If you are looking for cuisine that is both diverse and full of flavour then eating at a Peruvian restaurant is a good choice.  Cuisine from Peru has two main influences, the Spanish and also the traditional native Peruvians.  The Spanish influence can be seen in many of the dishes that have come to define Peru’s cuisine as well as the use of traditional Peruvian ingredients.  Many of the immigrants especially those from Spain modified traditional Spanish dishes to include Peruvian native ingredients as these were in more abundance than foods from Spain during this period of early settlement.

When dining at a Peruvian restaurant you will notice that many of the dishes contain the traditional staples of Peruvian cuisine corn, potatoes and beans.  Traditional Peruvian dishes also include staples that originated in Spain such as rice, wheat and meats such as beef and pork.  Peruvian food is also influenced by the region of Peru as well as the staple foods that are cultivated in different regions.

For people who are lucky enough to visit and stay in one or more of the cities in Peru, the choice of food at the many Peruvian restaurants is excellent.  Many people who visit Peru take this opportunity to try local cuisine especially the traditional dishes and foods they have not tried before.  One of the most popular dishes that is served in most Peruvian restaurants is ceviche which is the national dish of Peru and consists of seafood marinated in lemon, aji, coriander and garlic.  As you travel through the different regions you will experience changes in the dishes such as alpaca and other meat used in dishes eaten in the highland areas of Peru.  These dishes differ from the coastal cuisines which have rich sauces to cuisine served in these highland areas which are rich in spices.  The jungle regions of Peru also have some unique dishes with much of the focus on the unique fruits and vegetables that grow in these areas.

If you are travelling in Peru and you love to sample local foods and cuisine then you will not be disappointed when it comes to eating out in Peru.  Many restaurants will have traditional dishes you can try and many of these restaurants are also quite cheap in price.  For people who are travelling around the different regions of Peru it is a great opportunity to sample the different dishes that have made Peruvian food quite popular.

The intercontinental flair makes Peruvian desserts particularly interesting, combining regional ingredients like rice, wheat, and maize with local fruit and dairy. As a result, Peruvian desserts tend to be filling, and are consumed as midday snacks as often as after meals. And like other cuisines, they reflect the people’s early way of life and how they made do with what their native land had to offer.

Many Peruvian desserts are actually variations on Spanish cuisine. A popular example is alfajores, a honey-and-almond confection traditionally popular in almost all former Spanish colonies. In Peru, the original recipe is modified to suit the availability of ingredients: a typical alfajor contains key lime rind and powdered sugar, with a filling of molasses or a milk-and-sugar cream called manjar blanco. Turrones, similar to nougat, is tweaked in Peruvian kitchens by using anise and honey instead of rose water and almonds. This version is commonly known as Turrón de Doña Pepa.

A fruit called lùcuma also figures prominently in Peruvian desserts. Known as eggfruit in English because of its thick, yolk-like interior, it grows almost exclusively in the Andes region and is used as a natural sweetener. In Peru, it is made into juice, shakes, ice cream, and a powdered flavoring for candy and other snacks. Ice cream also comes in a number of native, exotic flavors, such as prickly pear (a kind of cactus), guaraná, and camu camu, a highly acidic fruit.

One dish that often catches the eye of foreigners is mazamorra morada. Its main ingredient is purple maize, a variety that grows only in Peru, which gives it its distinct color. Mazamorra is made by boiling the corn in water with cinnamon cloves. The purple-tainted water is often made into a drink called chicha morada by adding key lime, sugar, and chopped fruits.

For a quick snack, try some picarones—ring-shaped pumpkin fritters designed after the Spanish buñuelos, which were made instead with egg custard and lemon rind. Native picarones are sweetened with a type of raw cane sugar known as chancaca, which contrasts nicely with the pumpkin. They’re good warm or cold, but freshly made ones are the best as the flavor tends to fade when the fritters cool.

