Shopping basket

Mistura, as noted in the last post, is an annual food festival celebrating all the great food stuffs and ways of putting them together in Peru. While Mistura only occurs once a year, the availability of great food continues year round in Peru, particularly here in Lima, where we have easy access to so much of it.

This is relatively recent, we are told. Up until 5-10 years ago, it was uncommon to find many Peruvian products, like native potatoes, in the Lima markets and supermarkets - not to mention those brought in from abroad. Now you find them easily and abundantly.

The photo below presents part of my shopping basket from yesterday, when I went to the weekly bioferia (organic market) held in Parque Reducto in the Miraflores neighborhood.

The wonderful thing about going to the organic market is you don't know exactly what fun surprises you'll find. Sure, there are the stands you can count on: the guy who has a vegetarian restaurant who sells great bread and deli-takeaway foods full of quinoa, sesame, organic mozzarella, and veggies of all sort. There are two olive vendors with their own olive oils, the ones selling fresh coffee from the selva (jungle), and the French woman (also named Valerie) who sells beauty creams and products made from natural things (potato being one). But there's also great variety to reflect the varying seasons and pickings.

Yesterday's offerings included (clockwise from upper left):

• Nasturtium flowers, which grow in abundance thanks to the tropical climate. So pretty in a salad.
• Artichokes, available most of the year and incorporated into lots of salads and recipes.
• Eggs bought by the kilo. I love this. I put about half of them in the fridge. But you can leave them out in the open like this (that's what they do at all the grocery stores). The trick is that once you do put them in the refrigerator, you have to keep them there or they will spoil quickly. Isn't that interesting?
• Chirimoya. These a "baby" size ones. They can be nearly as big as your head. Chirimoya is called custard apple in English, though not commonly found outside of Latin America. Though ugly on the outside (bumpy, oddly shaped, and a bit soft), they are delicious - a bit like a cross between a peach and pineapple and maybe banana in taste, but with a delicate flesh and less sweet than that combo implies. Once you've tried them it's easy to get hooked. We've had several house guests (I won't name names) who've  sneaked these home in their luggage.
• Aguaymanto. Among our very favorite fruits (along with chirimoya). These look a bit like a cherry tomato and have a similar texture and feel, but they are more tangy and fruity. We are told they just grow wild on big bushes in the sierra (high mountain areas). One of our favorite restaurants (Calla) offers them dipped in chocolate - just delicious!
• Colorful carrots. These I bought just because they looked so pretty. We'll have to see if there's any difference in taste between say the purple and white varieties. I often buy orange, purple, or dark green cauliflower here. Though the nutritional content varies, they all taste like the more familiar white variety. Still, sometimes it's worth eating something just because of how it looks.
• Purple potatoes. I haven't cut these open yet, so can't tell you what color they will be on the inside. With native varieties, the flesh can vary from white to cream, yellow, orange, red, and dark purple.
• In the middle is a bag of small, native potatoes. Again, we'll have to see how they look and taste - but it's a good bet they'll be yummy. I also bought two dipping sauces for them; one made with aji amarillo (hot yellow pepper) and the other with rocoto (a red hot pepper).

I'm not sure how we'll mix and match this week's market basket. The nice thing is that with produce like this, it's hard to go wrong.

Buen provecho!