Written by Jill one of our very talented non-blogging members. This is the first of a 2-part series.

A few years ago I traveled to the Atacama Desert of southern Peru to work at an archaeological dig. I had a lot of expectations about my trip, but they didn’t really include any thoughts about what I’d be eating. I guess I’d never considered the cuisine of Peru or, if I had, I probably had some vague impression of spicy beans and rice, and not much else. I didn’t really expect to like the food, instead viewing it as sustenance for my hard days of work, and I definitely didn’t expect to fall in love with Peruvian food. But I did.

Peruvian cuisine is incredibly culturally diverse and geographically varied. Like anywhere else, it ranges from simple and homey to complex culinary creation. It’s so diverse, in fact, that I couldn’t possibly hope to cover all my bases here, so I hope this will just be a starting point for you if, like me, you’d never thought about Peruvian food. This seems like a good place for me to say that I am by no means an expert on this topic. I’ve only been to Peru once and I stayed mostly in one region. That was enough, though, to create a deep and lasting impression on me, and I’ve experimented with Peruvian cooking ever since.

The geography of Peru plays an important role in its various culinary styles, and the most dominant geographical features are the Andes, which cover much of the area of Peru. These mountains are so vast that they have a large impact on the weather of the country, in addition to effectively dividing it into three main zones: coast/desert, mountain, and jungle. The extreme difficulty in traveling between these zones has created distinct regional cuisines. Along the coast you will find a wonderful abundance of fresh seafood, thanks to the cold Humboldt Current, often prepared simply in ceviche or escabeche. The mountain plateaus are known for all manner of potatoes, alpaca, and grains like quinoa and kiwicha (both pseudocereals, meaning they are not true grasses). I don’t know much about jungle cuisine, except that it utilizes a wide variety of jungle fishes, animals, and fruits.

The Huarango milenario, the oldest Huarango tree in the area, which is very close to our dig site.

Immigration has been perhaps the biggest driving force of culinary change. Of course the Spanish brought with them their European and Arabic influences, but more recently (beginning in the 19th century) Peru has become to a vast number of Asian immigrants, mainly Chinese and Japanese. The fusion of these cooking styles with the styles and ingredients of Peru happened quickly, and eating has never been the same since. The Chinese restaurants, or chifas, once found only in Lima’s Chinatown, have since become ubiquitous and can be found in most cities in Peru. Chinese-Peruvian food, known as chifa, is so popular that many Peruvian homes serve lomo saltado, a Chinese-Peruvian fusion dish, often. It is a beef stir-fry that includes soy sauce, tomatoes, and fried potatoes. I experienced fabulous chifa while I was in Lima. Walking in Miraflores, I stopped for dinner at an empty chifa and accidentally ordered enough food to feed a family (my Spanish was not very good). I wished I could have eaten all of the wonderful fried rice with pieces of potato and sweet and sour chicken with big pieces of juicy tomato. Nikkei cuisine, or Japanese-Peruvian, was almost immediately popular and has only become more so over the last hundred years since Japanese immigrants arrived in Peru. It can be found on the menus of many of Lima’s top restaurants.

An example of the Japanese influence in Peru, this recipe for tequeños originates from a nikkei restaurant in Lima, and includes crab, mild white cheese, and oregano. They are served with a creamy avocado and key lime sauce.

Before I get much further I should discuss ingredients and their availability. I have to say that it’s been a little frustrating trying to recreate some of the fabulous dishes I ate in Peru, because I just can’t get the proper ingredients, and it’s difficult finding acceptable substitutes. Although quinoa is readily available by now (thank goodness!), I can’t easily get things like aceitunas (Peruvian black olives), olluco or yuca (tubers), huacatay (Peruvian marigold, sometimes called black mint), lúcuma (egg fruit), the many varieties of corn, or kiwicha (amaranth). One thing I really wish I could get my hands on is huarango, the fruit of a rare endangered acacia that survives in the desert by putting down roots up to 70 meters (230 feet). This fruit comes in a seed pod and reminds me, in both taste and texture, of a combination of pear, banana, and cotton candy. I could survive without all of that, though, if it weren’t for the sad lack of the wonderful potatoes and peppers found only in Peru. Before visiting Peru, I didn’t think I liked potatoes, but it turns out I just hadn’t ever tasted a fantastic potato. And the ajíes, or chile peppers, so integral to Peruvian cuisine just aren’t available here. They have such distinctive flavors that it’s difficult to find a suitable replacement. There is some hope, though. I’ve found at least a couple of online distributors of Peruvian supplies, and was able to order a few things.

