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.