Peruvian Food Friday: An Introduction

Pollo a la Brasa, arguably Peru's national dish.
Creative Commons licensed photo from Ianz's photostream

In my continuing effort to amp up the old blog, I am happy to introduce a new regular feature. Every Friday I'm going to post photos and recipes of some typical aspect of Peruvian cuisine, obviously focusing more on the food of the Andes where I live. You may expect tantalizing samplings of typical dishes, snacks, desserts, drinks and cocktails; all with advice for reconstructing all the deliciousness no matter on which continent your kitchen is located. For today, I'm just going to give you a bit of a teaser explaining why anyone should care about Peruvian food in the first place and then on to the recipes next week, all organized-like! Huzzah!

A little background...


Lots of people are going crazy about Peruvian food these days, including Peruvians. Bonafide celebrity chefs like Gaston Acurio and Javier Wong are shouting about the vast array of ingredients available to the Peruvian cook and the creativity and diversity of the resulting cuisine. The trademark of Peruvian food, and Peruvian culture at large, is that it is actually made up of three distinct geographical iterations: the coast, the jungle and the mountains, or la costa, la selva y la sierra. The differing climates and landscapes in these three broad regions dictate what food grows, what clothes people wear, the work people do (and by extension, what they dance and sing about, how they decorate those clothes, what dishes they prepare for special occasions.) Pride in these indigenous traditions and celebration of the interchange between the regions is a big part of the Peruvian national identity and is talked about in schools and textbooks. When it comes to food, each region has a host of typical ingredients and dishes.  On the coast you have seafood and ceviche, in the sierra you've got cuy (guinea pig) and one thousand varieties of potato, in the jungle you find all the delicious tropical fruits your heart desires and much more.

"Restaurant with Waiter. Dog in Background."  From a 1923 botanical expedition to Peru by Captain Marshall Field.  From the public domain archives of The Field Museum

Those celebrity chefs especially like to focus on this exchange of culture between regions. Since the all-powerful Inca emperors had peons construct elaborate road systems extending to all parts of their empire and then had more peons run back and forth getting all the delicacies from each region, culture and cooking in the region has been marked by innovation and mixing. Of course, this continued with the influence of the Spanish conquistadors, the African traditions of slaves and more recently the influx of Japanese and Chinese immigrants.  Basically, Peruvians have been doing "fusion" for centuries before if became a buzzword for foodies everywhere.

I've met very proud Peruvians who say their national cuisine is the best in the world.  Well, I'm not sure about all that...maybe if you live in Lima.  Still eating and cooking here is always an adventure and I'm excited to share some of the weird and wonderful dishes I'm learning to make.  Stay tuned next Friday for even more exciting musings on eating and drinking, plus a recipe!