cuisine

142 Sawubona October 2014

� arrive in Peru’s capital city, Lima, speckled grey with high-rises on the one side and a washed-out blue coloured by the sea on the other, clutching an extensive list of meticulously researched dishes and ingredients to try. My scribblings include fruit such as the rich, creamy lacuma and cloyingly sweet cherimoya, as well as the 4 000 varieties of potatoes (or, at least, a few of them) grown in the Andes, deep-fried

cuy (guinea pig), camerones (river prawns), stubby, large-kernelled choclo (corn), yellow aji (chilli peppers), picarones (sweet potato doughnuts) and ceviche, of course.

My selection of restaurants, from swish, star-rated experiences mentioned on the popular gastronomy websites to old-school diners recommended by friends, is equally lengthy. On this first day, I’m ravished by hunger. Even the supermarket next door to our hotel in Miraflores, a district that’s part commercial and elegant, part gritty

and forlorn, carries tempting fruit from the Amazon, pastries and bottles of the ubiquitous soft drink Inca Kola that I buy right away.

Having clawed its way out of a depression following the terrorism of the Eighties and Nineties, Lima’s now considered a popular international business destination. Levels of poverty have plummeted from 53,6% in 2007 to 24,2% in 2013. The city’s cleaned daily and open spaces like the Love Park, with its iconic sculpture of lovers embracing, provide a place to rest.

Whereas it used to be a swift thoroughfare onwards to Machu Picchu, visitors now linger to lap up history and culture at Plaza de

Armas, for example, the ruins of a pre-Inca temple at Huaca Pucllana, smack-bang in the business district, as well as the galleries, parks and national archives like the Museum of Peruvian Gastronomy.

Then there’s the food to sample. Rondee Scherman, a counsellor at the South African Embassy based in Lima, explains that Peru’s

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Catapulted into the limelight by the life’s work of lauded chef Gastón Acurio, as well as the Peruvian economic boom, Lima’s matured into a self-made haven for the epicure

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October 2014 Sawubona 143

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cuisine

144 Sawubona October 2014

actively marketing its cuisine to the world and gastronomy roadshows have taken centre stage.

Chefs like Gastón Acurio of venerated restaurant Astrid y Gastón, who’s regarded as the father of modern Peruvian cuisine, Rafael Osterling and Virgilio Martínez, who also own and run award-winning restaurants, are invested in promoting local gastronomy, technique and produce. While it’s receiving a great deal of attention, Peru isn’t waiting for outside assistance here.

The increased confidence in its own cuisine has resulted in upwards of 80 000 new students enrolling in Peru’s culinary schools each year. Acurio’s Pachacútec Cooking School for underprivileged students and the internationally popular Mistura Food Festival have aided the cause.

����������In the once-bohemian district of Barranco, along the cliff-edged southern tip of Lima Bay, the pastel façades of colonial buildings and the cobbled streets evoke a bygone era. Today, though, alongside the

traditional face of what served as a 19th-century hamlet of summer mansions for Lima’s elite, you find an array of modern diners, craft beer bars, boutiques and artisanal suppliers.

“Walking in Barranco is like breathing in romanticism, Bohemia, life,” says Sandra Arce, a tour guide who runs Peruvian Local Friend.

After I visit the brightly laden Surquillo Market, I start my Peruvian culinary journey in Barranco, in search of the dish for which the country’s best known: ceviche.

�������"#"Truth is, I could look anywhere in the city and probably find a decent plate of it. Every Limeño has his or her family’s favourite cebichería (seafood eatery), usually of the huarique or hole-in-the-wall informal variety, where the emphasis is on fresh food and relationships with the owner-cook.

We’re queuing in a side street outside Canta Rana, a bistro that’s been serving ceviche and seafood dishes for the past three decades. The wooden tables are packed together tightly; the walls and ceilings are cloaked with football memorabilia. Locals and the odd foreigner are taking sips of what look like icy dark purple slushies in tall glasses, while droplets of condensation slide down the sides. I instantly fall in love with chicha morada, a refreshing drink made from boiling purple corn with pineapple, sugar and spices. We get

the last lunchtime table, crammed at the back, and ponder the menu: there are 17 varieties of ceviche alone.