Its latest claim to fame is making it to the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants, ranked 42nd. The list is put together every year by Restaurant magazine, and employs over 800 restaurant industry experts from around the world. It is widely regarded as the “Oscars” of the restaurant business.

Acurio, who trained at Le Cordon Bleu, prides himself on using local ingredients and traditional cooking methods. The restaurant’s selection, however, is a bit more varied. Restaurant describes it as a mish-mash of light Peruvian and international cuisine. Pacific seafood, abundant throughout the year, leads the pack alongside signature dishes like suckling goat, warm ceviche, and noble robado (a local fish). Astrid also serves up a long list of desserts, each of them spectacular, according to Frommer’s review.

Inside, guests are welcomed by a hip yet cozy interior, the orange-and-white walls adorned with modern art and the lighting sleek but welcoming. A wine-salon room is sectioned off for privacy, and an open kitchen showcases Gastón and his staff at work. Reservations are usually recommended during peak seasons, especially at dinner hours. Main courses range from $11 to $26.

The restaurant’s inclusion in the list is a sign that fine cuisine is no longer concentrated in big players like France, Spain, and Italy, but is spreading towards more eclectic tastes, according to Restaurant editor Willam Drew. Russia, China, and Mexico all have new entries this year.

René Redzepi’s waterfront restaurant, Noma, in Copenhagen topped the list for the second year in a row. Its cuisine is described as Nordic- and Scandinavian-inspired more than straight Nordic, and features seafood, fresh cheese, and international wines on center stage. It was followed by Spanish restaurants El Celler de Can Roca and Mugaritz, and Osteria Francescana in Italy.

Astrid y Gastón has restaurants in Madrid and several cities in South America, including Bogota, Colombia; Caracas, Venezuela; Panama City, Quito, Ecuador, and Santiago, Chile. They also opened another restaurant in San Francisco in 2008. Acurio’s book, 500 Años de Fusion (“500 Years of Fusion”), was awarded the best book on international dining by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

During October, in the colonial center of Lima, this image is taken from its home church, Las Nazarenas, in a series of processions to other historic colonial churches. The smell of incense, the steady beating of drums, and the footsteps of the faithful accompany these processions which wend their way along the narrow streets of colonial Lima as they have for hundreds of years.

The origins of this image of Christ date back to 1651. According to religous belief, in that year, there was a group of African slaves from Angola living in the area known as Pachacamilla, where Las Nazarenas Church now stands.

The slaves had been converted to Christianity and one of them, unnamed in the history books, painted an image of Christ on a wall of a building where the new converts converged to pray.

The image struck a chord among the slaves, who began to bring offerings to leave before it. In 1655, an earthquake of such magnitude struck Lima that most of the city was destroyed. The building where this image of Christ was housed collapsed except for one wall: the wall where a few years earlier that Angolan slave had painted the image.

For 15 years, the wall with this image of Christ was abandoned to the elements. In 1670, a neighbor found the image and began to worship there. He rebuilt the shrine for the image and according to belief, as a result, the man was cured of life-threatening tumor. From that point on, the entire Pachacamilla district began to worship the image, believing it to be miraculous.

Most of the faithful were descendants of those Africans brought as slaves to the plantations and haciendas of coastal Peru. One of the rituals that began during this period was that every Friday evening people would gather at the site of this image, bringing flowers, lighting candles, burning incense, and playing music on harps and with the traditional Peruvian cajón.

Within time, these celebrations reached the ears of Church leaders in the Archbishop’s Palace, where they were seen as a threat to the established order. The Viceroy himself ordered the image painted over in 1671. The legend of El Señor de los Milagros continues: an Indian man was brought under guard to the site where the image was being venerated in order to paint it over.

As he approached the image, brush in hand, the man began to tremble and shake. He was unable to carry out the order. Another painter was brought in, this one a soldier, and he too was unable to paint it over. The more the authorities tried to paint over the image, the more the local people protested. Finally, the Viceroy revoked the order and ordered a proper chapel built on the site.

