Ilinca Nastasia,

Correspondent (Food)

 

A country as culturally diverse as Peru was bound to have an extensive and varied culinary tradition. It incorporating within it elements from all over the world and adapts them according to the resources of the region, thus creating dynamic, completely original recipes. Below are three must-try examples of what Peruvian cuisine has to offer.

The coastal areas are, naturally, strongly centred around sea food. Ceviche is perhaps the most common of these dishes, available in most Peruvian restaurants. While the recipe is not static and most regions have added their own personal touch to the recipe, it always consists of raw fish marinated in lemon juice and seasoned with something spicy, usually the traditional aji peppers. Like sushi but with a more adventurous twist to it. Especially appealing to those people looking for a gastronomic challenge.

The aji peppers are a staple of Peruvian cuisine. Aji de gallina, a spicy chicken stew, is a popular dish, especially during the winter (for obvious reasons). It is one of the hybrid recipes, displaying a fusion between the native culinary traditions and the French cuisine or the 18th century. It consists of strips of chicken meat served with a spicy sauce flavoured with the ubiquitous chillies, walnuts and tempered with condensed milk.

As a final example, we have a rather unusual dish. Animal lovers, feel free to skip over this paragraph. Although this seems entirely strange to people used to seeing them only as cuddly pets, cuy, also known as a guinea pig, is an important and old part of the Andean cuisine. This culinary tradition goes back to the Inca royality and there are various ways of preparing them, depending on the region. The most popular way seems to be cooking them whole and adding some sort of spiciness to the dish, be it through a sauce or just plain old chilli peppers as seasoning. Assuming that guinea pigs are not as close to your heart as, say, fluffy kittens, it’s worth giving cuy a shot. The taste is said to resemble that of rabbit.