Peruvian Cuisine

Written by Phoenix

Have you ever wondered how different Peruvian food is to English food? Well it’s quite different. It is sometimes very spicy and it uses some very unusual ingredients. One thing that is similar is their love of potatoes. However, try as we might we couldn’t find a potato peeler or masher anywhere! In this post I am going to tell you about some of my Peruvian food experiences.

On our first day in Peru we met Ramon (a Peruvian chef) and he took us to the main market in Cusco. It was full of lots of weird and wonderful foods. Many stalls were selling meats such as Alpaca, Bull snouts, bull hooves and Guinea Pig as well as fruits like dragon fruit, sweet cucumber, Cherimoya, Lucuma and Granadilla. I enjoyed helping him to buy the ingredients.

Then we went back to his kitchen and we tried some of the fruits and traditional dishes we had bought. Some were quite tasty and some were horrible! He then taught us to cook a couple of Peruvian dishes. It was great fun to learn some of the chef tricks – like not to use the inner core of a red onion in dishes as its too strong (use it for stock instead) and that we should always peel all vegetables including tomatoes if they are not organic. We cooked a stuffed potato and a curry. It was all delicious!

Ramon told us that the reason Peru was known for its cuisine, is due to its wide range of climates over a relatively small area. Peru benefits fro having fruits and berries from the Amazon Rainforest, vegetables and meat from the Andes and more Mediterranean foods from the dry desert coastline.

During our time in the Sacred Valley we went to a few local restaurants and tried different dishes. Probably the most difficult food we tried was Guinea Pig, which tasted a bit like shredded duck. My favourite was a chocolate dessert shaped like a piano.

Some Interesting Facts

There are about 3,800 species of potatoes. They serve potatoes with every meal and curry comes with rice and chips!

Peru has about 20 native fruit that are used in cooking.

The diet is still a traditional one based on Maiz (corn) and everything is cooked from scratch. There are no processed foods.

Meat comes from indigenous animals like Alpacas and Guinea pigs.

Peruvians only eat Alpaca not Llama because Llama is too tough and salty.

Did you know that tomatoes were domesticated in Peru?

The most common ice cream flavour is Lucuma (a fruit we tried and I did not like much!). I think I’ll stick too chocolate.