Since that time, the image became a focal point for popular veneration. In 1687, another earthquake struck Lima, once again destroying much of the colonial center, including the chapel that had been built to house the image. Once again, the one wall with the image remained standing while the other ones collapsed.

Popular fervor led church leaders to order a painting of the image, which was taken out in a procession for the first time the 18th, 19th, and 28th of October, 1687. Since that year, the image has been taken out of its home church in a series of processions to other colonial churches during those dates.

El Señor de los Milagros was named the patron of Lima in 1715. That was also the first year the image was given the title by which it is known today: El Señor de los Milagros de Nazarenas.

Written by Alejandro Garcia

So, what does this have to do with food? Well, as to be expected, there are special foods associated with such an important religious occasion. Three of the most traditional Peruvian foods eaten at this time are turrón, anticuchos, and picarones.

No one really knows the origin of the sweet layered pastry popularly called turrón de Doña Pepa. Legend has it that was invented by the lady in a wealthy Lima family, although others claim that its origins are with a cook of African descent known as ‘ña Pepa.

What is known about this unique style of turrón (since there is a similarly named dish in other Spanish-speaking countries, although all are different from one another) is that it has long been associated with the celebrations in honor of El Señor de los Milagros, when this sweet is consumed with almost religious devotion.

Anticuchos, grilled meat on a skewer, is another popular food during the month of October. According to researchers, the name comes from the Quechua word antikucho, meaning ‘Andean cut’ or ‘Andean mix’. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, these types of brochettes were made with llama or other local meats. In the 1500s, the Spanish began preparing something similar to the modern day anticucho, substituting beef for llama.

Once again the influence of Africans resonates in Peruvian culinary and cultural history.

The Spanish would give their African slaves the parts of the cow they wouldn’t eat themselves. This included the beef heart. The slaves took the beef heart and seasoned it heavily prior to marinating it and then grilling it in imitation of their masters. Over time, the beef heart anticuchos would become the Peruvian favorite. They are still one of the most popular street foods available in Peru, and during El Señor de los Milagros, anticucho sellers set up grills in the late afternoon, tempting passersby with the aromatic smells of seasoned grilled meats.

Finally, picarones are pumpkin fritters that are also eaten as late-afternoon street food during El Señor de los Milagros celebrations. This is another dish that has its origins in the colonial period. Some believe they are a local adaptation of Spanish buñuelos. Picarones are made of squash or pumpkin dough and sweetened with chancaca, raw cane sugar melted into a syrup. I have a post about picarones which includes a recipe for this tasty dessert.

During el mes morado, the purple month, Peruvians demonstrate their loyalty not only to their religious beliefs but also to their culinary traditions.

It’s the first question a Peruvian food newbie asks when confronted with Peru’s ubiquitous soda: Inca Kola.

It’s a drink people either love or hate, but personal preferences aside, it has an interesting history in the annals of the global carbonated beverage world. It really is the tale of the little cola that could.

What many may not know is that the extremely sweet (some say the taste is similar to bubble gum or pineapple) and brightly yellow soda (some say it looks like, well, I’ll let you figure that one out) is one of just a handful of locally produced colas in the world that was never able to be beaten by the world’s number one soft drink: Coca-Cola.

Despite years of trying to dominate the Peruvian market, Coca-Cola finally gave up and decided it had to buy a share of Inca Kola because it simply couldn’t outsell it.

It was back in 1910, when a young English couple arrived by boat in the port of Callao to start a new life in Peru. Settling in Rimac, one of the most historic districts of Lima, José Robinson Lindley and his wife Martha opened a small shop where they sold homemade carbonated beverages.

In 1935, Lima was celebrating 400 years since its founding, and the Lindleys decided to produce a unique drink to commemorate the event and their new homeland.

José Lindley had learned of a concoction based on hierba Luísa, lemon verbena, and began experimenting with different mixtures, fussing with the ingredients and the levels of carbonation until finding just the right formula. Thus was born, Inca Kola, a fruity soda that was launched with this catchy slogan:

Inca Kola, sólo hay una y no se parece a ninguna.
Inca Kola, there is only one, unlike any other.

