Food & Dining

Like Your Ice Cream Spicy Hot? Peruvian Flavors Challenge Taste Buds

The odd blend of flavors exploded on my tongue: Sweet strawberry and hot jalapeno. Yikes!

Welcome to ice cream in the Land of the Inca, where jaded taste buds are courted by unusual and sometimes explosive flavor combinations.

The ice cream that sent me running for ice water a few days ago was a neon-orange product called Sin Parar Hot (“Non Stop Hot”). It’s a cup of highly sweetened strawberry ice cream spiked with spicy flavor bombs — a weird combination that Nestle/D’Onofrio dreamed up to appeal to kids and teens.

El Híjo was introduced to it by his 24-year-old cousin, who has a weak spot for Dunkin Donuts and trendy junk food. (He grew up in a macrobiotic house. Go figure.)

Another hot flavor (figuratively) this summer is Inca Cola — the cloyingly sweet yellow beverage that is Peru’s best-selling soda. 

D’Onofrio ice-cream makers teamed with producers of Inca Cola in Trujillo to produce a supposedly limited-edition Inca Cola popsicle that sells for 1.20 soles each, reported Living in Peru.

So far, I’ve heard mixed responses to the popsicle among El Hijo’s 10-year-old friends: “Ricisimo!” “No me gusto.” “Mi favorito.” Kids either love it or hate it.

My own tastes run to creamy concoctions, like Frio Rico MaxX Caramel Maní (Carmel Peanut) and the strawberry Kirico pop, which has an annoying habit of falling apart when you bite into it.

The flavor of Peruvian ice cream that most impresses visitors, though, is lucuma, made from a delicately flavored tropical fruit that is creamy and gentle-tasting, like a banana.

Lucuma is so popular in Peru that it’s one of the country’s top three flavors. If you buy a “tri-color” pint in Peru, the three flavors will be vanilla, strawberry and lucuma, not vanilla, strawberry and chocolate.

While the streets of Lima are thronged with D’Onofrio and Lamborgini ice cream carts during the summer, you won’t find my favorite ice creams sold by these vendors.

Two days ago, I tasted a homemade coconut ice cream at San Antonio Bakery that brought back memories of The Frieze, on Miami Beach.

And I will have to return to dusty San Eulalia  one day just to taste the out-of-this-world avocado ice cream I tasted there last winter. The woman who sells it from her tiny store along the highway churns it herself, just a few pints a day.

Heavenly.

Related links:

Peru Food Trend Heats up in 2009

Vote for the 7 Gastronomic Wonders of Peru

Surquillo Market No. 1

Panettone Madness

Waiter, There’s an APEC Fly in My Ceviche Classico!

Best Cevicherias & Seafood Restaurants in Lima

I am an American writer who lived in Lima for seven years (2007-2014), where I covered Andean traditions, melting glaciers and daily life in the capital for Miami Herald, MSNBC and Huffington Post. I now live and work in northern Florida where I champion climate change advocacy and compassionate, affordable eldercare.

One Comment

  • Javier Carrillo

    Yeah!.definitely ice cream flavors a changing in Peru. I remember a time when we only had one-flavor ice creams only (strawberry, vanilla, choccolate, etc). I guess mixed flavors became famous about 15 years ago with the D’onofrio’s “Pezziduri”, but sold in a different presentation, because what stored made was to buy a pint of ice-cream and divide it into (how many?) 6 or 7 parts, and then put each part in a “tecnopor” (I think it is some kind of polypropylene) cup. It was a boom among kids! hehe. I think that was a point of change, and from then on, we have seen all these new flavor appear.

    And of course, none of those ice creams compare to the home-made ice creams, those from San Antonio bakery, or the Palermo ice cream house.

    😀

    JAvo