more on food

Talk to anyone who's gone to or lived in Lima for any amount of time, and you'll inevitably hear about food. It's a major topic, point of pride, and one of the best things to enjoy here.
So, you'll have to bear with us if it seems this whole month's worth of blogs has been focused on topics having to do with food.

As noted in a previous update, September is the month for the annual Mistura food festival. It features food stands from gourmet restaurants, eateries with favorite local specialties, and a big food market. The market generally has one big featured product, but also has plenty of other famous Peruvian foods for sale from all the different regions of the country. This year's featured food was "fruits", so there were plenty of exotic ones from which to chose. Last year's featured food was the native potato, and since Valerie works in that area, her organization was very involved and got lots of play around that. This year, even though it wasn't the star food, the native potato was still very much present - along with a variety of lesser-known but equally interesting Native Andean roots and tubers, with names like maca, olluco, and mashua.

Many of the farmer groups who came to present their native potatoes or other roots/tubers work with Valerie's colleagues on any number of projects. So she can see some familiar names, and even faces, in the Mistura market crowd.

But the connection did not end with the close of the food festival. Some of the farmer groups that work with Valerie's organization had bags of products for sale leftover after Mistura. So, we joined with others in her organization to unload several bags of their wares. We were told that because these potatoes grow at altitudes of more than 4,000 meters, they acquire a particularly delicious taste. They certainly come in lovely colors and shapes and sizes.

Here is what they looked like when purchased:

 Both bags here have a mix of different varieties. The ones on the left are minis.

 Here is what the larger ones look like cleaned. You start to get a sense of the different colors.

 Inside, you also get a beautiful variety of colors and effects. These are the mini ones, shown with a fork to give you a sense of scale.  Cleaning them takes forever, but aren't they lovely?

Here is a pot full of minis.

If you talk to people who live in the mountains and have been raised on native potatoes, they will describe the flavors and differences between varieties much like a wine expert will describe different grapes and wines. They will talk about sweetness, softness, nutty taste, and delicate differences in texture. What's more, if you ask which they prefer, they'll show one or two and say something like, "well, of course, this one has such a better flavor, there's no comparison".

We are trying to develop a more sophisticated potato palate.
But for now,  the most we can report is that they all taste delicious.

Mistura 2011

Lima holds an annual food festival called Mistura.
It lasts for about 10 days and draws tens of thousands of people.
There are representatives from gourmet restaurants all over Peru, along with specialty food stands, and a big market place filled with foods from the different regions of the country.
The crowd is thick, but also a lot of fun. You see all kinds of people, old and young, fashion slaves and people in traditional costumes. It's a great celebration of food, of Peru, and of what brings many Peruvians (and we non-Peruvians) together.
Today, the sun came out and we headed into the thick of it to join in the celebration.

Buying burgers in Lima

You get great food in Peru, particularly in Lima.

But when it comes to beef, you might be disappointed. This is understandable if you look at Peruvian geography. Two-thirds of the country are covered in jungle. The rest is either desert or very high mountains. That doesn't leave much favorable terrain for raising beef cattle. This means that local meat is mostly chicken, alpaca, pork, or cuy (guinea pig).  If you want good red meat, it's best to look for imported beef from Brazil, Argentina, or the US.

Yet, Peruvians like red meat. One of the classic national dishes is called lomo saltado, which features strips of beef, grilled in soy sauce with sweet peppers and onions, and served with both rice and french fries.

And they like their burgers. The Peruvian burger chain is called Bembos. The first Bembos opened in 1988 in the Lima neighborhood of Miraflores. Today, there are 36 of them (according to Wikipedia) across Peru, plus ones in India and Panama. Here in Peru, Bembos is more successful than Burger King and McDonalds combined. They add particular spices to their burgers (plus other fillers it seems), and serve them up with the spicey aji (hot pepper) sauce and mayonnaise that are requisite condiments here. Indeed, McDonalds had a hard time getting established in Peru at first -  evidently, because they were not offering the right sauces, nor the right drinks (if there's no bright yellow-colored bubble-gum tasting Inca Cola, forget it).


The Bembos restaurants are bright and feature interesting architecture and art.
Most Peruvians we've asked will tell you that they love Bembos burgers.
We've tried them, and I guess would say that they are okay.

Recently, the English-language Living in Peru website, which is a real treasure trove of information for anglophones, ran a restaurant review for a place called Grill Conquistadores. Britt has had their grilled chicken, which you can order to take out and is very good. But this review raved about the hamburgers.  http://www.peruthisweek.com/food-74-Chicken-burgers-and-more-at-Limas-Grill-Conquistadores-201/

Here is the author's description:
It was hands-down, the best hamburger I have eaten since I arrived in Peru almost 5 years ago. When Eduardo Rodrigo, the owner, bragged that it was the best hamburger in Peru, I was skeptical, but it was prepared perfectly. I know that the next time I am craving a hamburger, I will return to Grill Conquistadores 201 for theirs. The hamburger is 300 grams of Certified Angus ground beef from Kansas City which is flown in every 2 weeks from the U.S. It is served without a bun, and while you can request one, there’s no need- the burger is that tasty.

It just so happens that Grill Conquistadores is within pretty easy walking distance from our apartment, and from the movie theater where we recently caught the latest Woody Allen flick. Normally, we would go have dinner in one of the many great Peruvian fusion-style restaurants that about in our neighborhood of San Isidro. But we decided to give the grill a try. And what's more, Valerie, who rarely eats meat, opted for the burger. Maybe it was because she hadn't eaten a hamburger in ages. Or the promise of Kansas City beef, on which she was raised.

Somehow, it didn't measure up to the hype or expectations, though it did measure up to the 300 grams of meat they had promised.

So, at the end of the day, I think when at Grill Conquistadores, we'll stick with the pollo a la brasa, besides it's easier to say than hamburguesa.