Peruvian gastronomy, a symphony of tastes

Peruvian cui­sine is par­tic­u­lar­ly rich because it is a gas­tron­o­my of mix­tures: a mix­ture of very dif­fer­ent ingre­di­ents, with three very dif­fer­ent ecosys­tems, at oppo­site ends of the world, the Pacific, the Andes and the Amazon, which pro­duce very var­ied ingre­di­ents. A mix­ture of civil­i­sa­tions, too, with pre-Columbian civil­i­sa­tions, Spanish con­quis­ta­dors, African slaves and Asian immi­grants. The per­pet­u­al mix­ing of pop­u­la­tions that Peru has expe­ri­enced is reflect­ed in this renowned cuisine.

Famous? Yes, but main­ly in the south­ern hemi­sphere. In Europe, it is not very well known! Even though sea­son 13 of TopChef invit­ed Pía León to intro­duce us to corn, I chal­lenge you to give me five typ­i­cal Peruvian dishes!

Fruits and vegetables, the land of records

Peru has a pecu­liar­i­ty: the alti­tude of its ter­ri­to­ries ris­es from sea lev­el to 7,000 metres over a rel­a­tive­ly short dis­tance. This gives a vari­ety of cli­mates, from trop­i­cal to tem­per­ate, over a short dis­tance, and there­fore the coex­is­tence of a large num­ber of fruits and veg­eta­bles on the markets.

This is why in Peru you can eat tem­per­ate fruits like straw­ber­ries and trop­i­cal fruits like lucuma, which taste like maple syrup, in the same sea­son. So it's com­mon to come across fresh fruit juice ven­dors on the street or to enjoy exot­ic flavours of ice cream. (In Morocco, we only have juice ven­dors, ice cream is less of a problem…)

The veg­eta­bles are not to be out­done! Indeed, the coun­try has an impres­sive vari­ety of veg­eta­bles, such as corn, sweet pota­toes and lima agria (lime), all of which are used in Peruvian cuisine.

And above all, since Peru is the land of ori­gin of the pota­to, there are more than 2,500 types of pota­to.

To enhance the taste of its var­i­ous dish­es, Peruvian gas­tron­o­my uses and abus­es aji amar­il­lo and roco­to, two pep­pers with strong flavours.

Little known in the West, caigua is a veg­etable that is a cross between a cucum­ber and a pep­per. The flesh is crunchy and watery with a fair­ly neu­tral taste. It is also grown in East Africa and even in Bhutan! You won't find it out­side the coun­tries where it is grown, as it is more of a food crop. But I found a recipe for stuffed caiga that I think can be adapt­ed to pep­pers, and I've even heard that caigua juice is used to lose weight, a glass every morn­ing… but it is extreme­ly bitter!

Eating habits

In the morn­ing, Peruvians like to start their day with a cup of emoliente, a hot drink made from roast­ed bar­ley, lemon juice and med­i­c­i­nal herbs. Served by street ven­dors, it is pop­u­lar for its med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties and high vit­a­min C content.

The usu­al way to avoid hunger pangs is to drink an infu­sion of coca mate leaves. It has many ben­e­fits: it is an appetite sup­pres­sant and resists fatigue and alti­tude sick­ness. Yerba mate is also the nation­al drink of Argentina!

Less dietet­ic, choco­late milk, sweet pota­to and banana chips, or peanuts and toast­ed corn ker­nels make Peruvian taste buds hap­py! And this can be eas­i­ly reproduced!

At any time of the day, the locals also like to enjoy a drink made from maca, a plant with excep­tion­al prop­er­ties, or Inca Kola, the essen­tial soda flavoured with lemon verbena.

Peruvian cuisine

At the beginning, Inca cuisine

At its peak, the Inca Empire was immense, extreme­ly rich and refined. Sophisticated because of its infi­nite num­ber of cook­ing styles, Inca cui­sine makes fine use of the prod­ucts of its nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment. It is also very well export­ed, and one can find Inca restau­rants even in London!

In Inca times, it was very com­mon to eat game, where­as today, the Andean peo­ples pre­fer lla­ma and alpaca meat. More atyp­i­cal, cuy, a type of guinea pig cooked in a bar­be­cue, is one of the favourite dish­es. The meat is main­ly accom­pa­nied by tubers, avo­ca­dos or quinoa and then sim­mered in stews or broths.

On the coast, crus­taceans and fish are par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar, as Peru has more than 2,000 types of sea and fresh­wa­ter fish and shell­fish.

