Mamainé will be cooking in La Molina this Sunday. If that news doesn’t make your mouth water, then you don’t know Chincha and you don’t know El Carmen and you certainly don’t know carapulcra con sopa seca. Mamainé is the Queen of Afro-Peruvian cuisine. Her restaurant in the El Carmen district of Chincha is the hub of local Afro-Peruvian [...]
Afro-Peruvian Cooking Queen in Lima this Sunday
October 15th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Food & Dining
Tags: Chincha·Mamaine·Peru food
French Fries vs. Choclo and Boiled Potatoes: Why Peruvians Aren’t Fat
September 15th, 2009 · 24 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Food & Dining, Looking Back at the United States
An ear of fresh Peruvian choclo I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this week about obesity in the United States vs. weight and nutrition in Peru. We’re currently exploring these topics in the conversation class I teach at UPC (see class blog, here), but really, they’ve been on my mind since I moved to Peru from Florida in [...]
Tags: fast food·french fries·Peru food
Peruvian ‘Viagra’ Soup: Does It Hoist Your Sail or Is It Just a Crock of Chupe?
June 18th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Food & Dining
“I can attest it works,” Taste of Peru co-owner Julie Izquierdo says of the restaurant’s Sopa de Viagra. (Chris Sweda/Sun-Times) Yesterday’s post on the medicinal powers of chilcano de pescado led to my discovering a Peruvian restaurant in Chicago that’s serving up a traditional fish soup as a wonder aphrodesiac. Taste of Peru in Rogers Park is touting its [...]
Peru’s Answer to Jewish Penicillin: Chilcano de Pescado
June 17th, 2009 · 6 Comments · Food & Dining
I need my Jewish chicken-noodle soup in the wintertime. I grew up on the U.S. East Coast, where delis and diners and Jewish moms cook up barrels of this fragrant, healing soup all year long. Then I moved to Miami where at gourmet delis like Epicure, you can buy big jars of delicious matzoh-ball soup [...]
Tags: chilcano·Food & Dining·Peru food
El Corazón Es Un Músculo (The Heart Is a Muscle)
March 8th, 2009 · 12 Comments · Food & Dining
I used to think that France was the most food-obsessed nation on earth. Then I moved to Peru. Life halts twice a day in France for the gastronomic liturgies of le déjeuner and le dîner. Then the French people refold their napkins and return to the all-consuming business of being French: ie., being frighteningly exact about money, arguing about philosophy [...]
Tags: anticuchos·Gaston Acurio·Peru food
Like Your Ice Cream Spicy Hot? Peruvian Flavors Challenge Taste Buds
February 19th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Food & Dining
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 [...]
Vote for the 7 Gastronomic Wonders of Peru
January 29th, 2009 · 14 Comments · Food & Dining
Peru has discovered the marketing power of the voter-powered “Best of” list. The trend began in 2007 when a global poll of 100 million voters chose Machu Picchu as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. The prestige and tourism revenues generated by that honor inspired Peru to mount its own contest to name the 7 Wonders [...]
Tags: Peru food
Peru Food Up Close: Mushrooms and Figs at Surquillo No. 1
December 5th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Food & Dining
Giant porcini mushrooms, figs and blackberries for sale this week at Surquillo Market No. 1, Lima; photo by Barbara Drake My eye was caught by this remarkable fresh produce for sale at the local market in Surquillo. The porcini mushrooms (“hongo funghi”) are enormous. Black figs like those on the bottom are now in season. [...]