Sometimes you can order or make your own ingredients.

Before I get down to the food, I want to take a minute to address drinks. If any drink is strongly associated with Peru, it’s pisco, a brandy distilled from the grapes in the Ica valley (which also produces wonderful wines). More specifically, a pisco sour is the national drink of Peru, and includes pisco, key lime juice, egg white, simple syrup, and a dash of bitters. I had this as a welcome-to-Lima drink at my hotel, and it was a good way to start my trip. If you like a sweeter drink, try a coctel de algarrobina (algarrobina is carob syrup), with sweetened condensed milk, egg yolk, and cinnamon.

Coctel de algarrobina

Or, if you’re feeling really adventurous, you could try primero. Now, I have no idea how primero is made, but I’m pretty sure it’s moonshine, and it tastes and smells about like gasoline. Oh, and you don’t have to have much before you’re singing songs to the birds, and you think they’re singing with you. Not that I’d know or anything. Ahem. If you’re not drinking alcohol, there are a number of other things you could be drinking. Chicha morada, for example, is a refreshing drink made from purple corn that, not surprisingly, is shockingly purple. While I was there, I drank three things primarily: fresh orange juice (citrus is plentiful, and we happened to have a roadside stand at the base of our driveway), fruit infusions (water boiled with fruit peels and remnants then chilled), and coca tea. Now, although coca tea is considered contraband in the US, as it is made from the leaves of the plant from which cocaine is derived, it is delicious, soothing, and I drank upwards of 3 cups a day without any ill effects. Oh, and I couldn’t possibly discuss Peruvian drinks without mentioning Inca Kola, which is as popular in Peru as Coca Cola, with advertisements for both cropping up in the most unlikely places. Inca Kola, in addition to being violently neon yellow, is flavored with lemon verbena, although it tastes a lot like bubblegum to me. It is very sweet, very bubbly, and worth trying if you haven’t.

There are restaurants and home cooking, and then there’s this whole other thing. I’m going to call it the food culture of the outdoors. Food carts and stands and wandering vendors. I mean, this is wonderful stuff. Rich and varied, always delicious, and a little bit risky in some cases. This includes papas fritas, and who doesn’t love freshly fried potatoes? There was a cart selling papas fritas and fried yucca right outside the internet café I used. Picarones—beignets with a pumpkin base often served with molasses—are always wonderful hot out of the oil. Chicharrones de harina, those little orange wagon-wheel looking things that puff when you fry them, were also common. Maybe the best street food is anticucho. Anticuchos are skewers of meat, often beef, grilled simply over an open flame. Just delicious. But my most memorable experiences with street food all happened on one eventful bus ride from Lima to Palpa. Before I got on the bus, I got to try one of Peru’s most maligned meats, cuy. Cuy is guinea pig, and they eat it almost like chicken there. I had it whole, served on a skewer, so I can happily say that nothing I’ve encountered as a Daring Kitchen member has been quite so daring as that first bite of skewered critter, complete with little arms and legs. After I’d been on the bus a few hours, I noticed that at every small settlement people (mostly women) would meet the bus and offer various foods but holding them up to the windows on long poles. These included chicharrones de harina, bags of nuts, and oranges, most commonly. At one stop, a woman actually boarded the bus and stayed on for the next hour. The whole time she was selling various things, but the one I found most intriguing was a “sándwich con camarones y mayonesa,” which is, not surprisingly, a sandwich with shrimp and mayonnaise. I felt that after an hour on the bus and who knows how long before that, shrimp and mayo might be a little too risky for me. And besides, 4 or 5 hours later I was enjoying Señora Viki’s delicious cooking.

Check back next week for the final part of this Peruvian Food series, including delicious recipes for some of the foods mentioned and some links to online stores that carry hard to find ingredients!