t’s 8am and at stall number 7 in Buenaventura’s Galeria de Pueblo Nuevo market Jenny Moreno tends to a mishmash of pans, the contents bubbling away on glowing coal embers. Her tiny kitchen is stacked with silver pots of seafood, plastic basins of vegetables, chopping boards of alliums and bundles of fresh herbs. There is a sink, but the tap is for decoration only. A large plastic barrel and two smaller bins serve as the water supply. Now and again the strip light on the wall musters enough energy to bathe the room in stark light for a second or two. “The space is small but I make it work.” Jenny says, before launching back into her morning prep, unfazed by trivialities like electricity or running water. As a 34 year veteran of the market kitchen she knows her work.

Having entrusted me with the shrimps, Jenny moves on to the Sancocho, one of Colombia’s most beloved soups. She’s making Sancocho de Ñata, which has a base of fish. She grabs cilantro, cilantro cimarrón and basil, chops onion and chunks of potato, cassava and plantain and drops them all into a pot of water. In the blink of an eye she’s already onto the next task: rinsing a silver-grey pompano fish and cleaving it into pieces to pre-cook in lemon and water. “I need to make sure it’s properly cleaned out before I add it into the Sancocho.” She explains.

“Tinto, tinto, tinto” the coffee vendor calls out as he passes the kitchens and stalls. His metal cart, the frame of a baby buggy in its previous life, is filled with mismatched flasks of tinto (black coffee) ready to decant into disposable plastic cups. Crude and unsophisticated the coffee serves its purpose as a sharpener for the day ahead.

In front of the wooden-framed kitchens a row of plastic chairs and tables wait for customers to fill them later. Opposite, a gaggle of boisterous young men jostle customers leaving a grocery store, pestering them to let them carry their bags for tips. Everyone seems completely oblivious to the armed soldier standing a few metres away, sucking on a lolly and looking bored. “They’re here everyday.” Jenny tells me, not looking up from the onions she’s dicing. It’s an unsurprising sight in a city like Buenaventura. A city with a reputation.

Buenaventura is home to the country’s busiest port, responsible for around 60% of Colombia’s sea imports and exports, a fact that should make it a wealthier place than it is. However, it also makes it a strategic location for drug trafficking, a problem that continues to plague Colombia. The area suffered badly during the country’s long-running armed conflict with guerrilla groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Many people living in the countryside around Buenaventura were displaced and ended up in the city, where the population has grown from 50,000 to 400,000 in just 30 years. In 2016 a peace agreement was signed between the Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, but armed groups continue to operate in and around Buenaventura. A few years ago the city earned the unfortunate title of ‘Colombia’s deadliest city’ and reading about the violence visited upon this city and its residents makes your blood run cold, it’s what keeps visitors away and makes many feel that it’s a lost cause. The decades of gang violence, deep-rooted corruption and a lack of investment have scarred the society. Yet, the city’s cuisine and food culture is one of the few bright sparks here.

A young woman wearing a tabard apron comes rushing into the kitchen with a metal serving spoon in one hand and a lump of coal in the other. With the spoon she scoops up a couple of the glowing coal embers from the stove and drops the fresh piece of coal in as a replacement. “That’s my niece.” Jenny explains “She runs the stall next door.” Do all the women help each other out, I ask? “No!” Laughs Jenny. “In fact it’s usually the opposite, but between family things are different.”

Jenny pours some water into a large plastic tub of freshly grated coconut, mixing it through to turn the water milky, before sieving the liquid into the Sancocho and leaving it to bubble away. Next she rummages in the sink and grabs a large, smooth stone, that looks like it could have been plucked from someone’s garden, and begins pounding some peeled garlic cloves on the chopping board. A makeshift pestle in a makeshift kitchen.

In another small pan piangua bivalves are doused in a coconut-based sauce. These tiny black, clam-like creatures are harvested from the mangrove forests along the Pacific coast. Here they form part of El Triple. The piangua are one of the ingredients specific to this coastline, showing off the earthy flavours of the mangroves in a spoonful.

Jenny buys the ingredients she cooks directly from the vendors in the market, where they sell all manner of produce. Basins stacked with shrimps of different shapes and sizes, piles of smoked and dried fish and some of the largest fish eggs I’ve ever seen: great, yellow marbles enrobed in creamy white sacks. Other stalls specialise in fresh herbs and dried flowers, some are integral to the traditional dishes and some used to fashion remedies and infusions. In other parts of the market, vibrant cacao pods and cows’ feet sit across the aisle from one another. It’s not a conventionally beautiful market but it’s no less fascinating for the fact.

Cilantro cimarrón is a fresh herb that’s new to me, Jenny explains, that it’s a vital component of the dishes she makes. “Cilantro cimarrón is like cilantro but different.” She suggests. The cilantro cimarrón leaves are long and lettuce-like, with serrated edges, Jenny adds some to the soup while it’s cooking, rather than at the end like you might with regular cilantro, it’s less delicate. “And this is the achiote.” Jenny pulls a mini-skillet filled with ruby-red annatto seeds from the embers, their colour bleeding into the frying oil. She pours some of the liquid into one of the pans, creating a pool of orangey-yellow that with a quick flick of her spoon, blends to turn the contents of the pot a rich ochre.

The malecón redevelopment was finished at the end of 2017 and features basketball and football courts, playgrounds, a growing number of restaurants and mango sellers galore. The atmosphere here is relaxed and jovial; people out enjoying the amusements on offer and basking in the ocean breeze. It’s an area that feels safe and gives a taster of what the rest of the city could become if money and attention is spent on it.

It’s 10am and the first customers arrive at the stall, a young couple and their son, who Jenny serves bowls of fish broth. The market is getting more chaotic and the women in the kitchens call out to customers as they pass, trying to entice them to eat at their stall and not their neighbours’. I hope that the next time I’m here they’re closer to getting the space they deserve, one with running water and electricity. A place that will showcase the rich culinary traditions embedded in these small kitchens and the women, like Jenny, who hold that knowledge to share.