Cuisine a la Peru

Lunch on Taquile Island (Lake Titticaca): Notice the Inca Cola--a very popular Peruvian soft drink concoction that tastes rather like cream soda with the flavor quotient multiplied two or three times. Beth liked it, and this is a photo of her lunch!

Food partaken on one's travels always contributes color and definition to the memories of the journey. For me, that definition and those colors are largely pleasing in my memories of Peru; the food was GOOD!

For this "foodie" narrative, let me address the potato first, especially for all you rabid trivia buffs who can hardly wait to share that Peru lays claim to being the place of origin for this important tuber. In fact, the International Potato Center is based in Lima, Peru. Three thousand of the world's five thousand potato varieties grow in the Andean region, a region encompassing Peru. The story goes that when McDonalds first set up in Peru, none of those 3000 varieties of potato was deemed acceptable to use for McDonalds french fries, and then McDonalds brazenly imported an "acceptable" potato. Well, in the potato homeland, such an affront catalyzed the development of one more potato variety. Now Peru boasts 3000 + 1 potato varieties, and McDonalds no longer imports potatoes to its Peruvian franchises. By the way, every variety of potato I sampled in Peru tasted fine!

Here are four potatoes we sampled at a weaving village in the Andes. Carolee let me try the blue potato on her plate, so I tasted five different varieties that meal--all good, too.

Before I departed for Peru, my brother Phil posited the possibility of my consuming the popular Latin American speciality ceviche--raw fish (fin and/or shell) marinated in lemon or lime juice plus spices. His description of the dish failed to inspire any great desire on my part to pursue a tasting opportunity. However, tour guide Claire also raved about the gustatory pleasures of ceviche, and by DAY 2 Beth and I succumbed and ordered a portion to split. Immediately smitten, I now rank ceviche on my list of favorite foods.

A portion of ceviche: In Peru it is traditionally served with slices of sweet potato.

Here is a photo of another favorite meal: arroz con pollo--cilantro rice with chicken--for a main course. (To the left is half a portion of ceviche again; Beth and I would split an order of ceviche so we wouldn't be too full to sample other menu items as well. To the right is a portion of a salad that Beth and I also split.)

This is stewed goat with rice. Beth ordered it and I tasted it. So now I have eaten goat.

Guinea pig (cuy) is a credible menu option in Peru and apparently has been for centuries, for in Cusco's main cathedral hangs a famous painting of the Last Supper portraying Christ and his disciples dining on guinea pig. Beth and I and a couple others in Tour Intrepid determined that somewhere along the journey we would try guinea pig. In Aguas Calientes, the night before we visited Machu Picchu, our opportunity presented itself when the selected restaurant for our dinner meal included guinea pig on the menu.

That's right--those are guinea pig feet you see sticking up in the air!

Against her fork, Beth lined up "remains" of the guinea pig feast. The "gore" you see is really sauce and not blood, although I informed Beth that it could be difficult to have our viewers believe such!

Eating guinea pig is an endeavor full of bones--slow and laborious. Even if travel literature would have you believe that guinea pig has that ubiquitous chicken taste, I do not agree. I like chicken but I don't particularly like guinea pig. A once in a lifetime consumption experience will suffice.

In the Andean region I also supped on alpaca cutlets a few times--the flavor always pleasing, even the one portion that was rather tough. Quinoa soup became another trusted, and always savored, meal option.

With regard to the Amazon stint of our travels in Peru, our most notorious meal for the memories would have to be when we dined on the piranha caught during a morning fishing trip. Actually, I should clarify: Carolee does not like fish, so it was I who ate piranha and I who discovered the delectable flavor. Eating piranha is bony labor, too, but the flesh in between the abundance of bones is incredibly tasty. I would eat piranha again any time.

Our catch all arrayed on a bench in the boat. The piranha--at least the kind we caught--have the red bellies.

Still, when all is eaten and remembered, only one menu item is likely to be transferred into my real life cuisine: rice and beans. Every lunch and dinner we consumed at the lodge on the Amazon--always served buffet style--included a rice dish and some kind of local beans. Any of the food offered for the lunch and dinner buffets was worthy of sampling and ultimately ranked in the "delicious" category most of the time, but it was the rice and beans that became my favorite part of each meal. I would save them for last; they were dessert.