This past weekend, on April 15, I had the fun experience to go to El festival de la almojábana at Lares with my mom, my sister, and a family friend. La almojábana is a typical “fritura” of the municipality of Lares. It’s made with rice flour and fried. La almojábana can be sweet or savory. The sweet stuffings we encountered were Nutella, guava, guava with cheese, powdered sugar, and chocolate. The savory feelings were meat, and some even had seafood! ers. The savory almojábana tastes good, kind of tastes like a doughy fried pancake. The sweet almojábana tasted, well, sweeter. It was kind of like a bakery pastry that had been deep fried.
The festival takes place, as I said, in Lares, Puerto Rico at La Plaza Pública de Lares. The festival has a lot of different artisanal kiosks, it has live music, kiosks of fritura, pinchos, natural juices, comida criolla, plants for sale, drinks, and a lot more! The plat kiosks added a beautiful touch of green to the hot day. The plaza gets crowded and a little bit hot, so for next year, I recommend putting breezy clothes and taking sunglasses.
The music played in the festival was the typical Puerto Rican music. There was salsa, merengue, bachata, ballads, and even trovadores. You can go dance with friends, family, or s/o.
In another part of the plaza, there were a lot of artisanal kiosks. Some sold jewelry, others wood carvings. There were soaps, knitted baby-ware, books, antiques, and a lot more. Everything was at a good price, and the soaps smelled delicious.What I didn’t like about the festival is that they don’t have a lot of almojábana stands, I had to wait to get mine. Since its a typical plate of Lares, I believe that they should have been selling more almojábana!. But overall, the festival was a fun and different thing to do on the weekend: one that favors more “la cultura puertorriqueña”. The plaza of Lares is very pretty and it’s something I recommend checking out, even if there is no festival going on. They have a lot of different things to check out. You can click here to check out what to do!