food update

The food in Lima remains one of the city's greatest attributes.
The products are fresh, especially the fish and produce.

In addition, Peruvian cuisine, especially the rich variety you get in Lima, is a fusion of different styles and cultures and agro-ecosystems. You have fresh fish from the ocean, thriving in the cold waters of the Humboldt Current. There are mangos, olives, asparagus, and big artichokes from the coast and low altitudes. In the Andes you get quinoa, potatoes, llama, trout, and guinea pig. From the jungle you get pineapple, heart of palm, and all sorts of exotic nuts and fruits. There are all kinds of beans, including lima beans. There are 4 colors of cauliflower. There are interesting looking things I don't know the names of.

A friend in the States asked me recently if I'd learned to make Peruvian recipes. I really haven't, but Addison did for a school project. He cooked up a range of traditional recipes.

I haven't tried very many recipes, but I do like to try out odd things that I find at the grocery store. Often I buy some new food just because I like the look of it or find it intriguing. Then I do what I can with it. The results can be mixed, though are more often positive than not.

Here are some examples of typical Peruvian (Limenian) dishes presented as they should be - in this case at one of our favorite restaurants, called Francesco's. The photo above is a mixed ceviche. In its purist form, ceviche is presented in lime juice with red peppers, aji (hot pepper), big fat corn kernels called choclo, and a slice or two of sweet potato to balance the acidity of the lime juice. The one here involves some mayonaise. For some odd reason, Peruvians love to put mayonaise in dishes.

Above is a taster's sampling of causitas. Causa is a traditional dish that starts with mashed/riced potato, which is mixed with oil or other things to give it a smooth texture but also help it stick together. The potato is generally rolled around a filling that usually includes avocado, mayonaise, and chicken, fish, or seafood. There's often a sauce dribbled on top, as well. The version above is the mini-causa, or causita, presented in more of a sushi form, with the fish and seafood mixture on top of the potato.

This is a sampling of ingredients from our kitchen. The potatoes are from my workplace. Recently, as happens from time to time, the staff was offered a 6 kilo bag containing several varieties of potatoes - all of them picked from the fields by my office. The long green vegetable looks and tastes a bit like a cucumber. But it is hollow inside (more like a sweet pepper) and can be eaten raw (in salad, for example) or cooked (stuffed, for example). The package on the bottom right contains a fruit from the jungle that has a rough exterior and liquidy interior. It's used mainly for juice and doesn't have much taste, frankly. On the bottom left is orange cauliflower. I've taken to buying and trying much more cauliflower than ever before, because it comes in all these beautiful colors. The purple, shown below, remains our favorite. They all taste much the same, but actually contain different amounts of vitamins and such. My favorite method is to briefly steam then grill them in the oven, with goat cheese melted on top.

I couldn't resist this green cauliflower. It looks like something out of Dr. Seuss to me.

One of the dishes Addison chose to prepare as part of a school project on Peruvian food was papas Huancayna. It involves steamed potatoes covered in a creamy sauce made in the blender from a combination of aji sauce (hot sauce), milk, garlic, olive oil, and a softish white cheese that looks like feta only has far less flavor.

The potato aisle at the local supermarket is well stocked. Potatoes are from Peru originally, and there are more than 3,000 different varieties of them. But the range in Lima is far more limited than in the mountains, and people from the mountains will tell you that the ones we get here have no flavor. I have colleagues who are very involved in helping to preserve the biodiversity of native potatoes in Peru, and helping to find markets for them with Andean farmers. They've had good success with products such as gourmet potato chips. But all this is a subject for another day.

Above is a ceviche prepared by Addison and based on fresh scallops. Delicious.

This is papa Huancayno in its finished form a la Addison.

Above is a lomo saltado, another typical dish. Like many main dishes here it contains both potatoes and rice. There also are slices of beef, sweet pepper, onion, and french fries. The seasoning contains soy sauce, which is a reflection of the Asian influence of the many Chinese workers who came to Peru in the 19th century to work on railroads and the Japanese ones who worked in the sugar cane fields.