We order the mixed seafood, tiradito and squid ink varieties. This dish, traditionally made with white fish marinated in lime juice served with red onions, chilli, coriander, slices of boiled sweet potato and a few tablespoons of large-kernelled (up to four times bigger than regular) corn, has become the iconic gastronomic symbol of the city.

In Peru, ceviche is often a main meal, or shared tapas-style

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cuisine

146 Sawubona October 2014

and enjoyed no later than 3 or 4pm, because the freshness of the fish can’t be guaranteed by the cook any later than this hour. Fish is bought fresh every day.

�������The multi-ethnic fabric of Lima and Peru’s populace has resulted in a vast and complicated cuisine with several unique food fusions such as Nikkei: Japanese-Peruvian, Chifa: Chinese-Peruvian, Creole:Afro-Peruvian and Italian-Peruvian.

Tacu tacu originates from the indigenous Quechua word meaning “mashed” and is a dish of leftover, flavourful beans and rice, combined and pan-fried in a tamale shape, originally made by African labourers. Today it’s topped with steak and an egg, considered comfort food by most Limeños.

Chinese influences are prominent too and you don’t need to visit a Chifa restaurant in Chinatown to enjoy a good lomo saltado. This dish of beef strips marinated in soy sauce, spices and vinegar and stir-fried with onions, chilli peppers, tomatoes and fried potatoes with rice on the side demonstrates the fusion that’s become mainstream.

Tiradito is a type of ceviche influenced by Japanese immigrants. It’s distinctive in that the fish is cut into sashimi-style strips, rather than chunks, and no onion is used. Maido serves exquisite Nikkei cuisine in a relaxed setting and has earned both international recognition (it’s listed as one of Latin America’s World 50 Best Restaurants) and a very loyal clientele. It’s where I ate one of my best meals in Peru.

Chef Mitsuharu Tsumura, who opened Maido in 2009 and whose ancestors arrived in Peru from Japan in about 1889, isn’t keen on the term “fusion food”. The process, he says, happened in stages and was a natural evolution. Harmonious ingredient combinations, such as Peruvian chilli peppers paired with Japanese soy sauce, have influenced this.

ASTRID Y GASTÓN: Casa Hacienda Moreya, Avienda Paz Soldán, San Isidro. (www.astridygaston.com)

MAIDO: Ubicación: calle San Martín 399 (esq calle Colón), Miraflores. (www.maido.pe)

ENRIQUE HAURIQUE: Las Almendras St 134-136- Urb, Entel Perú San Juan

de Miraflores.EL TARWI: Pasaje Ayulo 131,

Jesús Maria. Order the guinea pig (cuy) here.(www.eltarwi.com)

LA BODEGA: Verde Jr Sucre 335-A, Barranco. Try the lucuma fruit in a milkshake.

SURQUILLO MARKET: Avenida Ricardo Palma

with Paseo de la República, Surquillo.

BAR MAURY: Jr Ucayali 201, Lima Centre. Rumoured to be the birthplace of the Pisco Sour. Bartender Eloy has been there for more than 50 years and still makes the drinks himself.

HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL TOUR: Peruvian Local Friend:

(peruvianlocalfriend@ gmail.com); (www.peruvianlocalfriend.com)

CULINARY TOUR AND COOKING CLASS: Lima Gourmet Company: (contact@limagourmet company.com); (www.limagourmetcompany.com)

There was no scope to prepare Japanese food 50 years ago in Peru, so cooks prepared Peruvian food with Japanese techniques and adjustments. Japanese immigrants introduced octopus to the national palate, whereas previously local fishermen would discard it. When Japanese companies opened in Peru 35 years ago, Japanese food had to be prepared for staff using local ingredient substitutes. All of this has gradually culminated in what we call Nikkei cuisine.

�� ������After a sojourn to Canyon Country and the Inca heartland, I return to Lima. The list I arrived with is more or less accomplished, but the options were greater than I imagined. I was warned that I’d find Lima dull. It’s true that it’s modern and fitted with the charmless conveniences of big-city life, in comparison with the countryside. However, it’s lively, experimental and hopeful. Also, I’ve yet to establish my favourite haurique; there are many left to discover.

I recall the words of Arce: “From hidden neighbourhood eateries and street food to world-renowned restaurants, in Lima there’s a place and a taste for everyone.”

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