To spice up their var­i­ous dish­es, the heirs of the Inca civil­i­sa­tion opt for fine spices such as cat's claw or exot­ic fruits.  It is also com­mon to accom­pa­ny these thousand-year-old recipes with chicha de jora, an alco­holic drink made from corn. Its non-alcoholic coun­ter­part is called chicha mora­da and takes on the pur­ple colour of the corn used in its prepa­ra­tion as well as its taste.

Bold Novo-Andine cuisine

Of indige­nous ori­gin, Novo-Andean cui­sine is ambi­tious in that it draws its inspi­ra­tion from pre-Columbian dish­es and adapts them to new cook­ing techniques.

Born in the 1980s, this culi­nary trend was ini­ti­at­ed by the chef Bernardo Roca Rey, who set him­self the chal­lenge of prepar­ing Western dish­es from local raw materials.

For exam­ple, he cre­at­ed a risot­to based on quinoa in exchange for the tra­di­tion­al round rice. On the oth­er hand, the aro­mat­ic Andean herbs and sauces, based on maracuyá, bring new flavours to the dish­es. It is this trend that Pía León and her hus­band Virgilio Martínez have mag­ni­fied and made known, with the award giv­en to the young chef.

Across the Pacific, the blending of genres

Peru was inspired by the Asian culi­nary art intro­duced by Japanese and Chinese migrants.

Nikkei cuisine

The Peru-Japan fusion is the result of suc­ces­sive waves of migra­tion from Japan. Indeed, the Nikkei, the name giv­en to Japanese migrants from Peru, chose to revis­it their favourite dish­es using local prod­ucts. This culi­nary con­tri­bu­tion is man­i­fest­ed by short steam­ing ses­sions and a focus on the nat­ur­al flavours of the ingre­di­ents: corn, coconut, lime, coriander…

The Japanese influ­ence has also democ­ra­tised the con­sump­tion of raw or light­ly mar­i­nat­ed fish: ceviche.

Nikkei cui­sine gained world­wide recog­ni­tion thanks to its emblem­at­ic fig­ure, Gastón Acurio.

Today, the Peruvian chef, who trained at the pres­ti­gious French cook­ing school Le Cordon Bleu, is at the head of some thir­ty restau­rants in Latin America and Europe. In France, Gastón Acurio reg­u­lar­ly works with the great names of French gas­tron­o­my, such as Alain Ducasse. He has opened a restau­rant in Paris, Manko.

He has also, with oth­er Peruvian chefs, made a cook­book, sober­ly enti­tled "Peru: The Cook Book", a beau­ti­ful object pub­lished by Phaïdon, which con­tains 500 recipes!

Chifa cuisine

The Asian con­tri­bu­tion to Peruvian gas­tron­o­my also draws its cre­ativ­i­ty from the Chinese dish­es import­ed by a migra­tion that reached its peak in the 1800s. This cross­breed­ing has cre­at­ed the Chifa cui­sine, which is very pop­u­lar with Peruvians. Chifa restau­rants offer hearty dish­es to be shared with the fam­i­ly, where you can try lomo salta­do, which is a sautéed fil­let, or arroz cha­u­fa; sim­i­lar to Cantonese rice, it comes in sev­er­al types.

Drinks and cocktails

The Peruvians are at the ori­gin of many alco­holic drinks, includ­ing the inevitable Pisco sour, a cock­tail made with a brandy of the same name and lime. For the record, Peru and Chile have been fight­ing over the pater­ni­ty of Pisco for cen­turies and the mys­tery is still unsolved!

Peruvian wine first appeared in the 16th cen­tury, at the time of the Spanish con­quis­ta­dors. To this day, the vine­yards are locat­ed in the Ica region, where the tem­per­a­tures are more favourable for grow­ing them. This is a very spe­cial place: Peru is a very dry coun­try, where it hard­ly rains at all… so the vines only grow in oases, with some very famous estates, such as Tacama.

Peruvian wines are main­ly Cabernet Sauvignon, with some Syrah, Malbec and Merlot. Outside France, which tends to ignore all for­eign wines, they are appre­ci­at­ed, with fruity flavours.

In fact, the same region is where Pisco is made, as it is a grape spir­it. Most farm­ers mix wine bar­rels and pis­co jars in their cellars!

Why am I telling you all this? Because many of these recipes can be adapt­ed to Morocco. And because I real­ly like the fish and the vari­ety of prepa­ra­tions with corn or sweet potatoes!