Encanto Dinner and a Movie Night + Colombia Study

Last night we had a Colombian feast inspired by Encanto! Not gonna lie, I originally thought Encanto was based somewhere in Mexico, so I planned this particular movie night to coincide with Cinco de Mayo. Then I got to researching and realized it’s based in Colombia.  There’s so much in Encanto that is representative of Colombia!

Encanto Dinner and a Movie Night

As I was researching Colombian foods for the menu, I noticed that many popular Colombian dishes are shown in the movie. Julieta (Mirabel’s mom) is giving out buñuelos during the first song to heal people. She is making arepas con queso a little bit later and feeds one to Mirabel to heal her cut hand. Also, when everyone is sitting down to eat before Isabela gets proposed to, they’re all eating ajiaco. Ajiaco is a Colombian chicken and potato soup served with rice, corn on the cob, avocado, and cream. For some reason I thought Ajiaco was a spicy soup, but it’s not. To me it tasted like comfort food.

The girls loved the churros and chocolate sauce from our Coco movie night and begged me to make those for dessert. I also made some dulce de leche dipping sauce. I found Colombiana at Publix, which is a Colombian soda that tastes a lot like cream soda with just a hint of orange. As a southerner, we call all sodas “Coke” so I was telling people I found Colombian Coke for our Encanto night. I figured I might should change the wording on that, so we’ll call it Colombian soda 🤪.

*I’ll link all the recipes at the bottom of this post

Encanto Dinner Menu

Drinks

Jalapeño Lime Punch
Colombiana soda

Appetizer

Chips and Dip
Buñuelos

Entree

Arepas con Queso
Ajiaco served with rice, corn, avocado and cream

Dessert

Cinnamon Sugar Churros
Dulce de Leche
Chocolate Sauce

 

How to make Jalapeño Lime Punch

Let’s talk about that punch. It’s probably more Mexican inspired than Colombian, but I saw this jalapeño lime juice at Trader Joe’s and had to try it. I like my drinks more bubbly, so I added ginger ale, but then that toned down the jalapeño kick, so I added some muddled jalapeños to get it back. It tastes just like a jalapeño margarita without the alcohol. I’ll be going back to Trader Joe’s to stock up before it’s out of season. Making this punch is very simple:

1. Rim the glass with tajin (if desired)
2. Muddle up half of a good size jalapeño and add to the glass
3. Pour the jalapeño lime juice a little over halfway into the cup
4. Top with ginger ale and stir it up
5. Garnish with a jalapeño and a lime slice if desired

 

Colombia Study

I decided to turn this into a learning opportunity for all of us. We watched videos about Colombia and looked up facts about the country. The girls even took their research and created a slideshow presentation to tell their family members all about Colombia and how it’s represented in Encanto. Audrey wasn’t thrilled about this at first, but got into it as we went. Raley is all about some presentations, especially if it involves slideshows. I’m sure we won’t do this with every movie night we do, but this was a fun little extra to our typical Disney dinner and a movie. Maybe we’ll learn about France and watch Beauty and the Beast next.

We learned so many fun facts about Colombia! I’ll share a few that are depicted in the movie and you can look for them next time you watch!

• Many of their houses are similar to the one in Encanto – they’re laid out around a central courtyard.

• There are also colorful apartments and buildings like what you see when they’re walking in the village.

• The super tall trees are called wax palm trees and they’re the national tree of Colombia.

• We learned that 70-80% of the world’s emeralds are found there, which may be why they chose emerald for the pieces of Bruno’s vision.
• They are also known for their flowers, which could be why they chose that for Isabela’s gift.
• I thought this fact was super cool – Colombia is considered a megadiverse region because of the largely varying biomes and the number of species living there. They have a wide range of climates such as snow covered volcanoes and mountains, tropical beaches, dense rainforests, wide open plains, deserts, and wet jungles. Because of its diverse climate, it has the largest number of endemic species worldwide. About 10% of the world’s animal species live in Colombia. I think that’s so neat! All of the animals that come into Antonio’s room when he gets his gift are native to Colombia.
• We also learned through a recent writing assignment in Raley’s English curriculum that jaguars like to climb trees, and we see Antonio riding a jaguar up a tree in the jungle in his room. So cool!
• They also don’t have seasons since they’re so close to the equator. You’d think it would be super hot all the time, and in some places it gets very hot, but for the most part it’s somewhere around 80 degrees year round. Because they have no need for a  summer break, kids go to school from February-November with a long break over the holidays.

We had so much fun planning for Encanto dinner and a movie night. All of us enjoyed learning about the country and it’s so cool to see pieces of the culture depicted in the movie. Disney always does a great job with this. We invited my parents and my sister’s family to enjoy the evening with us, and we all had a great time.

Links for recipes:

The recipes I used for the Colombian foods were from Sweet y Salado. She also has a YouTube channel, which helped to see how everything is made. I’ll link all of those below. The churros and chocolate sauce recipe was part of the Coco menu from Fairytale Foodie’s Pixar Cookbook. I’ll link that also 🙂

Buñuelos:
Recipe
Video

Arepas con Queso:
Recipe
Video

Ajiaco:
Recipe
Video

Dulce de Leche:
Recipe

Churros with Chocolate Sauce:
Get the Pixar Cookbook here