city’s economic development as well as its efforts to “strengthen Cartagena’s cultural identity.”