Isaac Lindley, José and Martha’s son, improved the technology and expanded Inca Kola’s reach in the Peruvian market. Within a few short years, Inca Kola was the leading bottled beverage sold in Peru, in part because it appealed to the Peruvian sense of national identity. After all, how many sodas are named after the Incas?

For years, Coca-Cola and its arch-rival Pepsi tried to dominate the Peruvian market, but despite their vast resources, they were never able to overtake Inca Kola as the preferred soft drink of the Peruvian public.

Inca Kola cleverly marketed itself as the nationalistic soft drink option, and Peruvians drank it by the gallons. Knowing the Peruvian market, Inca Kola targeted small mom-and-pop shops and restaurants, offering incentives and marketing assistence. Partly due to national pride, partly due to its sweet flavor, and partly due to its cost (less than its rivals) Inca Kola became the leader of the Peruvian soft drink industry. One of its key marketing strategies was to convince Peruvians that Inca Kola was a much better complement to Peruvian food than either Coke or Pepsi.

Finally, in 1999, Coca-Cola and the Corporación José R. Lindley entered in a strategic alliance whereby the multinational purchased 50% of the company for a rumored $300 million. From its small, almost artisanal origins in Rimac, Inca Kola now has the largest soft drink bottling plants in Peru. Wherever you go in Peru, from coastal beach towns, to Andean villages thousands of feet above sea level, to the hot steamy jungle towns, Inca Kola is still the preferred soda of Peruvians.

Peruvians love their Inca Kola. There is a sense of pride that a soda in a small, poor country was not able to be overtaken by the most important beverage company in the world. Fast-food restaurants like the Peruvian company Bembo’s switched from Coke to Inca Kola, and even McDonald’s had to come to a unique agreement with Coca-Cola to allow both beverages to be sold in its restaurants, something unheard of in the fast-food restaurant industry. Inca Kola was like the persistent lover that had come into the marriage between McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. In Peru, Big Macs are eaten with Inca Kola, not Coke.

What has really surprised me is that in the past few years, Inca Kola is now available in many Latino-oriented supermarkets here in Los Angeles. Any Peruvian restaurant in the United States worth its salt sells Inca Kola. And, Inca Kola is now bottled at a Coca-Cola plant in New York state. This is due to the deal the Lindleys made with Coca-Cola.

Inca Kola has a mystique in Peru and I’m sure dissertations have been written about it. When the partnership between the two companies was clinched in 1999, the Lindleys came out winners. Not only had they earned an incredible sum of money, they were also awarded bottling rights at their plants for all Coca-Cola products sold in Peru, and Coca-Cola agreed to use its formidable marketing muscle to expand Inca Kola into markets outside of Peru.

For those who read Spanish, there is a great excerpt of an article in the Peruvian magazine Etiqueta Negra by Marco Avilés and Daniel Titinger (who allowed me to translate, The Ceviche Route in an earlier Peru Food post).

They tell the story of M. Douglas Ivester, Coca-Cola’s CEO who arrived in Lima in 1999 to work out the final details in the new joint venture. As part of the ceremonies, Ivester had to drink a glass of Inca Kola at a press conference which became a Peruvian media frenzy. It was the symbolic defeat of Coca-Cola in Peru. Quite simply, Coke was not able to convince the Peruvian public that it was a better soft drink. The next day’s newspapers all had photos of Ivester splashed on their front pages with the caption: Coca-Cola’s President Toasts with Inca Kola. In the cola wars, the Third World David had beaten the First World Goliath.

Rumor has it that Ivester hated the taste of Inca Kola, calling it too sweet, and some have less than kindly attributed this statement to him: Looks like pee, tastes like bubble gum.

That may be the case, but 28 million Peruvians can’t be wrong.

Written by Alejandro Garcia