Seasonal Snack · Fried Queen Ants
Hormigas Culonas (Big-Bottomed Ants)
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The ants are only harvested for a few weeks a year, right after the first heavy rains send winged queen leafcutter ants swarming out of their nests, and Guane indigenous communities were eating them long before the Spanish arrived.
Queen leafcutter ants are toasted or fried with salt until their abdomens turn crisp, then sold by the bag as a crunchy, nutty snack. Vendors at Bucaramanga's bus terminal and the colonial town of Barichara sell them out of jars and paper cones.
Why it's made this way: Santander's dry tropical forests host the specific leafcutter ant species harvested here, and the practice traces directly back to the region's pre-Hispanic Guane inhabitants, making it one of Colombia's oldest documented street snacks.
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Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries.
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