One of our favorite things to do when we travel is to take a local cooking class.
Food and travel go hand and hand, and what better way to learn about a country’s culture than to learn about its food?
One of the best cooking classes we’ve done in Costa Rica was one in La Fortuna, one of the main farming towns in Costa Rica.
I highly recommend it for anyone who loves food, agriculture and farming. You’ll learn all about Costa Rican food!
Click this link to book the La Fortuna cooking class and farm tour with our discount!
La Fortuna Cooking Class and Farm Tour
This La Fortuna cooking class and farm tour is an exclusive tour run by our tour partner and they take you to their own private farm and outdoor kitchen.
One of the coolest parts of this La Fortuna cooking class is that it starts at their organic farm to learn about the cultivation and harvesting process of the fruits, herbs and vegetables.
Once you understand how difficult it can be to grow something to eat, you learn to appreciate your food much more and think more consciously about putting healthy, natural foods in your body.
The Farm
Our guide took us around their organic farm, showing us staple crops such as yucca, cacao, plantains, bananas, pineapples and other fruits and vegetables.
If you’ve never seen a pineapple plant, guava tree or oregano bush, you will love this part.
During the presentation, we picked some of the ingredients we needed for our meal, such as oregano, lettuce, culantro and yucca.
Learning how to harvest yucca was super fun. It’s definitely a bit harder than it looks, and experiences like these always make you appreciate your food and the farmers even more!
This La Fortuna cooking class really gives you the true “farm to table” experience. You will leave feeling more connected to your food.
Furthermore, you will have a stronger appreciation for the hard working farmers.
After we picked our ingredients, we headed back to the kitchen to prepare lunch.
To the Kitchen
The kitchen for the cooking part is a covered, outdoor old style traditional Costa Rican kitchen, using a wooden fire.
All of the dishes we made were cooked on this fire stove top.
La Fortuna Cooking Class Menu
The menu for our La Fortuna cooking class was chicken in annotto sauce (pollo achiotado), yuca and plantain chips, corn tortillas, salad, patacones (smashed fried plantains), platano maduro (fried plantains) and pico de gallo.
Annatoo is not a well known condiment in the US or Canada, but it is a common ingredient in Central America and Mexico.
It doesn’t really have a flavor, so it’s used more for coloring.
Back in the day, annatto was used in makeup and cosmetics thanks to its bright red color that is hard to get off.
We made the chips from the yuca we picked and seasoned it with the oregano we gathered.
We also learned how to make corn tortillas (using corn flour), a staple in Costa Rica.
I loved how this tour was super hands on, with your local Costa Rican cook and translator guiding you along the way.
Then they showed us how to plate it to make the traditional casado.
As we enjoyed our delicious meal, it felt so rewarding to eat fresh food that we picked ourselves right from the farm!
The flavor of the chicken from being cooked on the stove was delicious. It tasted super fresh and had a nice smoky flavor.
La Fortuna Cooking Class Video
To see the whole cooking class and farm tour experience, check out our video below.
They also have menus for vegetarians and vegans and they change the menu according to the ingredients of the season.
I really liked that they printed out the menu to let guests take home. I thought that was a nice touch and souvenir.
Book the La Fortuna pura vida cooking class with our discount in the link!
In case you’re looking for more fun things to do in La Fortuna, check out the following posts
The Springs Hot Springs Day Pass
Plan your trip to La Fortuna
We have lots of blog posts about La Fortuna to help you plan your trip!
La Fortuna in 1, 2, 3 and 4 days
Drew Irwin says
We would love to do a cooking class but are staying at Los defines near Tambor so La Fortuna is far away. Do you happen to know a cooking class near where we will be?
Sammi says
Hmm, hard to say in that area, cultural activities are a bit scarce. I really only know of formal cooking classes in places like La Fortuna, Turrialba and Sarapiqui…the farming towns, Tambor isn’t really. I’d say maybe you can just look for something informal and ask a local if they know anyone or even if their mom/grandmother wouldn’t mind if you paid them some money and let them come to their house to observe and eat with the family…